Balanced scorecard and hoshin kanri: dynamic capabilities for managing strategic fit

Purpose - The paper seeks to combine the uses of the balanced scorecard and hoshin kanri as integrative dynamic capabilities for the entire strategic management process. It aims to posit a model for the combination of these long- and short-term organisational activities as a framework for a senior level to manage a firm's strategic fit as an integrated organisation-wide system that links top management goals to daily management. Design/rnethodology/approach - The resource-based view of strategy is explored for its relevance to how a combined balanced scorecard and hoshin kanri approach serves as a high-order dynamic capability. Examples are given from Canon, Toyota and Nissan, of how core capabilities are managed to show how strategy is executed cross-functionally across a firm's functional hierarchy. Findings - The study finds that strategic management of the organisation should consider the long-term strategy as well as the short-term capability. Important to this are core capabilities and core competences, cross-functional management, and top executive audits, which, when managed properly, explicate a new view of strategic fit, as a form of nested hierarchies of dynamic capabilities. Originality/value - The paper is the first exposition of how balanced scorecard and hoshin kanri practices may usefully complement each other in strategic management. It is a useful framework for dynamically managing sustained competitive advantage

Proliferation and Propagation of Breakthrough Performance Management Theories and Praxes

The articles included in this special issue look broadly at the proliferation (widespread) and propagation (deliberate attempt to implant in other disciplines/contexts) of breakthrough (significant, high impact, renowned) performance management theories and praxes (cf. practices, for its acceptability and custom use)

Back to the Future of Women in Technology: Insights from Understanding the Shortage of Women in Innovation Sectors for Managing Corporate Foresight

This paper investigates why there is a shortage of women in innovation, such as science, particularly technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) sectors and offers insights for managing corporate foresight. It acknowledges that traditional corporate foresight methodologies have their own inherent problems, but argues that greater inclusion of women brings in new dimensions not previously recognised within the predominantly male-dominated technology sector. While extant feminist research may look at the general disadvantages women have in the workplace, few have examined the genesis and constitution of femininity to understand what new input can be brought innovation management, and how these different views can change the conduct of corporate foresight in the technology sector. Interviews from five senior personnel in the technology sector were conducted, and responses to a concise questionnaire involving 365 participants were obtained. Three case-rich narratives are presented as a summary on the future of women in technology

Managing the Survivor Syndrome as Scenario Planning Methodology … and it Matters!

The importance of foresight is discussed in relation to why traditional scenario planning methodology is problematic at achieving it. The ‘survivor syndrome’ is borrowed from the human resources literature and presented as a metaphor for foresight to illustrate how better ‘scenarios’ can be achieved by understanding the syndrome better. A practice perspective is given on the use of a 7-theme framework as a method of interviewing survivors. The article draws from an empirical research that took place during the 2008 global financial crisis to illustrate the richness of the insights that would otherwise not be obtainable through scenario planning methods that do not involve ‘survivors’. In that research, semi-structured interviews were employed with key personnel at multiple levels of one private and one public organization that had undergone a redundancy process at the time of the crisis to explore its effect on the remaining workforce. The ‘survivor syndrome’ itself would be minimized if managers consider the feelings of survivors with more open communication. Survivors in private firms were found generally to experience anxiety, but are more likely to remain more motivated, than their counterparts in the public sector. These detailed insights create more accurate ‘scenarios’ in scenario planning exercises. Organizational performance can be better enhanced if the survivor syndrome can be better managed. In turn, scenario planning, as a form of organizational foresight, is better practiced through managing the survivor syndrome. Scenario planning methodology has proliferated well in the human resource management literature

Strategic Agility Orientation? The Impact of CEO Duality on Corporate Entrepreneurship in Privatized Vietnamese Firms

This study examines the impact of CEO duality (a chief executive operating chair of board and leader of a firm) of newly privatized Vietnamese firms on the level of corporate entrepreneurship; this understanding is used to throw light on the extent to which a position of strategic agility is achieved. Specifically, does CEO duality enable firms to keep consistent with their vision, while remaining flexible in their business model? Data from a survey of 114 CEOs of board and top management team members in privatized firms in Vietnam were collected and examined through a combination of agency theory and stewardship theory. The research finds that CEO duality does not necessarily lead to a higher degree of entrepreneurial activity in privatized Vietnamese firms. The results have policy implications for shaping corporate governance, and management implications for firms striving to be competitive, in ways that advance corporate entrepreneurship in economies such as Vietnam that are both emerging and pursuing privatization

The Relationship of Strategic Performance Management to Team Strategy Company Performance and Organizational Effectiveness

Purpose – The purpose of this editorial is to introduce the special issue on the relationship of strategic performance management to team strategy, company performance and organizational effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach – The paper explains each of the components in this relationship before introducing the problematic issues regarding this relationship and where the gaps are missing in the extant literature; hence the need for the special issue is justified. Findings – The paper finds that the concluding remarks are offered to suggest that strategic performance management can take place at top management, middle management, or strategic operations levels, and the their impact on team strategy, company performance and organizational effectiveness can be regarded as a special phenomenon, termed “strategic team performance management”. Originality/value – This editorial provides an overview of this compilation which comprises five original papers that are examples of latest developments in this research area, and each of these articles contains a brief introduction on how they contribute to filling in gaps in the literature

Dynamic Capabilities for Strategic Team Performance Management: The Case of Nissan

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain how hoshin kanri (policy management) is used as a higher order dynamic capability at Nissan. The paper also seeks to examine the role of top executive audits as part of the FAIR strategy execution process to develop core competences as part of team management. Design/methodology/approach – The research used semi-retrospective ethnographic case summaries recorded by an active manager involved in the implementation process of the researched organizational phenomenon. These documented observations were triangulated against internally published company reports and those made public, and any externally published documentation about Nissan. Findings – The paper finds that the use of a top executive audit (TEA) as a part of hoshin kanri, works as a high-order dynamic capability according to Teece et al. . Hoshin kanri is premised on a strong reliance on teamwork, and the effectiveness of teams is a major contributory factor to organizational performance. It works well because TEAs are a special form of organizational audit of lower-level operations against top-level strategy (i.e. it is a strategic review framework). Originality/value – How Nissan's business philosophies and methodologies are managed as core capabilities is explored. TEAs, as a key component of hoshin kanri, are examined as a strategic team performance management system

Benchmarking Service Quality in UK Electricity Distribution Networks

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the evolution and development of customer service performance measures in the electricity sector since privatization in 1989, and then examine the impact of a specific recent energy regulatory requirement (known as information and incentives project (IIP)) on the organizational management of an exemplar electricity distribution company. Also discussed is how the sector has tried to learn from benchmarks from a number of such literary disciplines as economics, marketing service quality, and total quality management. Design/methodology/approach – The research first presents a survey of the historical development of performance standards based on archival documentation. It is then augmented by the employment of a longitudinal “tracer study”, involving the isolation and firsthand real time qualitative observations of a company’s key strategic and operational activities, to understand how they related to the other organizational phenomena at large. This process spanned an investigative period of two years. Findings – The paper finds that much of the early standards used in electricity immediately after the sector’s privatization rested much on those in the water and gas safety sectors, which themselves were then admittedly inadequate in UK. The IIP, a complementary set of service quality standards, worked on these early problems, but the implementation of the new scheme proved problematic and warranted major organizational reengineering, as shown in the exemplar company, ElectriCo. IIP has impacted on organizational management mostly in the areas of: higher-level strategic change, causing noticeable internal confusion during strategic transitions, building a performance management system, improvements in performance data, and establishing more effective ways for management. Research limitations/implications – While the case example used in the research is a regional monopoly and is a good representation of the context in which the service standards operate, the findings are limited to the one company. It is a UK specific context without international comparison. Originality/value – The research has combined archival research with an innovative firsthand methodological approach (tracer studies). Its value is in how the story of service standards in electricity (and specifically distribution) has been augmented from the early customer service standards to the most recent IIP considerations. It also looks from within the company, which has been missing in longstanding research in the more traditional disciplines such as economics

Report on Customer Service Performance Measures in UK Network Industries: Squeezing Hard to Improve Quality

Literature on performance measurement systems reached great heights in the late-1980s, and challenges of the traditional financial performance indicators being inadequate for measuring what is most representative of organisation-wide operations in the 1990s. This paper provides a descriptive consideration on the customer service aspect of performance measures, as imposed by the economic regulators of water and sewerage services, electricity (supply, distribution and transmission), gas (supply and transmission) and telecommunications. This paper is also offers a detailed description of the evolution and performance of the companies within these network industries, indicating any emerging trends behind the patterns that explain the operational effectiveness and implications to which the data draw our attention. The observations on the published performance measurement data indicate a general trend of improvement over time in the performance of all companies in all the industries. The greatest rate of improvement is most obvious in the earlier years of the Standards being established, nearer to the time o