WORK2210

What is Strategy?

Associate Professor Leanne Cutcher

Discipline of Work and Organizational
Studies
Business School

The University of Sydney

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Welcome
Introducing the team:
Course Co-ordinator: Assoc. Professor Leanne Cutcher,
Room 5177, Abercrombie Building, Phone 903 65472
Email: leanne.cutcher@sydney.edu.au
Simulation Co-ordinator: Dr Steven Hitchcock
Email: S.Hitchcock@econ.usyd.edu.au

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Lecture Aims:

By the end of the lecture you will be able to:

Provide a definition of organisational strategy
Discuss what constitutes a strategic decision
Explain the origins of strategic management thinking

Plus you will:

have a good understanding of the overall objectives of this

course and the way you will be assessed.

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Take a minute or two .

Imagine
You are at a party and some-one asks, What are you studying
this semester?.
Strategic Management you answer.
Whats that?
What would you say?

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Strategy as narrative

Strategic management
ranks as one of the most
prominent, influential, and
costly stories told in
organizations (Barry and
Elmes, 1997: 430)

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Back to the Beginning

Harvard in the 1920s
Igor Ansoff founder of Strategic Management
Didnt name the baby until 1977
A melting pot of ideas
Strategy derived from ancient greek: stratos
meaning army and agein meaning to lead.

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Military tradition of strategy

War Teaches Strategy
On War, Karl von Clausewitz
1832:

Strategy forms the plan of the war,

and to this end it links together the
series of acts which are to lead to
the final decision, that is to say, it
makes the plans for the separate
campaigns and regulates the
combats to be fought in each.
Legacy of this view:
Isolated genius
Corporations as hierarchies
Pervasive military discourse
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Homo economicus

Rational
planning
Profit
maximisation

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A.P. Sloan
President of General Motors
from 1923-56
My Years with General Motors
(1963)
A firms fundamental
strategic problem was
positioning of the firm in
those markets in which
maximum profits could be
earned.

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A D Chandler
Structure follows strategy

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Strategy is:
The determination of the
basic, long term goals and
objectives of an enterprise
and the adoption of courses
of action and the allocation
of resources necessary for
those goals.

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Igor Ansof
Focus on decisions
What kind of business
should we seek to be in?
Strategy as common thread
across four main areas of a
firms activities

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Enter the consulting firms

Strategy is created at the

intersection of an external
appraisal of threats and
opportunities facing an
organisation and an internal
appraisal of its strengths and
weaknesses.

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Enter Michael Porter

Strategy formation as
analytical

Strategies are generic

Clear separation between

formulation and
implementation (matter of
control)
What is strategy?
It is the creation of a unique or
valuable position involving a
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different set of activities.

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Is it really as simple as Porter suggests?

Karl Weick
Influenced by Herbert A
Simon
Bounded rationality
Organisations are
collections of choices

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Strategy as a process
MINTZBERG
Strategy continuous and
iterative
Sees strategy as a process
within which strategy emerges
from a combination of
influences within the
organisation.
Represents a set of pragmatic
compromises between various
stakeholders in the organisation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=4srFC0de4ww
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Strategic Management Process

Adapted from Exhibit 1.2 Realized Strategy and Intended Strategy:

Usually Not the Same
Source:H. Mintzberg and J. A. Waters, Of Strategies, Deliberate and
Emergent,
Strategic
Management Journal 6 (1985), pp. 257-72.
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of Sydney

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Deliberate versus emergent

strategy
Deliberate strategy
(Plan):
Close relationship
between
intended and
realized strategy

Emergent strategy
(Process):
No intention,
rather clear
pattern of
behaviour

Focus on external

Continuum
intention, choice
and pattern of
formation.

Focus on fit
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What are the strategic issues highlighted in

the article?

Virgin and Qantas

Uber
Nintendo

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Strategy
Concerns both organisation and environment
Is complex
Affects overall welfare of the organisation
Involves issues of content and process
Never purely deliberate
Involves various thought processes
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Strategic Managements 4
Characteristics

Interdisciplinary
Externally focused
Internally focused
Future focused

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Strategy and Performance

Everyone in an organisation plays a role in
managing strategically
VIABILITY
SUSTAINED COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
How and why so firms outperform others?

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In strategy, firms will need to develop clearer nonmarket

strategies and integrate them more rigorously with their market
strategies. And they will need to do this amid greater uncertainty
about the future state of markets, regulation, and profit prospects
and greater pressure from a diverse range of stakeholders for a
broader assortment of outcomes.
(Paul Adler, President of Academy of Management, Academy of
Management Review, April 2016, 188).

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Getting to know you and forming the

simulation teams

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Our approach
Interactive
Case study driven
Simulation + Online readings: http://
opac.library.usyd.edu.au/search/r

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Harvard Business School

Strategy Simulation: The Balanced Scorecard
CEO of a struggling automotive parts manufacturer: Delta/Signal
Select among four firm strategies and then design a strategy
map and balanced scorecard to assist their firms strategy
implementation and performance evaluation
Success relates to consistency with chosen strategy and
effectiveness.
At the completion of the eight game turns, an investment firm
buys the equity of each company at a price based on the
companys ending financial position and the investment firms
assessment of the companys future prospects as driven by the
initiatives chosen.
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Team roles
Each team will have one Data Entry person
Rest of team are Data Analysts
Eight rounds in the game the first four rounds (two game
years) will be offered as practice rounds
First step in preparing for simulation:
Read: Kaplan and Norton (1996) Linking the Balanced
Scorecard to Strategy, California Management Review,
39(1), Fall.

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Online quizzes and peer evaluation

Aim of the quizzes is to ensure you are up to speed on the
different strategic options available to you in the game (and
when you are practicing strategy in the real world).
Quiz 1: Week 4 Low cost strategies
Quiz 2: Week 5 Differentiation and customer focused
strategies
Online Peer Evaluation Week 6 (at end of practice rounds)
Online Peer Evaluation Week 8 (at end of game)

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Simulation timetable
Week 2: Introduction in class to Balanced Scorecard and Strategy Map
Week 4: Teams announced get to know each other and release preliminary info to
the teams - Case and the Teaching Note (see pg. 9 of teaching note)
Week 4: Low cost strategies quiz
Week 5: Monday 15 August simulation practice rounds open
Wednesday 17 August customer focused strategies quiz
Week 6: Practice rounds continue complete online peer evaluation
Week 7: Monday 5 September - game goes live closing on 5pm on Friday 9
September.
Week 8: Complete online peer evaluation
Week 9: Results debrief
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Recapping
Defined strategic management
Looked at what constitutes a strategic decision
Examined the origins of strategic management
thinking
Given you a sense of how we will approach our
study of SM

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Any questions

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IDEAS PRESENTED IN THIS LECTURE ARE DRAWN FROM

Barry, D and Elmes, M (1997) Strategy Retold: Toward a narrative view of strategic discourse, Academy of
Management Review, 22(2), 429-452.
Carter, C, Clegg, S and Kornberger, M (2008) A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book
about Studying Strategy, Sage Publications, London.
Hambrick, D G and Chen, M J (2008) New Academic Fields as Admittance- Seeking Social Movements: The
case of Strategic Management, Academy of Management Review, Vol 33(1),pp 32-54.
Mintzberg and J. A. Waters, Of Strategies, Deliberate and Emergent, Strategic Management Journal 6 (1985),
pp. 257-72.
Mintzberg, H and Lampel, J (1999) Reflecting on the Strategy Process, Sloan Management Review, Spring,
21-30.
Porter, M (1996) What is Strategy?, Harvard Business Review, Nov-December, 61-78

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