Through the Lenses of Strategy Execution: Obstacles in Engineering Management

Abstract

The aim of the research described in this paper was to ascertain the obstacles engineering managers face in executing organizational objectives, to identify differences between engineering managers and managers in general in the obstacles they face, and to map clusters of obstacles. The author conducted a survey of 26 engineering managers in a Canadian engineering company employing about 250 engineers and compared the results with a database of 322 managers in general. The study examined obstacles corresponding to five drivers of performance: rules, emotions, initiative, immediate action, and integrity. In contrast with managers in general, engineering managers faced a greater need to clarify rules, a greater lack of initiative among their employees, and less difficulty in taking immediate action. For the drivers of emotions and integrity, there were no significant differences between the engineering managers and managers in general. The obstacles the engineering managers faced when executing their management strategy could be clustered in five groups.L e a d e r s h i p a n d M a n a g e m e n t i n E n g i n e e r i n g

Zawartość strategii jako czynnik utrudniający jej implementację

“…Jak zauważa jednak Grundy, menedżerowie mają często problem nie tylko z brakiem jasności samej strategii, lecz także niejasny jest dla nich przebieg całego procesu zarządzania strategicznego 22 . Cocks także wymienia niejasną, rozmytą strategię wśród przyczyn niepowodzeń implementacyjnych 23 , a o znaczeniu braku jasności podstawowych zasad rozwoju oraz ich spójności z zestawem wytyczonych celów wspomina Sabourin 24 .…”

The Concept of Sustainable Strategy Implementation

“…This relates especially to ambiguous definition, a lack of priorities indicated, or a concept of development not adjusted to internal and external determiners [38]. Cocks [39] mentions a vague and blurred strategy among the reasons for failures in implementation, with this often directly linked to a lack of clarity in basic development rules and their coherence with the set of objectives specified [40]. It is indicated in the literature on the subject that the perspective of strategy is closely associated with resources and people and should not be separated from them, but treated holistically as an integral part of a larger whole [41].…”