Business Commons^™

The Impact Of Environmental Turbulence On The Strategic Decision-Making Process In Irish Quantity Surveying (Qs) Professional Service Firms (Psfs), Roisin Murphy Dr, Oluwasegun Seriki

Articles

Construction firms operate within a business environment characterized by uncertainty and a lack of predictability, increasing the complexity of strategic decision-making. Construction contractor firms’ strategic response to environmental turbulence is appropriately documented but evidence regarding Construction Professional Service Firms (CPSF’S) remains scarce. CPSF’s are characteristically different from contractor organizations due to the intangibility of services and high knowledge intensity. The purpose of the study is to ascertain the impact of environmental turbulence on strategic decision-making process characteristics in CPSF’s, specifically Irish Quantity Surveying (QS) practices. Using a mixed-methods research strategy, data collected over two dissimilar stages on the economic cycle …

Recognising The Place Of Food Tourism In Ireland: An Autoethnographic Perspective, John D. Mulcahy

Doctoral

This is an autoethnographic account, utilising prior publications, of my role in positioning food as a critical ingredient in Ireland’s tourism policy and strategy since 2009. As the architect and instigator of this project, my priorities were threefold: first, working from the ground up identifying local activists across the food tourism landscape to create an active and vibrant network; second, providing thought leadership for food tourism; and third, encouraging and funding others to conduct and disseminate similar research. I have chosen six book chapters, published as a result of my advocacy strategy, for this PhD by prior publication. They are …

Segmentation Of Quantity Surveying Professional Services For Focus Strategy And Diversification, Michael Adesi, De-Graft Owusu-Manu, Frank Boateng

Articles

Purpose – Notwithstanding that numerous studies have focused on strategy in quantity surveying (QS) professional service firms, there is a paucity of investigation on the segmentation of QS professional services. The purpose of this study is to investigate the segmentation of QS services for diversification and a focus strategy formation.

Design/methodology/approach – This study adopts the positivist stance and quantitative approach in which a simple random sampling technique was used to select participants. In total, 110 survey questionnaires were administered to registered professional QS, out of which 79 completed questionnaires were returned for analysis.

Findings – The paper identifies three …

Social Contagion And Knowledge Acquisition In Construction Professional Service Firms, Oluwasegun O. Seriki, Roisin Murphy

Conference papers

The construction industry in Ireland, including professional service firms (PSF’s) operating therein, are undergoing a period of change and uncertainty driven by economic, demographic, political and technological factors. While considerable evidence exists demonstrating the relationship between environmental turbulence on organisational decision making, there remains a distinct lack of focus on behavioural patterns affecting decision-making process of construction firms. Social contagion (SC) theory asserts that the spread of ideas, attitudes, or behaviour patterns in a group is achieved through imitation and conformity, and is well established within social sciences research, and is increasingly being used to analyse organisational behaviour. However, limited …

Conference Presentation: The Power Of Words In Tension: Enterprise/Strategy As A Dilemma In Neoliberalism’S Persistence., Brendan O'Rourke

Conference papers

We address how enterprise is related to, another important discourse, strategy. From a discourse analysis of the talk of small firm owner-managers, emerges a view of strategy and enterprise as a single, integrated entity, bound together by some commonalities but more importantly by paired opposites reminiscent of ideological dilemmas (Billig, Condor, Edwards, Gane, Middleton & Radley, 1988). This dilemmatic nature of enterprise/strategy discourse adds to explanations for the persistence of the neoliberal form of enterprise, with the entrepreneur as the heroic saviour of all, based on the entrepreneur as an empty signifier (Jones & Spicer, 2009; Kenny & …

The Power Of Words In Tension: Enterprise/Strategy As A Dilemma In Neoliberalism’S Persistence., Brendan O'Rourke

Conference papers

We address how enterprise is related to, another important discourse, strategy. From a discourse analysis of the talk of small firm owner-managers, emerges a view of strategy and enterprise as a single, integrated entity, bound together by some commonalities but more importantly by paired opposites reminiscent of ideological dilemmas (Billig, Condor, Edwards, Gane, Middleton & Radley, 1988). This dilemmatic nature of enterprise/strategy discourse adds to explanations for the persistence of the neoliberal form of enterprise, with the entrepreneur as the heroic saviour of all, based on the entrepreneur as an empty signifier (Jones & Spicer, 2009; Kenny & …

Aligning Strategy And Talent In Creative Professional Service Firms, Deirdre Canavan, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Vincent Mangematin

Articles

Purpose – Reliance on individual talent and motivation renders creative professional service firms (PSFs) highly dependent on their ability to attract and mobilise the right individuals. This paper aims to build an integrated framework showing firstly how creative industry PSFs can differ in their strategy for growth, and secondly how these alternative strategies for growth can influence the firm's approach to organising and the type of talent required.

Design/methodology/approach – The findings are based on a series of interviews with managing directors, senior management and practitioners of architectural organisations in a single country, combined with an extensive literature review.

Findings …

Developing Strategy From The Middle:Subsidiary Strategy And The Role Of The Subsidiary General Manager, Donal O'Brien, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Patrick Gibbons

Conference Papers

The multinational subsidiary is a unique context to study management processes relating to strategy but so far, there has not been a coherent approach identifiable in the literature. It is recognised that subsidiaries evolve over time and through their own actions and initiatives have the potential to modify the power structures of the Multinational Enterprise (MNE) but little is known about the role of the subsidiary manager in this process. We suggest that the tensions between the headquarters perspective and the subsidiary perspective have resulted in the application of inappropriate frameworks to the study of subsidiary managers. This proposal presents …

An Empirical Investigation Of Strategic Planning In Qs Practices, Roisin Murphy

Conference papers

The benefit of engaging in strategic planning has been well documented over several decades of strategic management research. Despite the significant body of existing knowledge in the field, there remains a limited collection of empirically tested research pertaining to strategic planning within professional service firms (PSFs) in construction, particularly from an Irish context.

The research is an exploratory study involving in-depth, semi-structured interviews and a widespread survey of Quantity Surveying (QS) practices in Ireland. The aim of the research is to ascertain the extent of strategic planning undertaken within Irish QS practices, and to gain an insight into the characteristics …

Strategic Activity In The Today’S Multinational Subsidiaries, Donal O'Brien, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Patrick Gibbons

Conference Papers

This working paper presents an ongoing empirical study into strategy development at the subsidiary management level of the Multinational Enterprise (MNE). The multinational subsidiary is a unique context to study management processes relating to strategy but so far, despite the emergence of the concept, there has not been a coherent approach identifiable in the literature. It is recognised that subsidiaries evolve over time and through their own actions and initiatives have the potential to modify the power structures of the Multinational Enterprise (MNE) but little is known about the role of the subsidiary manager in this process. We suggest that …

Can Middle Managers Make A Telling Contribution To Strategy Development In An Organisation, Tony Kealy

Other resources

The role of the middle manager in organisations has been the topic of much research over the past number of decades. Many articles have been published claiming the potential for middle managers to contribute significantly to strategic development. This research attempts to test the validity of this theory with a practical grounding. This research is based on a qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews with four managers in different organisations. The project relies on established typologies for middle management involvement in strategy and middle management activity depending on organisational type.

Aligning Strategy And Talent In Creative Professional Service Firms, Deirdre Mcquillan, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Vincent Mangematin

Articles

Purpose: Reliance on individual talent and motivation renders creative Professional Service Firms (PSFs) highly dependent on their ability to attract and mobilise the right individuals. This paper builds an integrated framework showing firstly how creative industry PSFs can differ in their strategy for growth, and secondly how these alternative strategies for growth can influence the firm’s approach to organising and the type of talent required. Design/methodology/approach: Findings are based on a series of interviews with managing directors, senior management and practitioners of architectural organisations in a single country, combined with an extensive literature review. Findings – Our framework illustrates how …

How Do Organisations Engage In Marketing Strategy Making? A Problemistic Search Perspective, Sarah Browne, Katrina Lawlor, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Laura Cuddihy

Conference papers

Despite the importance of marketing strategy making (MSM) we understand little of how strategy making actually occurs within organisations. Departing from the common focus - on the tools and techniques of strategy– we apply a strategy as practice (SAP) lens to our exploration of MSM. We adopt a problemistic search perspective and utilise an in-depth case study to explore individual’s interactions in developing strategic marketing initiatives. We uncover a three-stage pattern in solution search within MSM; identification of the problem situation and postponing response, to problem recognition and acceptance, to a collective problem solving stage, which we label pre implementation …

Strategic Discourse Across Organizational Meetings:Towards A Systems Perspective., Brendan K. O'Rourke, Martin Duffy

Conference Papers

Strategic Discourse across Organizational meetings: Towards a Systems Perspective Abstract This paper presents a tentative theoretical conception of how organizational meetings may be viewed as a system rather than as individual events. Perspectives from process metaphysics(Langley and Tsoukas, 2010), meso-discourse analysis (Alvesson and Karreman, 2000, 2011) and systems thinking (von Bertalanffy, 1969) are adopted, to explore and expand the theoretical resources available to conceptualise a ‘system of meetings’. The primary data draws from 130+ hours of recorded meeting proceedings, spanning 58 meeting events, from multiple sub-groups within a medium sized company.

In Search Of Theory: Towards An Integrating Conceptual Framework For Subsidiary Research, Donal O'Brien, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Patrick Gibbons

Conference Papers

Despite the importance of the strategic choices taken by subsidiary managers to the long terms survival of their unit, little is known about the phenomenon. (Dörrenbächer & Geppert, 2009, Scott, Gibbons, & Coughlan, 2010). This paper analyses and synthesises the research streams on subsidiary management to date to provide critical conceptual insights and proposes a new theoretical approach to subsidiary analysis, applied to the critical routine of subsidiary strategy. The adoption of more global business structures by MNEs has led to additional strategic constraints on subsidiary managers (Buckley, 2009, Buckley & Ghauri, 2004, Mudambi, 2008), which we categorise as the …

Subsidiary Strategy And The Role Of The Subsidiary Manager : Integrating The Middle Manager Perspective, Donal O'Brien

Conference Papers

Subsidiary strategy is a concept which has emerged in international business literature but research has so far failed to explain how subsidiary managers develop strategy under the constraints of the paradoxical pressures they face in today’s Multinational Enterprises (MNE). On the one hand current trends suggest that (MNE) are developing into more global business structures which are reducing the power and influence of subsidiary managers (Buckley, 2009, Buckley & Ghauri, 2004, Mudambi, 2008). The result of these trends, are that the market orientated aspects of subsidiary strategy are becoming constrained and to some degree taken out of the hands of …

Capacity Rationalisation And Exit Barriers In The Irish Printing Industry, Kathleen Hughes

Conference papers

Decisions regarding capacity and capital investment are among the most critical for firms, as reflected in the extensive literature devoted to this subject. However, substantially less work has been carried out on the decision to disinvest. This is unfortunate as in some situations, such as recessionary times, the main competitive moves pertain to disinvestment, rather than investment. This study aims to contribute to this subject, in particular it aims to identify why industries with a concentrated structure can when proactively rationalise when required, while fragmented ones cannot. Research methodology a case study approach, comprising in-depth interviews with six industry experts …

Emerging Threats For Mnc Subsidiaries And The Cycle Of Decline, Pamela Sharkey Scott, P. T. Gibbons Prof

Articles

Purpose – Subsidiary units have traditionally feared relocation of their activities to lower-cost locations. The authors identify other emerging threats which are changing how multinational corporations (MNCs) manage their subsidiary units, and develop a cycle of subsidiary decline demonstrating how these threats can undermine a subsidiary's position within the MNC.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents the results of a survey targeted at over 1,100 subsidiary CEOs of MNCs located in Ireland, a program of in-depth interviews of 24 subsidiary CEOs/directors, and a review of the literature relating to MNC and subsidiary management, are combined to identify emerging threats to subsidiary …

Dialogue And Roles In A Strategy Workshop: Discovering Patterns Through Discourse Analysis, Martin Duffy

Masters

Strategy workshops are frequently used by Executive management teams to discuss and formulate strategy but are under-researched and under-reported in the academic literature. This study uses Discourse Analysis to discover participant roles and dialogic patterns in an Executive management team’s strategy workshop, together with their effect on the workshop’s operation and outcome. The study shows how the workshop participants adopt different roles through their language and content. It then identifies a dialogic pattern in the workshop discourse, with the emphasis on achieving shared understanding rather than winning the debate. The workshop facilitator’s role is shown to bring discussion as a …

The Sales Organisation: Influencer Or Mere Implementer Of Business Strategy? Investigating The Evolving Role Of Sales Strategy And Processes In Attaining Overall Business Objectives And Goals In International Markets, Sarah Browne, Katrina Lawlor, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Laura Cuddihy

Conference papers

This research will attempt to empirically examine the evolving nature of the sales organisation from a mere tactical support function of marketing, to a strategic capability in its own right and one that perhaps has a salient role to play in attaining overall objectives and goals pertaining to the business level strategy for international markets. The foundations of this research stem from multiple strands of literature including, strategic marketing, strategic management, selling and sales management and business internationalisation. This proposal attempts to locate this early stage research within these important and growing strands of literature and address the under researched …

Subsidiary Entrepreneurship, Strategy Development Processes And Strategic Initiatives, Pamela Sharkey Scott, P. T. Gibbons

Conference Papers

MNCs gain competitive advantage through leveraging initiatives generated by their subsidiary networks. Yet we continue to have limited understanding of the complex conditions which promote initiatives. By integrating the subsidiary entrepreneurship literature and strategy development theory, we argue that the subsidiary’s approach to strategy development mediates the relationship between entrepreneurship and strategic initiative generation. We test our propositions on data generated from surveying the total population of Irish subsidiaries of foreign MNCs. Our findings confirm that an entrepreneurial subsidiary’s engagement in formal strategy development makes it better at generating strategic initiatives. This evidences the need for headquarters to encourage both …

Strategic Planning In Irish Quantity Surveying Practices, Roisin Murphy

Other

No abstract provided.

Examining The Inseparability Of Enterprise And Strategy Discourse, Brendan O'Rourke

Conference papers

Small owner-managed firms are an interesting site in which to examine the deployment of strategy discourse. On the one hand, small firms offer a location where the holistic nature of strategy (Clegg et al., 2004:24; Liedtka, 1998:122; Lilley,2001: 75) is more likely to feature in daily practice On the other hand, owner-managed firms lack a key reason for the original emergence of the strategy discourse i.e. strategy as a discourse of accountability by professional managers to shareholders (Knights & Morgan, 1991). Small firm owner-managers are the ideological heroes of the enterprise discourse (Carr, 2000:101). This work looks at how owner-managers …

E-Learning And Dit’S Strategic Plan, Eileen O' Donnell

Other resources

This presentation explores the question can e-learning be used to enhance the student experience and further prepare students to work in industry?

Supreme Seafoods, Thomas Cooney

Case studies

Fintan Barrett’s four year old daughter would often turn to him while playing and exclaim “what to do, Daddy?” Indeed, this very question of what to do next had frequently swirled around his own head as he considered the options that were now available to him and his business Supreme Seafoods. Some commentators had described the recent economic crisis as ‘a perfect storm’ and that analogy was particularly apt for someone operating in the fish industry. Although Fintan’s family had worked in the fishing industry for many generations, whether out at sea or processing and selling fish on land, the …

Developing Subsidiary Contribution To The Mnc:Subsidiary Entrepreneurship And Strategy Creativity, Pamela Sharkey Scott, P. T. Gibbons Prof, Joseph Coughlan

Conference Papers

Despite its theoretical and managerial significance, subsidiary entrepreneurship and its effects on subsidiary contribution remain underexplored in the literature. We propose that subsidiary entrepreneurship encourages more creative strategic responses to escalating environmental change. We explore the direct and mediating effects of subsidiary entrepreneurship on subsidiary contribution to the MNC, particularly subsidiary strategy creativity. We use structural equation modelling to test our propositions on data generated from surveying the population of Irish subsidiaries of foreign MNCs, and find strong support for our theoretical predictions. The managerial implications of subsidiary entrepreneurship in generating creative strategy, prompting strategic initiatives and improving performance are …

A Study Into Developing Strategies For Internationally Competitive Irish-Owned Consumer Brands, Aidan O'Curry

Masters

The objectives of this study centre on researching the complexities inherent within the development of Irish owned consumer brands. This is with particular emphasis on the international development of Irish brands and the ways by which International success can be realized. There has been a notable lack of Irish successes in International markets since that achieved by brands such as Guiness, Bailey’s, and Kerrygold. Through examinination of the literature on branding and contextualization of the study considering the Irish business environment, the research aims to explore ways in which indigenous Irish brands can grow and achieve international success. The first …

Exploring The Discourses Of Small Enterprise Proprietors, Brendan O'Rourke, Martyn Pitt

Conference papers

Over the last three decades the discourses of strategy and enterprise have developed significantly in the context of large corporate organizations and increasingly within and for the public sector. The discourses of strategy and enterprise have developed in relationship with each other and are generative of various attributes and dilemmas for the identity of the strategist/entrepreneur. This study looks at how these important discourses are deployed by small enterprise proprietors in periodical publishing in Ireland as they construct their business identities with one of the authors. Interview data from one proprietor is subjected to a discourse analysis drawing particularly on …

Strategy Development Processes And Subsidiary Contribution, Pamela Sharkey Scott, P. T. Gibbons

Conference Papers

Intensifying international competition, increasing volatility, and systemic technological and political transformations (Dunning, 1995; Hitt, Keats and DeMarie, 1998) constitute the current competitive landscape for organisational activities (Sampler, 1998). To successfully adapt to these challenges and find new ways to renew fast obsolescing firm-specific advantage (Buckley and Casson, 1976; 1998) a more holistic approach to organisational management is emerging. This involves the integration of the traditional strategic management or advantage seeking perspective with the more innovative or opportunity seeking dimensions of entrepreneurship (Hitt et al, 1998). Developing a culture of creating or identifying opportunities and exploiting them is fundamental to entrepreneurship …

Strategy Development Processes And Organisational Performance, Pamela Sharkey Scott, P. T. Gibbons Prof

Conference Papers

A recent resurgence in both academic and practitioner interest on strategy development processes and their influence on organisational performance highlights the absence of empirical studies in this area, particularly from an MNC perspective. This study attempts to fill this important gap by applying a multifaceted conceptualisation of the strategy development process to the subsidiary level of analysis. A broad perspective on the effectiveness of strategy making is adopted and measures of contribution examined include financial and market performance, international responsibility, initiative generation and strategy creativity.

Interesting insights into subsidiary behaviour and specifically into the strategy development styles of subsidiaries are …