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Henry: Understanding Strategic Management

Chapter 10

The hierarchical organization based on the strategy-structure-systems doctrine of management no longer delivers competitive results. While a top-down structure of corporate divisions gives managers tight control and allows companies to grow, it also fragments resources and creates a vertical organization that prevents small units from sharing their strengths with one another. Structural fixes, such as skunk works, alliances, and acquisitions, have not solved the problem. Based on a study of 20 companies with vanguard management styles, the authors predict a managerial revolution that will focus on horizontal processes rather than vertical structures. The job of management will be to promote three core organizational processes: frontline entrepreneurship, competence building, and renewal.

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This paper reviews the literature on strategic controls. It summarizes the main theoretical arguments that have been put forward for establishing strategic control systems, and contrasts these arguments with evidence that suggests that few companies in fact have a strategic control system in place. The paper then identifies some of the difficulties that may be associated with establishing a strategic control system, points up issues that require further empirical research, and suggests a framework for exploring a contingency theory concerning the sorts of businesses in which strategic control systems would be most and least valuable.

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http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/113455104/ABSTRACT