Strategic Management: Planning and SWOT Analysis

Strategic Management

• Involves planning, organizing, leading, and controlling to achieve organizational goals by attracting and satisfying customers.
• Serves to examine relevant factors and decide on appropriate actions.

Steps in Strategic Management

• Identify missions and goals.
• Conduct SWOT analysis:
  • Strengths: Qualities that make the organization better than competitors.
  • Weaknesses: Areas where the organization lags behind competitors.
  • Opportunities: Emerging needs with few competitors.
  • Threats: Emerging competitors, regulatory changes, or loss of customer interest.
• Formulate strategies: Managers consider environmental realities to achieve goals.
  • Corporate strategy: Determines the business the company is in or wants to be. Types include:
    • Growth strategy: Expanding markets or products, either in existing business or new ventures.
    • Stability strategy: Maintaining current activities.
    • Renewal strategy: Addressing declining performance.
  • Competitive strategy: Defines how the organization will compete.
• Sustaining competitive advantage: Requires maintaining the advantage despite competitors and industry changes.
• Porter’s Five Forces:
  • Intensity of competitive rivalry: Number of competitors.
  • Threat of new entrants: Ease of entering the market.
  • Bargaining power of buyers: Influence of customers.
  • Bargaining power of suppliers: Influence of suppliers.
  • Threat of substitutes: Likelihood of customers switching to alternatives.
  • Competitive advantages:
    • Cost leadership: Achieving the lowest costs in the market.
    • Differentiation: Offering unique, high-quality products.
    • Focus strategy: Targeting a specific segment based on customer type, product variety, or location.
• Functional strategy: Strategies used by various functional departments. Implement strategies: Put formulated strategies into action. Evaluate results: Assess the effectiveness of strategies in achieving goals.

Workplace Diversity

• Ways people are different and similar to one another in an organization.
• Improves performance, innovation, and decision-making; helps attract and retain talent.
• Surface-level diversity: Demographic characteristics (age, gender, race, ethnicity) that may trigger stereotypes.
• Deep-level diversity: Differences in values, personality, and work preferences become more important as people get to know each other.

Challenges in Managing Diversity

• Personal bias: Preconceived opinions that can create inaccurate judgments and attitudes.
  • Prejudice: Preconceived beliefs towards people.
  • Stereotyping: Judging based on group perception.
  • Discrimination: Acting out prejudicial attitudes.
• Forms of discrimination: Sexual harassment, intimidation, mockery, exclusion, incivility, discriminatory policies.
• Glass ceiling: Invisible barrier that separates women and minorities from top management.

Promoting Diversity

• Top management commitment.
• Mentoring: Guidance from experienced members.
• Diversity skills training: Educating employees on diversity.
• Employee resource groups: Groups connected by a common dimension of diversity.

Human Resources Management (HRM)

• Managing people to achieve better performance.

HRM Process

• Human resource planning: Ensuring the right number of capable people are in the right place at the right time.
  • Assess current HR: Inventory of current employees (job analysis, descriptions, specifications).
  • Meet future HR needs: Determined by mission, goals, and strategies.

Recruitment

• Sources:
  • Internal: Promotion advantages, motivator, lower cost.
  • External: New perspectives, cheaper than training, new insights.
• Decruitment: Reducing workforce through firing, layoffs, attrition, transfers, reduced workweeks, early retirements, job sharing.
• Selection: Using application forms, tests, interviews, background checks, and physical examinations.
• Orientation: Introducing new employees to their jobs.
  • Work unit orientation: Familiarizing with work goals and coworkers.
  • Organization orientation: Informing about company goals, history, rules, and facilities.
• Training: General and specific skills development.
• Performance Management: Evaluating employee efficiency and effectiveness.
• Compensation and benefits: Base wages, salaries, and unusual benefits.

Issues in Managing HR

• Managing downsizing during economic recessions.
• Preventing sexual harassment and workplace romance issues.
• Promoting work-life balance: Family-friendly policies.

Leadership

• Leader: Someone who can influence others and has managerial authority.
• Leadership: Process of influencing a group to achieve goals.
• Leadership trait theory: Leaders are born not made; traits include drive, desire to lead, honesty, self-confidence, intelligence, job knowledge, and extraversion.
• Leadership behavior theories:
  • University of Iowa:
    • Democratic style: Encourages participation.
    • Autocratic style: Dictates methods.
    • Laissez-faire style: Offers freedom.
  • Ohio State:
    • Consideration: Being considerate of ideas and feelings.
    • Initiating structure: Structuring work to meet goals.
  • Michigan:
    • Employee-oriented: Focuses on interpersonal relationships.
    • Production-oriented: Focuses on technical aspects of the job.
  • Grid: Balancing concern for people and production.
• Early Theories:
  • Fiedler's Contingency Model: Group performance depends on leader’s style and situation control.
    • Leader-member relations: Degree of confidence, trust, and respect.
    • Task structure: Degree of job assignment structure.
    • Position power: Degree of influence a leader has.
    • Task-oriented leaders perform better in favorable/unfavorable situations; relationship-oriented leaders in moderately favorable situations.
  • Hersey-Blanchard Situational Theory: Focuses on followers' readiness.
    • Telling: High task, low relationship (leader defines roles).
    • Selling: High task, high relationship (leader provides directive and supportive behavior).
    • Participating: Low task, high relationship (leader facilitates and communicates).
    • Delegating: Low task, low relationship (leader provides little direction or support).
• Path-Goal theory: The leader's job is to assist followers in reaching their goals.

Contemporary Theories

• Leader-Member Exchange Theory: Leaders create in-groups for higher ratings and satisfaction.
• Transformational-Transactional Leadership:
  • Transactional leaders: Lead by social exchanges (rewards, punishment).
  • Transformational leaders: Motivate and inspire followers to achieve significant change.
• Charismatic-Visionary Leadership:
  • Charismatic: Self-confident and influential.
  • Visionary: Ability to create and articulate a realistic vision.
• Managing Power:
  • Expert power: Based on expertise.
  • Referent power: Based on personal traits and admiration.
  • Coercive power: Based on punishment.
  • Reward power: Could be money, promotion.
  • Legitimate power: Results of the leader's position.
• Developing Trust: Key traits include integrity, competence, consistency, loyalty, and openness.
• Empowering Employees: Increased decision-making discretion.

Motivation

• Definition: When a person's effort is directed toward attaining a goal.
• Early Theories:
  • Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Physiological, safety, belongingness, esteem, self-actualization.
  • McGregor's Theories X and Y:
    • Theory X: Employees dislike work and must be obliged.
    • Theory Y: Employees like work and seek responsibility.
  • Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory:
    • Motivator factors: Recognition, achievement, responsibility (job satisfaction).
    • Hygiene factors: Working conditions, policies, supervisors (job dissatisfaction).
  • McClelland's Three Needs Theory:
    • Need for achievement: Drive to excel.
    • Need for power: Influence others.
    • Need for affiliation: Desire for close relationships.
• Contemporary Theories:
  • Self-Determination Theory: Intrinsic motivation is more effective than external rewards.
  • Goal-Setting Theory: Specific goals work better than vague ones.

Goal Setting

• Hard goals: Lead to greater effort and achievement.
• Challenging goals: Increase energy.
• Hard goals: Help discover better work methods.
• Self-Efficacy: Individual belief in their ability to perform tasks. Higher self-efficacy leads to greater confidence and success.
• Reinforcement Theory: Behaviors followed by positive reinforcement are more likely to be repeated.
• Equity Theory: People compare their job inputs and outputs with others' to address unfairness.
• Expectancy Theory: People are motivated if they expect their actions will lead to desired results.

Emotions and Moods

• Emotions: Caused by specific events and are brief.
• Moods: Often general, unclear, and last longer.
• Emotional labor: Employees express organizationally desired emotions.
  • Emotional dissonance: Projecting one emotion while feeling another.
• Displaying Fake Emotions:
  • Surface acting: Hiding inner feelings.
  • Deep acting: Modifying inner feelings.
• Affective events theory: Workplace events influence emotions, attitudes, and behavior.
• Emotional intelligence: Ability to perceive, understand, and regulate emotions.

Emotions in the Organization

• Selection: Consider EI in jobs demanding social interaction.
• Decision making: Positive moods = Faster, smarter choices.
• Creativity: Good moods = More creativity.
• Motivation: Feedback affects mood and motivation.
• Leadership: Expressing emotion enhances connection.
• Negotiation: Emotions influence negotiation outcomes.
• Customer service: Employee mood impacts satisfaction; emotional contagion occurs.
• Job attitude: Work mood affects home mood.
• Deviant Workplace Behavior: Negative emotions cause harmful actions.
• Safety: Worried/Scared people don't handle risks well.

Managerial Influence

• Use humor and small rewards.
• Create positive team members.

OD Interventions

• On a surface level, personal development online isn’t very impactful on the org
• Personal growth does boost employee performance

Individual Interventions

• Individual interventions aim to promote insight, improving your traits, behavior and values
• Interventions involved addressing uncomfortable issues
• Practitioners must be skilled and discreet by nature

Four Major Areas of Intervention

• Career and Lift planning:
• Stress Management:
• Interpersonal Intervention:
  • Open and honest communication
  • Johanri window:
    • Open Area: to self and others
    • Blind Spot: Known to others but not to self
    • Hidden Area: Known to self but not shared
    • Unknown Area: Unknown to both
• Personal Styles:
  • Understand different behaviors
  • Asses abilities, and personality with tools like the Myers Briggs indicators and individual assesments

Team Intervention

• Team Development activities focus on:
  • Functional Groups: follow the organization structure
  • Task groups: Achieve a goal specific to the syllabus
  • Forming: Meet new people but remain distant
  • Storming: conflict arrises
  • Norming: team spirit
  • Performing: team is efficient
  • Adjourning: reviewing work

Intervention Techniques

• Third meeting groups
• Family work to improve
• Review teamwork
• Confront conflict
• Diagnose problems
• Resolve solution

Organization Wide Intervention:

• Large scale change effort and increase the effectiveness for org
• Using member filing questionnaire
• Used to diagnose the problem
• Also has a promotion
• System of management:
  • Exploitive authoritative: Limited communication
  • Benevolent: Communication accepted
  • Consultative: More communication
  • Participative: Actively involved

Types of Interventions:

• Traditional
• Understand
• Manage