The Entrepreneurial and Cultural School - Case Study Example

RUNNING HEAD: Comparing the Schools of Thought Comparing the Schools of Thought of Introduction This paper compares two schools of thought of enterpreneurial and culture in strategic management. This basically asserts that a strategy could actually be viewed from different points of view but knowing the characteristics of how one is formulated and implemented in relation to the other, including possible the advantage and disadvantage of each, could guilde decision makers in their use of the same. The other schools of thought such learning , cognitive, planning, design, power, position, configuration and environment would have their share in the analysis and discussion in a manner that would afford coherence of the analysis. 2. Analysis and Discussion 2.1. The Entrepreneurial School Vision is the central concept of this school of thought (Pearce, and Robinson, 2004; Sadler & Craig, 2003). This vision of course emanates from a leader who formulates the appropriate strategy to attain fulfilment of the former. This strategy formulation happens to use the leader’s intuition, wisdom, experience, judgement, and insight (Mckenna, R. et al, 2007). This presupposes that that the strategy should exist in the mind of the leader in the form of a vision of the organizations future. The leader accomplishes the strategy design using partly aware process. With the leader being heavily guided by the vision single-mindedly and he should keep close control over implementation, reformulating it as necessary (Sadler & Craig, 2003). 2.2. The Cultural School A leader cannot be called as such without followers. Combine the leader and his or her followers, and a group is created. Something must however bind the members and the leader and such wonderful link is called a culture. Thus, organizations should have a culture or an evidence of shared belief. An organizational culture is therefore defined as the shared belief of persons in the business entity (Sadler & Craig, 2003; Wilcox, 1998; Franklin & Baun, 1995) which these people reflect in their traditions and habits. This would explain the presence of ore tangible manifestations like signs, logos, symbols, uniform, one flag and even design of building or facilities to reflect a common understanding on some (Sadler & Craig, 2003). The best example of having common belief is a church whose members have someway doing things which they themselves give significance. When applied to business organization, culture is thus viewed as a separate school of thought from entrepreneur. Based on this background, it must be easy to see the strategy formulation as a process of social interaction using the shared beliefs and values of the members of the organization to keep uniting them as they meet their objectives. So long as recruits would share the beliefs and values of the existing members via a process of socialization, then the group could be expected to continue in existence. Since their causes could be beyond themselves, they could be presumed to be tacit and largely giving their non-verbal consent. In some cases however, there could be some systematic teaching as determined by existing members and their leaders (Sadler & Craig, 2003). Since consent is tacitly given, some members may just be partly conscious of these beliefs. Such a collective perspective is therefore expected under this view. It does not mean however that culture cannot change. Organizations are just like living organisms, they can also adapt with the changing environments (Pearce, and Robinson, Jr., 2004). As such corporate culture normally changes under particular situations especially when survival is at stake (Sadler & Craig, 2003). 2.3. What are the similarities and distinction of the two schools? As to similarities, they are, of course, both points of view since a school of thought can be defined as line of thinking shared in common with a group. In the same way that there could be different ways of viewing at life, so with schools of thought in strategic management. As what has been analysed the two schools of thought converge in terms of meeting their role in management in a manner that would bring about the attainment of mission and vision of the organization. Comparing the two becomes more meaningful in their distinctions. Their distinctions should arise therefore on the emphasis of each as earlier explained. As which is more deliberate, the same should to the entrepreneur type rather than culture. The strength of the vision can be assumed to very controlling to the formulation of the strategy that followers may find easier to follow (Byars, 1991). This should be expected to differ in the case of culture since the strategy could be expected to emerge first as a matter of common belief. In terns therefore of decision making process in the organization, the authoritative type would be more akin to the entrepreneur thinking than under the culture-type, which may more or less lean toward more democratic orientation. Although the centre of one is different from each other, strategic management is about an organization or group of people and bringing them to attain certain objectives, the elements have to work together. It’s a reality however that in every group, there would usually be a leader. A leader can actually be the effect of a culture but a leader can also influence the direction or the evolution of a culture. In fact a leader would most probably want to have a culture in the organization which he leads since having the same would mean easier way to attain objectives. On the other hand, a group who claims to be bound by culture would still want to have a leader that would have to represent what they believed to beneficial to the group in case of doubtful situations or decisions to be made. Thus as to which is better is just a matter of perspective and one can claim to have superiority of the other since an organization is supposed to be as a group with common objective. From these concepts the characteristics of the schools of thought or assumptions should redound to what is the centre of the school of thought. Thus under an entrepreneur type, it is normal and expected to have vision as its central concept but the focused is on the individual leader. Said leader is expected to have intuition, judgement, wisdom, experience and insight in order to function as such. What then is the centre in culture? It is not called vision but the share belief of the group. Vision then appears to be focussed on the leader who sees it ahead of the others and it is said leader who would want to reach that destination (Eddy, 2010; Havens & Michael, 2009; Fleming, 2005). However, management of an organization is called to be a journey more than a destination. There are short-term destinations that must be reached before the vision could be attained and after attaining the vision there could be a farther vision that the leader or visionary would like to reach further. Thus, the strategy in entrepreneur is more deliberate than in entrepreneur. The organization is similarly more changeable in the first than in the second. The leader must bring the strategy to take the form of a position, which he or she must protect from forces of downright competition (Sadler & Craig, 2003). Under culture, it may take longer time to effect change in strategy if there is sudden change in the environment as brought about by the competition. Such a strong culture could be disadvantageous at times (Cummings &Worley, 2008) since a change in environment that would merit a change in culture could take longer time to effect. Where as in entrepreneur type, the leader because of the strong vision that is of course normally adhered to by followers would be more flexible to respond to the changing environment. 2.4. The relationship of the two with other schools of thought The other schools of thought which include cognitive, planning and design may be consdider to be part of process of making the strategy. By their names, the emphasis could just be extracted. A leader who does not use his analtical mind, may not be able to plan and would not be able to design a strategy tha could connect to his or her vision. Thus an enterprenuer should be not only have the vision, it must be able to convert the same to well-crafter strategy that would attain such vision. The other schools of thought like power and position are normally included as well in strategy implementation. The leader cannot assert this vision without using power and he must be in a position like a CEO or president in an organization to be able to have executive power. He must be able to convince other members of the board of directors about his vision. The school of environment looks at the extenral factor as the controlling factor (Sadler & Craig, 2003). The leader necessarily works with the environment but strateg is where he is given freedom to alter or influences change in environment. Configuration as a school of thought was aimed by Mintzberg as a way to reconcile the differences of several schools of thought (Sadler & Craig, 2003). Thus, he came with what he called an entrepreneurial organization which be characterized as flexible since it would largely controlled by the entrepreneur. Such would therefore be an informal one too (Sadler & Craig, 2003). This happens already within present organizations since a title of a CEO presupposes power to change things to attain objectives. Another possible configuration is to have a machine organization. Under this latter idea, an efficient machine with recognized hierarchical structure could function well and the same must have a line management and a supporting set of staff functions as necessary requirement (Sadler & Craig, 2003). Another configuration that could be done is a professional organisation. By its name it, would be the professional with his or her small or lean staff that would dominate and this could eliminating line management as the same could just make the organization ineffective (Sadler & Craig, 2003). Since entrepreneur and culture schools of thought, just materially differ on points of view, the same principle could applied to other perspectives. Each school of thought has a role to play at certain point in the formulation and implementation of said strategy as long as purpose are attained they could preserved their own identities as such or they must give in to the role of others as the role each evolves and surfaces along the way toward the destination and journey of meeting the mission and purpose of the organization. 3. Conclusions The schools of thought are just perspectives that may actually be combined as was explained in this paper. The names of the schools of thought cannot be separated from the concept of strategy as each name was just to put an emphasis. The need for a vision and a culture along with other schools of thought are paramount to the successful management of the business. Strategy is a multifaceted process of shaping the actions that need to be carried out in order to achieve the companys purpose. This could be observed in the distinctions of the understanding the two schools of thought, namely enterprenural and culture. It is clear how howver that the are focused more on the medium to long- term future rather than on the current operations. As to companies, making choices of actions would have to unavoidably depend on how the said organizations have defined their purposes or missions, in the first place, whether to maximize shareholder value or otherwise. What deterrmined their purposes or missions can not be done with taking into account the needs and concernes of stakeholders of the business. The attainability of objectives which are measurable ways to reach the mission or vision of the companies would have to fit the strategies designed. Thus there is a need to look at the external and internal forces which influence the strategies and whether the latter could be successful. A good leader and manager, with a well defined position like a CEO, must combine all the schools of thought in strategic management if necessary in manner that would attain the purpose and mission of the organization. References: Byars, L. (1991). Strategic Management. Formulation and Implementation – Concepts and Cases. New York: HarperCollins Cummings & Worley (2008).Organization development & change. Cengage Learning Eddy, P. (2010). Leaders as Linchpins for Framing Meaning. ; Community College Review, Vol. 37, 2010 Fleming, P. (2005) The Future Has Never Looked Brighter: Three International Leaders Representing Accountants in Business and Industry Talk about the Profession. Journal of Accountancy, Vol. 200 Franklin, D. & M. Baun (1995) . Political Culture and Constitutionalism: A Comparative Approach.. M. E. Sharpe Havens & Michael (2009). Right Track Your CPA Career: Applying These Principles to Your Daily Life Can Help You Reach Your True Potential. 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