Week 9: STRATEGIZING IN PLURALISTIC CONTEXTS: CULTURE & VALUES

Question 1

What makes the strategy process difficult in pluralistic contexts?

Answer 1

Tension between stakeholders (employees, shareholders, suppliers, consumers, NGOs) wanting different outcomes

Question 2

What do employees typically want in a pluralistic context?

Answer 2

Good wages, working conditions, and pensions

Question 3

What are shareholders primarily interested in?

Answer 3

Annual dividends and stock price

Question 4

What do suppliers seek in strategic contexts?

Answer 4

Long-term relationships and agreements on standards and working practices

Question 5

What do consumers aim for in relation to goods?

Answer 5

To pay as little as possible for their goods

Question 6

How do NGOs and unions view Walmart’s behavior?

Answer 6

NGOs monitor its environmental record; unions abhor its anti-union orientation

Question 7

What are the three main features of pluralistic contexts?

Answer 7

1) Multiple objectives
2) Diffuse power
3) Challenge of mobilizing knowledge in action

Question 8

What does ‘diffuse power’ mean in pluralistic contexts?

Answer 8

Power is spread out across many levels in organizations

Question 9

How do professional and managerial values differ?

Answer 9

A set of professionally driven values may differ significantly from a managerial values approach

Question 9

Why is mobilizing knowledge challenging in pluralistic contexts?

Answer 9

Organizations rely on specialists’ knowledge, giving more power and influence to certain groups

Question 10

How does Schein define values in organizational culture?

Answer 10

Basic assumptions and beliefs, shared unconsciously, defining an organization’s view of itself and its environment

Question 11

What analogy is used for values and organizational culture?

Answer 11

Like the iceberg, with visible and hidden elements

Question 12

What does the Cultural Web analyze?

Answer 12

Overt phenomena of culture, such as symbols, rituals, and structures

Question 13

Why is organizational culture important in strategy-making?

Answer 13

1) Strategy and culture mutually influence and constrain each other
2) Culture aids strategic change as a shared resource
3) Culture is distinctive and enduring

Question 14

How does distinctiveness in culture benefit strategy?

Answer 14

it provides a competitive advantage

Question 15

How do SAP researchers view organizational culture?

Answer 15

Not entirely shared, but differentiated, with diverse subcultures in tension

Question 15

Why do 25 percent of merger integration efforts fail?

Answer 15

Lack of cultural cohesion and alignment

Question 15

What did McKinsey & Company find about cultural fit in mergers?

Answer 15

95 percent of executives see cultural fit as critical to integration success

Question 15

Why can endurance of culture be a challenge?

Answer 15

It makes strategic change difficult

Question 15

How do standardized approaches help in mergers?

Answer 15

They resolve tensions between cultural and organizational elements, merging cultures of companies A and B into AB

Question 16

What do SAP researchers emphasize in mergers?

Answer 16

Recognizing how the merger process evolves and how actors interact to coordinate actions and resolve tensions

Question 16

Who are key actors in merger processes per SAP?

Answer 16

Integration managers, functional, divisional, and middle managers

Question 17

How do organizations achieve compromises between divergent values?

Answer 17

Individuals cooperate in conflictual situations, evaluating, critiquing, and justifying based on their values

Question 18

What are the six core values in the Constitutive Values Framework?

Answer 18

1) Inspirational
2) Domestic
3) Opinion
4) Civic
5) Merchant
6) Industrial

Question 19

What characterizes the Inspirational value?

Answer 19

Risk-taking, being passionate, and individualistic

Question 20

What defines the Domestic value?

Answer 20

Sense of duty to one another, like family-based businesses (e.g., Indian families)

Question 21

What is the focus of the Opinion value?

Answer 21

Changing people’s opinions and gaining publicity, like social media influencers

Question 22

What does the Civic value emphasize?

Answer 22

The collective good, like China’s focus on collectivism

Question 23

What is the Merchant value about?

Answer 23

Capitalism, being transactional, and competing

Question 24

What characterizes the Industrial value?

Answer 24

A scientific approach to management, like Fredrick Taylor measuring performance by clock time

Question 25

Why are the six core values in tension?

Answer 25

They are symmetric and competing, provoking potential tensions (e.g., artistic vs. merchant)

Question 26

What is a convention in the context of strategizing?

Answer 26

An artifact or object that crystallizes a compromise between various values in a specific context

Question 27

How does strategizing generate compromises?

Answer 27

It creates accommodations between competing values, which are also sources of tension

Question 27

What dual role does a strategy or convention play?

Answer 27

It can be criticized, generating political tensions, but also fosters change and adjustment

Question 27

What makes a successful strategist in the values framework?

Answer 27

Navigating with credibility between different values

Question 28

What is the purpose of the Constitutive Values Framework?

Answer 28

A tool for considering the value implications and legitimacy of strategy content and process

Question 28

What are key conclusions about the strategy process in pluralistic contexts?

Answer 28

1) Difficult due to the need to compromise divergent values 2) Values are deep-set and integral to culture, mission, vision, and strategy 3) Cultural Web analyzes overt aspects; Constitutive Values Framework uncovers covert aspects