Introduction and Overview

Objectives:

To define management / corporate strategy

and to examine its link with strategic decision
making.

To explore the core areas of corporate

strategy.

Lynch, R. (2000) Corporate Strategy (2nd

ed.) London, FT/Prentice Hall, Ch 1, 3 & 6
Johnson, G. & Scholes, K. (1999)
Exploring Corporate Strategy (5th ed.)
London, Prentice Hall, Ch 1, 3 & 4
Truss, C., Mankin, D. & Kelliher, C. (2012)
Strategic Human Resource Management,
Oxford, Oxford University Press
de Wit, R. & Meyer, R. (1998) Strategy
(2nd ed.) London, Thompson, Ch 1

To consider the process, content and

contexts within which strategic decisions
are arrived at

To analyze the environment

To consider the contribution of Michael

Porter

Define corporate strategy and explain its

various elements.

Explain the core areas of corporate

strategy and how they interlink with the
wider environment.

Distinguish between process, content and

context of a corporate strategy.

Corporate Strategy is concerned with an

organization's basic direction for the
future: its purpose, its ambitions, its
resources and how it interacts with the
world in which it operates.

(Lynch, 2000:5)

Sense of purpose - changes with time, with

the size of the organization, with the
resources it has at its disposal and with the
competitive nature of the environment.

Let us take as our example your

organization:
What is its purpose?
How has this purpose changed?
What will be its purpose into the future?

Along with purpose organizations require

plans or actions, which need to be,
developed to enable the purpose to be
realized.

Let us link back to your organization!

What plans/actions have been set in
motion to help deliver the purpose?

Corporate strategy is the pattern of

major objectives, purposes or goals and
essential policies or plans for achieving
those goals, stated in such a way as to
define what business the company is in
or is to be in and the kind of company it
is or is to be.
(Lynch, 2000:8)

Organizations are then faced with three

areas in which the essential management
of such purposes, plans and actions
remain essential:
The organisations internal resources;
The external environment within which the
organisation operates;
The organisations ability to add value to what
it does.

Who benefits from this added value:

Shareholders
Employees
Management
Government

Sustainable
Developing the process
Offer competitive advantage
Exploit linkages between the organisation
and its environment
Vision

Involves the entire organization

Has minimum and maximum objectives
over time
Covers the range and depth of the
organizations activities
Directs the changing and evolving
relationship of the organization with its
environment

Is central to the development of

sustainable competitive advantage

Is crucial to adding value

1 Environmental scanning
2 Strategic analysis
2 Strategy development / formulation
3 Strategy implementation
4 Evaluation & control
However, problems arise:
Influence of judgment and values
Speculation!

Context - the environment within which

the strategy operates and is developed

Content - the main actions of the

proposed strategy

Process - how the actions link as the

strategy unfolds

The prescriptive approach

The emergent approach

What they say about the three core

areas: linear / sequential / interrelated

012)
2
(
.
l
et a
s
s
u
Tr
om
r
f
d
apte
d
a
:
ce
Sour

Value added test

Consistency test

Competitive advantage test

Consider the following contexts:

public organizations
non-profit organizations
international operations - globalisation.
What are the key strategic principles at
play here?