Management
Strategic Management
Drawing upon your own experience with a business or other organization, explain the concept of organizational culture and outline what must be done to sustain an effective culture. When new leadership comes in and takes over the helm of an organization, does it [i.e., he or she] have an obligation to sustain its culture, or to re-shape it, or & #8230;. Explain.
The organizational culture of an organization is basically the personality that the organization has. A culture is made up of the assumptions, values, and norms of organization and its employees. The culture of an organization is usually very easy to sense. It is often hard to define but is very easy to sense. An effective corporate culture can be sustained by good leadership and management along with open communication. Effective leadership that facilitates open communication that flows in both directions is sure to propagate a good culture. When over a corporation they have an obligation to assess the current culture and make changes when necessary. If the company has a good culture that is working for them, they it should be left along. But on the other hand if things are not working well then a shift in culture may be necessary.
2) What is a top management team [TMT] and how do such teams affect company performance and the ability to innovate and make effective strategic decisions? Also, describe an example of a TMT that’s doing either exceedingly well or, exceedingly poorly at drawing upon your current business reading or a firm you are familiar with.
A top management team is made up of key individuals who are responsible for selecting and implementing the company’s strategies. This team is responsible for innovating and making decisions that are effective for the company. Many top management teams find it difficult to work as a team. Because each member of this type of team is used to being in charge and having everyone else listen to them, they find it hard to listen to others when working in a group. This is what often leads to errors in judgment and poor decisions being made. It is ultimately the poor team process that is going on over anything else. It is the fact that these individuals cannot work together as a group that leads to .
3) Firms who work together to achieve a shared objective are using a cooperative strategy [of one sort or another]. Discuss the key reasons that some firms choose to use a cooperative strategy. Are these reasons of equal validity or legitimacy? And, given that not all cooperative endeavors achieve success, what are a few of the reasons why this might be so?
There are several reasons that a firm would chose to use a cooperative strategy. Cooperative strategies help create value for the customer along with putting the company in a good position in regards to their competition. Both of these reasons are of equal validity and legitimacy, since they allow a company to leverage their resources for the overall good of the company. Not all cooperative endeavors achieve success in the end even though they start out with good intentions. Every cooperative endeavor is taken on with a certain amount of risk and uncertainty. And since it is impossible to predict the future there are always going to be things that happened that are out of your control and that you did not plan for from the beginning.
Most times you hope that you have planned for everything that might happen but things are going to happen that make some endeavors fail.
4) Choose a firm which you are familiar with from the local business community. Is the firm successful in the following one (or more) generic strategies? Why or why not? What do you believe are some of the challenges the firm faces in implementing these strategies in an effective manner?
If you look at Wal-Mart you can see that they use the Cost Leadership strategy very effectively. The in the market has competitive advantage over everyone else. Being the low cost leader does not always lead to low prices but in Wal-Mart’s case it does. They shave costs off every element of their value chain. Their products tend to be no frills, but they are exactly what their customers want. One challenge that Wal-Mart faces in implementing this strategy in an effective manner is keeping a good group of suppliers that allows them to continue to offer the low price products that they have become so famous for. Keeping prices down and their customers happy is the key to their success.
