Search results

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of reflexivity in ensuring quality in the conduct of qualitative organizational and management (especially case study based) strategic performance management research. It argues the importance of research reports to include a reflexive account of the comings and goings about the circumstances that may have impacted upon the research to justify its validity. A project on UK‐regulated public utilities is used to illustrate the benefit of such an account and how it may be presented.

The paper draws on a two‐year longitudinal research project, which used longitudinal case studies to examine the impact of regulatory policy incentives on the strategic management of UK monopoly network utilities, to present a developed approach for presenting reflexive accounts in qualitative research. It focuses on the longitudinal tracer methodology that allows a close examination of detailed yet holistic operational activities, which is particularly good for strategic performance management research.

The paper suggests that the more explicit the reflexive appreciation during the conduct of the research, the better it satisfies the conditions of reliability and validity which are themselves well‐known prerequisites for ensuring quality in qualitative research.

Strategic performance management research is characterised by a need to examine closely detailed internal decision‐making processes. Such an approach is supported by the emerging activity‐based view of management, known as strategy‐as‐practice, that concerns understanding micro‐activities of the organization. The provision of a reflexive account in research reports alerts the reader to these equivocal conditions under which the findings were derived.

The paper concludes that an appreciation of the epistemological and ontological positions of the tracer methodology has an impact upon the way in which a reflexive account of organizational research should appropriately be presented. It suggests some potential issues to include in the presentation of reflexive accounts.

The paper seeks to combine the uses of the balanced scorecard and hoshin kanri as integrative dynamic capabilities for the entire strategic management process. It aims to posit a model for the combination of these long‐ and short‐term organisational activities as a framework for a senior level to manage a firm's strategic fit as an integrated organisation‐wide system that links top management goals to daily management.

The resource‐based view of strategy is explored for its relevance to how a combined balanced scorecard and hoshin kanri approach serves as a high‐order dynamic capability. Examples are given from Canon, Toyota and Nissan, of how core capabilities are managed to show how strategy is executed cross‐functionally across a firm's functional hierarchy.

The study finds that strategic management of the organisation should consider the long‐term strategy as well as the short‐term capability. Important to this are core capabilities and core competences, cross‐functional management, and top executive audits, which, when managed properly, explicate a new view of strategic fit, as a form of nested hierarchies of dynamic capabilities.

The paper is the first exposition of how balanced scorecard and hoshin kanri practices may usefully complement each other in strategic management. It is a useful framework for dynamically managing sustained competitive advantage.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how hoshin kanri (policy management) is used as a higher order dynamic capability at Nissan. The paper also seeks to examine the role of top executive audits as part of the FAIR strategy execution process to develop core competences as part of team management.

The research used semi‐retrospective ethnographic case summaries recorded by an active manager involved in the implementation process of the researched organizational phenomenon. These documented observations were triangulated against internally published company reports and those made public, and any externally published documentation about Nissan.

The paper finds that the use of a top executive audit (TEA) as a part of hoshin kanri, works as a high‐order dynamic capability according to Teece et al. . Hoshin kanri is premised on a strong reliance on teamwork, and the effectiveness of teams is a major contributory factor to organizational performance. It works well because TEAs are a special form of organizational audit of lower‐level operations against top‐level strategy (i.e. it is a strategic review framework).

How Nissan's business philosophies and methodologies are managed as core capabilities is explored. TEAs, as a key component of hoshin kanri, are examined as a strategic team performance management system.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of top executive audits (TEAs) as part of hoshin kanri (policy management) at Nissan South Africa (NSA). It relates these to the emerging importance of core competencies in the resource‐based view of strategy to discuss “nested” sets of dynamic capabilities and superior performance.

The case study of NSA is considered in terms of how the firm defines its core areas, evaluates its business methodologies and management philosophies, and conducts its diagnosis of management. This was through real time internal company observation during an intensive phase of organizational change and documentation supplied by a senior manager.

The style of TEAs at Nissan is related to the concepts of “core competency” and “dynamic capability.” The core business areas of NSA are organization‐wide competencies necessary for competitive success, and the management of these is shown to be most effective in the form of a TEA, which in the hoshin kanri form, is arguably a nested set of dynamic capabilities.

The paper concludes that hoshin kanri and TEAs are used at Nissan as a higher order dynamic capability to develo0p both core competences in key areas of the business, and core capabilities in terms of its corporate methodologies and business philosophies. The recovery of Nissan during the East Asian Crisis of the late‐1990s was the result of improved productivity practices, such as the uses of hoshin kanri and TEAs, and not just of economic recovery.

The paper explores the involvement of top management in strategic reviews of the organization's operational activities (known as top executive audits or TEAs). These are discussed in relation to strategy process and business excellence.

The case of Nissan South Africa (NSA) is used to illustrate their importance and their relation to hoshin kanri (policy deployment) practice.

The paper argues that TEAs are a very important and integrative aspect of the holistic management of the organization. TEAs are also crucial to hoshin kanri and facilitate operational effectiveness.

The paper suggests that strategic reviews, such as TEAs, are best operated when integrated together as an organization‐wide managed system of review.

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

While many organizations call their strategic planning and management systems a balanced scorecard, UK supermarket chain Tesco prefer to call theirs a steering wheel. Everyone in the business has a copy so they can set their objectives against it and be judged by it.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to digest format.

There is an ambivalence in many people’s attitudes to Japanese business techniques in the West. An admiration for their management styles and ability to penetrate Western markets is occasionally tempered by an ill‐informed suspicion that in some way the Japanese have created – or been allowed to operate in – a less than level playing field.

A brief introduction to Total Quality Management (TQM) is presented. It is a holistic concept and must be implemented as such. However, there are four barriers to full implementation. These are short‐termism, organisational segmentalism, reluctant managers, and poor industrial relations. These barriers affect some parts of the TQM model more than others: this is likely to result in partial rather than holistic TQM.

Examines how four major companies: Heinz, Nissan Motors, ICI and Rank Xerox have implemented TQM successfully, as presented by their senior managers at a TQM conference. The “secrets” of their success are outlined.

Many organizations and companies claim to “have TQM”. Details a collaboration between Scottish Enterprise, the Scottish Quality Network and the Centre for Quality and Organization Change at Durham University Business School to assess the extent to which companies in Scotland indeed “have TQM”. The survey took place in 1993, covering 1,500 organizations and producing a 43 per cent response rate. Presents the results of the survey in detail and concludes that a TQM approach is now the rule rather than the exception for most organizations but that TQM has not as yet developed to its full potential. Expresses some doubts about TQM’s external focus and suggests that organizations need to organize TQM more round the needs of external customers.