Lecture 1 Organization and Environment
It is time to meet the BEAST
Questions mail to: K.vandenoever@fm.ru.nl
When we look at strategy, we need to look at the individuals within the organization and their
decisions made with regard to strategy in order to understand the formation of strategy. The
organization does not make the decisions, the individuals within the organization do.
Organization and Environment will be fully about strategy formation
We will focus on the different perspectives of how strategy is formed in organizations. We do not pay
attention on what strategy is, because this is discussed in other courses, for example in IBK2 and
Strategie course.
Within the perspectives there are some familiar perspectives, like institutional theory, population
ecology, contingency perspective (Organization theory, Introduction to Organization Design).
There a different view on how to look at strategy. Within this course different perspectives are
discussed on how to look at strategy. So we look at different world views on strategy in
organizations. The focus will be on the formation process of strategy.
Strategy Formation Process
Above you can see the classic formation process of strategy.
1. External Assessment (think of the 5
forces of Porter)
2. Internal Assessment
3. Option Generation
4. Option Selection
5. Action Taking
6. Performance Control
7. Mission Setting
8. Agenda Setting
1
,In practice it is not as streamlined as it is presented by this figure. The different perspectives address
/ highlight different parts / boxes in mentioned in this figure. Some perspective can take external
assessment as the driving force behind strategy formation. Another perspective can say it is just a
CEO that has enough power and sets the game for the strategy. In some organizations the latter is
the case (that a CEO is so powerful that he or she can form the strategy within the organization).
But is that reality?
In reality there are different views and perspectives.
− Strategy formation done by visionaries
− Strategy is formed by humans: Biases in strategic decision-making
o Attention: Where someone place its attention can affect the formation of strategy.
o Intuition: Some individuals take a more rational approach, by doing for example a
proper internal assessment. Others use their intuition to make up their minds about
what strategy should be.
− Strategy is formed by whoever is the strongest politically
This perspective is of the preference of the professor. In an organization you have humans,
and they are biased. But it is always important to look at who has the most power in the
organization. When the CEO is dominant then he will probably will be of great influence on
the strategy formation. In the Netherlands the CEO’s are usually not that powerful, often
there are top management teams which have influence on formation of strategy. Within this
team it is also important to look at who is political the strongest, he or she will probably have
a bigger voice within the formation of strategy.
− Strategy is formed by imitating what other firms do
− And many more perspectives!
So what will you learn?
Learning goals
• You will be able to understand the premises, assumptions, and weaknesses of different
schools of management and organization theories;
• You will be able to identify and utilize the most appropriate perspectives and approaches in
analysing strategic management challenges in accordance with the mandates of
organizational and environmental contexts;
• You will develop your capabilities for tackling practical organizational problems (mainly in the
field of strategy formation) and drawing conclusions from theory for practice;
• You will enhance your verbal and written communication abilities by taking part in seminars
and a group assignment focused on application of management theories to real business
problems.
Tentamen: weten wat de perspectieven inhouden en kunnen gebruiken. When you know what the
premises are of the schools then it will be easier to adopt these perspectives in practice.
2
,There are 10 different schools (perspectives). For
the exam: Lees het boek, lees de artikelen en kijk
de lectures.
What theoretical perspectives will we
discuss?
The distinction between ‘prescriptive’ &
‘descriptive’ is important to remember. Rick Alberts
will go more in detail whit regard to this distinction
in lecture 2 on Friday.
When you were an owl in the survey then you are
more likely to adopt the planning perspective. When you were a peacock in the survey then you are
more likely to adopt the cultural perspective.
The network school will be discussed by professor Alberts. This school is not mentioned within the
book, but will be part of the exam! Important to learn the lectures and the corresponding articles.
Why so many theories?
We would like to teach you perspectivism. We all have different baselines (perspectives) to approach
issues occurring within an organization. If you have only 1 theory to look at the world then there
would be nothing like perspectivism. When you are able to take on a helicopter view and adopt
different perspectives then you will easier solve issues occurring.
How to tackle issues and identifying what issues within the organization can differ when you apply
different perspectives.
Example of perspectivism: When you ask someone what a rock is then you will probably get different
answers.
Another example of perspectivism
Think of the picture of the chicken in front of the house. The chicken looked very big, however this
was the case because the chicken stood on a table. How you look at the chicken will influence how
you see the chicken.
That sounds very theoretical
• The theories will allow you to identify practice (theory to action). So we use theory to make
sense of what is happening in practice.
• We will show how practice also leads to theory development (action to theory). So we also
use practice to develop theories.
• Being able to comprehend these different perspectives will help you in understanding what
goes on in the world. Think of the helicopter view. When you can apply different
perspectives towards an issue, the issue will be quicker tackled then when you apply just one
theory.
• It will also help you in making arguments (in theory, but also in practice)
Nothing as practical as a good theory. Theory will not apply 100% to organization in practice, but
they will help you to solve any of the issues that are happening within a firm.
3
, Book
Mintzberg, H., Ahlstrand, B., Lampel, J. 2009. Strategy Safari: the complete guide through the wilds of
strategic Management, 2nd edition, Prentice Hall/Financial Times, Harlow. ISBN 978-0-273-71958-8:
All chapters.
€32
Articles in addition to book
• Aalbers, H.L., & Dolfsma, W.A. (2019). Resilience of Information Flow during Restructuring:
Characterizing Information Value being Exchanged and the Structure of a Network under
Turmoil. Journal of Business Research, 100: 299-310.
• Bertels, S., Howard-Grenville, J., & Pek, S. (2016). Cultural molding, shielding, and shoring at
Oilco: The role of culture in the integration of routines. Organization Science, 27(3): 573-593.
• Van den Oever, K., & Martin, X. (2019). Fishing in troubled waters? Strategic decision‐making
and value creation and appropriation from partnerships between public organizations.
Strategic Management Journal, 40(4): 580-603.
• Whelan, E., Parise, S., De Valk, J., & Aalbers, R. (2011). Creating employee networks that
deliver open innovation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 53(1): 37-44.
Artikelen lezen voor het tentamen! Er komen vragen gerelateerd aan deze artikelen. Artikelen
worden ook besproken in de hoorcolleges.
Laatste artikel niet gelukt om te downloaden.
Course manual
Volg de lessen zoals die hier in zijn aangegeven, de lessen via het persoonlijk rooster kloppen niet.
Plaats afbeelding course schedule.
How is grading done?
− Course grade (final grade) calculation = Exam grade*0.75 + Group assignment grade*0.25
− Both grades need to separately score above a 5.5 to pass the course
− What will the exam look like?
− The exam committee is currently looking into possibilities to have a heavily randomized
online multiple choice exam in which time pressure will be high.
Group assignment
You will:
• Identify a company dealing with strategic change
• Apply the contents of Strategy Safari to analyze a real business context
• Sample reports from previous years are posted on BS
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