Strategies for Growth and Competitiveness

Lecture 1, 14/8

What is strategy?

Strategy is setting long term plans in order to reach goals set for the company or even a person. In business strategy, the companies will need a certain type of strategy to reach their preferred goals or targets of their operations. A strategy will have to be chosen based on the contents of the goals, and the type of operation you are running to be effective. Such plans might include a certain way of using of resources and manpower.

Main perspectives(schools) in strategy:

Prescriptive schools(perspectives):

Design (Strategy formation as a process of conception) - 1960s - 1970s.

Planning (Strategy formation as a formal process) – Mid 1960s – Start of 1980s.

Positioning (Strategy formation as an analytical process) – 1980s – Present.

Design school:

SWOT

Planning school:

SWOT

Not as simple strategies as the design school. More planning and steps to take before configuring and implementing strategies. Considered too formal.

Positioning school:

SWOT

Porters five forces  Affects objectives and goals  Before constructing a fitting strategy.

Strategy was no longer unique for each organization. One strategy can fit many organizations.

- Generic strategies (Cost focus or differentiation)

- Product – Market position

Industry analysis:

Deciding who will get what(5 forces). – How big will your part of the cake be?

Lecture 2 – 16/8

Forming impressions about others

Personal constructs

- Idiosyncratic and personal ways of characterizing other people.

Implicit personality theories

- General principles about what sorts of characteristics go together(for instance, intelligent people are friendly, self confident)

Stereotypes

- Widely shared and simplified evaluative image of a social group and its members.

Schema

- A set of interrelated cognitions (thoughts, beliefs), that allows us to quickly make sense of a person, situation, event or a place on the basis of limited information(filling in missing details).

- In general, components that are important in our self-schema are also important in the schematic perception of others.

- People are enormously resistant to schema-disconfirming information, which they generally disregard or reinterpret.

Prototypes

- Cognitive representation of the typical/ideal defining features of a category.

- In general, people are more likely to rely on intermediate-level categories than those that are very inclusive or those that are very exclusive.

Identity

It is likely that we all have multiple identities.

Personal identity: Defines self in terms of idiosyncratic personal relationships and traits.

Social identity: Defines self in terms of group membership. Social identities derive from group membership and comparisons with other groups – subordinate goals that focus exclusively on what groups have in common can threaten a groups distinctiveness.

Such threats can lead to increased attempts to differentiate one´s group from the other, and to an increased bias against the other group.

According to symbolic interactionism, the self arises out of human interaction.

Looking glass self

- The self derived from seeing ourselves as others see us.

Self awareness

- People do not spend all their time thinking about the self.

- Duval and Wicklund (1972) believe that self-awareness is a state in which you are aware of yourself as an object.

- Carver and Scheier (1981) distinguish between two types of self one can be aware of:

1. The private self (your private thoughts, feelings and attitudes)

2. The public self (how other people see you, your public image)

Markus and Nurius (1986) have suggested that we have an array of possible selves – future oriented schemas of what we would like to become, or what we fear we might become.

Self discrepancy theory(Higgins, 1987) – We have three types of self schemas:

1. Actual self. (How we currently are)

2. Ideal self (How we would like to be)

3. Ought self (How we think we should be)

The self comparisons reveal self-discrepancies, that if persist, can lead to disappointment, dissatisfaction and sadness.

Identity conflicts

- Characteristics of identity conflicts. (the symptoms and inner workings of these conflicts)