No abstract

No abstract

The majority of the literature on corporate performance in SMEs has indicated that the absence of formal strategic planning (or inadequacies in its process) can be directly linked with failure, while its presence can be linked to success (Bracker and Pearson, 1986;Stoner, 1983). However, other empirical evidence fails to find a relationship (Robinson and Pearce, 1983). These differences are due to methodological and theoretical problems facing research in this domain. This paper attempts to improve on both issues. The hypothesis that 'formal planning is not associated with better-than-average performance' is tested on a sample of SMEs, controlled by sector, using a 5-year operating period. Five measures of financial performance are utilized, including both the arithmetic and geometric measurements of central tendency as appropriate. Moreover, perceptions of CEOs, rather than the aggregation of scale-based measurements of organizational variables, are used to prescribe the measure of formality used in the analysis.

No abstract

Business schools1 are subject to strong institutional pressures. In this paper we examine university-based business schools in the UK. We argue that the result of such pressures has been to render business schools isomorphic in a number of ways and to diminish the potential voice of business school research in social and economic issues. We detail the range of institutional pressures and then suggest that schools have choices in the ways they might adapt their strategies to counter normative, coercive and mimetic pressures. Drawing on Oliver's notion of strategic behaviours, we suggest that business schools should adopt a wider scholarly lens and turn its theoretical perspectives and empirical research toward 'big' social and economic questions. The difficulties, advantages and implications of changing strategic behaviours are discussed.

No abstract

\ Hypotheses relating to market, organizational and managerial determinants of profitability and growth are developed and tested using data collected by structured interviews in 45 randomly selected companies in the electrical engineering industry. Multiple regression analysis suggests that market share and barriers to entry are the principal determinants of profit margins, but that tightness of control of working capital and aggressive management style also have an important influence. Centralization of decision-taking among smaller companies, too, was associated with greater profitability, whilst more extensive budgetary control and planning of acquisitions or diversification were both negatively correlated with the latter. Profitability was the single most important predictor of the rate of company growth of sales but constraints f r o m organized labor, f r o m sources of finance, and conservative management styles, the rate of product change, R& D intensity, and decentralization all entered significantly.

Strategic management literatures have contributed significantly to our understanding of strategic decision‐making, strategy formulation, strategy content and process. However, research into strategy context has been spasmodic, less interrogative and non‐systemic. Hence, the relationship between context and both the content and process dimensions is not well understood. Recently, many organizations have been turning to scenario thinking methodologies to explore, facilitate and foster a linkage that enables better strategy content to develop. Scenario thinking has enhanced environmental sense‐making in many organizations. But, such processes have come under increasing criticism for missing weak signals and emerging patterns in the underlying drivers of future change. This paper examines the reasons for these flaws by reference to recent developments in the cognitive psychology literature. It then investigates the strengths and weaknesses of using counterfactual reasoning as a tool for reducing the main biases that lead to foresightful thinking failures.