Business (Strategic Management) - Essay Example

fficers—make use of strategic management plans, guidelines and projects, which may be outdated since these were implemented by the company’s deceased founder. Members of the board of directors sit back and just wait for the officers to submit plans for new projects, which officers never manage to prepare because they are too focused on daily operations. Entrepreneurship Management, meanwhile, involves having powerful officers, especially the CEO or the founder, with the board of directors taking a back seat.

Top management, alone or with a select team, makes the decisions with the board acting as a minor approving body (Haddad & Esposito, 2008; Eisenhardt, 1989). This style of management is said to have the potential for officers to abuse their power, a situation that may be detrimental for the company’s investors. However, certain situations such as changes in policies or management may necessitate a top management that is strong and authorized to make on-the-spot decisions. Beam and Carey (1989) point out that companies that are just starting out require a structure that gives centralized power to the chief executive officer or the founder, who, in turn, must make full use of their skills and capabilities to solve all of the problems and challenges that companies just starting out inevitably encounter.

Haddad and Esposito (2008) point to Wal-Mart’s previous CEO David Glass when the company was on the brink of becoming a major store. Like Mr. Glass, top management must be able to handle immediately and independently challenges such as determining the source of funds for the new company or the best way to get funds for a company going through a major restructuring. On the other hand, the level of authority given to top officers is quite reversed when a company uses the style called Marionette Management, which is also called Stipendiary Management (Srinivasan, 2006).

In this structure, the power is in the hands of the members of the board of directors,