Linking corporate strategy to operations : a critical review of Prof. Kaplan’s theories and the development of a best-practice approach.

The rising speed of change in global frameworks drives international companies into a non-stop changing organization with the need of generating optimal revenues under changing conditions. Regarding to the need to be a flexible and competitive organization the value of a vision and a perfectly streamed strategy to this vision becomes a main success factor for global business. The trend for the need of development of a clear and constant strategy is equally rising with the trend of globalization and intercontinental business companies and therefor the business of strategy consulting rises constantly from the late 1990. Most of the strategy consulting companies concentrate their business on consulting companies with strategy and vision ideas and concepts with the focus on the innovation of new products and services to conquer new markets or to optimize their organizations and processes. The main focus is to provide a strategy concept with respect to cross knowledge of other industries and a set of standardized consulting methods out of their own experience or provided by research departments connected to business universities and institutes. The topic of how this strategy concept is linked to the operation business of the company is nearly never presented by these strategy consulting companies. So the result of the consulting projects is a well-defined and worked-out strategy concept, proven by the leader board but without any concept, set of methods or any approach how to realize the ideas of the concept in the “real world”. Prof. Kaplan realized this lack in the business world and provided several research papers and extended books to support companies with solutions solving this problem. Especially his latest work “The execution premium” concentrates his research on the topic how to link worked-out strategies to operations for competitive advantages. The first aim of the dissertation is to review and analyze the theories from Prof. Kaplan, focusing on “the execution premium”. As the second aim the dissertation will document the execution of his provided concepts and methods in a “real-life” experiment followed by a gap analysis of the experiment with respect to Kaplan´s theories. Finally the heart of the dissertation will be the development of a best-practice approach to fill up selected gaps and provide a general and integrated approach including a seamless-linked method tool kit for the realization of strategies in companies focusing on the field of executing the strategic initiatives

Was heißt "Politisierung von Expertise"?

'Kontroversen um die Biomedizin sind durch normative Unsicherheit geprägt und werden als Wertkonflikte verhandelt. Dies stellt für die Politik eine erhebliche Herausforderung dar. Denn es besteht kein gesellschaftlicher Konsens darüber, was wir (nicht) wissen und tun sollten. Als politische Reaktion können wir eine Institutionalisierung von ethischer Expertise beobachten. In diesem Beitrag wird aus wissenschaftssoziologischer Perspektive Politikberatung durch Ethikkommissionen am Beispiel Österreichs analysiert. Die These lautet, dass die politische Verwertung von Ethik-Expertise deren Subsumtion unter die eigensinnigen Handlungslogiken des Politik-Systems bedeutet ('Politisierung von Expertise'). In der politischen Rezeption wird Expertise neu konfiguriert, um eine Übereinstimmung zwischen (divergierenden) ExpertInnenmeinungen und politischen Zielvorstellungen herzustellen. Politisches Lernen lässt sich vor diesem Hintergrund allenfalls als ein strategischer Umgang mit dem ExpertInnendissens beschreiben. Abschließend wird dargestellt, dass die Politisierung von Expertise mit einer Entpolitisierung bioethischer Fragen zusammenhängt.' (Autorenreferat)'Controversies about biomedicine are characterised by moral uncertainty; they are negotiated as value conflicts. This presents a considerable challenge for politics because in modern societies there is no consent about what we should (not) know and do. The political response to this problem is the institutionalisation of ethics expertise. With respect to Austria the author will analyse the ethics councils' policy advice from an STS perspective. He will argue that the political utilisation of expertise means to subsume it under the particular operation principles of the political system ('politicisation of expertise'). During its political utilisation, expertise is reconfigured in a way as to establish an identity between the experts' opinions and political objectives. Against this background policy learning can be described, at best, as a strategic use of expert dissent. Finally, the author will show that the politicisation of expertise is closely connected to a de-politicisation of bioethical issues.' (author's abstract)

Besseres Nichtwissen. Die offene Gesellschaft und ihre Expertenintellektuellen

Die Soziologie hat sich seit jeher durch die Sozialfiguren des Intellektuellen und des Experten fasziniert gezeigt, wobei man oft von einem Antagonismus zwischen diesen beiden ›Aristokratien des Geistes‹ (Gehlen) ausging. In jüngerer Zeit sind Intellektuellen und Experten – als moderne Exponenten besseren Wissens – durch vielfältige Prozesse unter Druck geraten. Die Pluralisierung von Kritik und das ›Ende der Utopie‹, Spezialisie­rung und die zunehmende Bürokratisierung der Universität, konkurrierende Expertise und die Öffnung der Wissenschaft für Partizipationsansprüche aus der Zivilgesellschaft verweisen auf die Grenzen einer charismatischen bzw. autoritativen Wissenspolitik. Im Zeitalter des ›Jedermann-Experten‹ und der ›virtuellen Schwarm-Intellektuellen‹ lässt sich der Anspruch auf besseres Wissen nur reflexiv und dialogisch begründen – über die Thematisierung seiner Grenzen und Unsicherheiten, über die Darstellung verbleibenden Nichtwissens und fortbestehenden Dissenses, im Dialog mit zivilgesellschaftlichen Akteuren und im Kollektiv. Damit nähern sich die Kompetenz- und Anforderungsprofile von Experten und Intellektuellen einander an. Es ist die Stunde des Expertenintellektuellen

Participation as a Laboratory Experiment. Paradoxes of Deliberation on Technology Issues by Lay People

Die Forderung nach Partizipation stellt gerade im Bereich der Technologiepolitik einen anhaltenden Trend dar. Im Zuge ihrer Verwirklichung hat sich ein weitläufiger Methodenkanon partizipativer Technikbewertung entwickelt. In diesen Verfahren sollen Personen beteiligt werden, die ansonsten nicht in Prozesse der Technikbewertunginvolviert sind. Diese Laienpartizipation realisiert sich in aktuell relevanten Technologiekontexten – so die hier vertretene These – charakteristischerweise als Laborexperiment. Das heißt: Die von Partizipationsprofis organisierte und unter kontrollierten Bedingungen stattfindende Beteiligung von Laien vollzieht sich weitgehend ohne Bezug auf öffentliche Kontroversen, politische Teilhabebestrebungen und individuelle Betroffenheiten. Anhand empirischer Studien wird gezeigt, dass diese Laborpartizipation in der Praxis zu paradoxen Effekten führt: Die erfolgreiche Durchführung des Experiments resultiert in einer systematischen Enttäuschung jener Hoffnungen auf Rationalitätsgewinne, die typischerweise mit Laienbeteiligung verbunden sind. Abschließend wird dieses Ergebnis auf soziologische Debatten bezogen, die unter den Stichworten „Gesellschaft als Labor“ und „Realexperimente“ gelaufen sind. Unter diesem Gesichtspunkt lässt sich eine paradoxe Entwicklung konstatieren: Einer Wissensproduktion, der die gesamte Gesellschaft zum Labor wird, entspricht eine Teilhabepraxis, die sich aus der Gesellschaft ins Labor zurückzieht.Calls for participation have been ubiquitous in technology policy. Attempts at realization have developed a varied methodological canon for the participatory assessment of technology in order to involve persons usually not active in assessment procedures. The present contribution claims that lay participation typically materializes as a kind of laboratory experiment. This implies that lay participation as currently organized by professionals under controlled conditions is rarely linked to public controversies, to the pursuit of political participation, or to individual concerns. Empirically, this laboratory participation leads to paradoxical effects: successfully carrying out an experiment leads to systematic disappointment with respect to the hope for gains in rationality which are typically expected of lay participation. This result is discussed in terms of recent sociological debates about “society as a laboratory” and “Realexperimente”. From this perspective, a further paradox becomes apparent: the production of knowledge, in which society as a whole turns into a laboratory, correlates with a practice of withdrawing participation from society into the laboratory

Precaution, Responsible Innovation and Beyond – In Search of a Sustainable Agricultural Biotechnology Policy

The recent ruling by the European Court of Justice on gene edited plants highlighted regulatory inadequacy as well as a decades-old political problem, namely how to reconcile diverging expectations regarding agricultural biotechnology in Europe. Over time, regulators had tried out various tools to address concerns and overcome implementation obstacles. While initially focussing on risk (with the Precautionary Principle), they later tried to better embed technology in society (e.g., through Responsible Research and Innovation). The PP got criticized early-on; meanwhile, it seems to have lost much of its salience. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is associated with problems of participation and political impact, often rendering it a public awareness tool only. We discuss problems with both approaches and conclude that also RRI falls short of facilitating technology implementation in the way regulators might have had in mind. Rather than leaving political decisions to technical risk assessment or ethics and public awareness, we argue for re-establishing a broad yet sober process of opinion formation and informed decision-making in agricultural policy

The choice between a ritonavir-boosted protease inhibitor- and a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor-based regimen for initiation of antiretroviral treatment - results from an observational study in Germany

Background: This study aims at identifying predictors of the treatment decision of German physicians with regard to a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) or a ritonavir-boosted protease inhibitor (PI/r) -based initial treatment regimen. Methods: The study is based on a sub analysis of a nation-wide multi-centre, non-interventional, prospective cohort study. 133 patients were identified, who received antiretroviral first-line therapy. By means of a logistic regression, factors that determine the treatment strategy for treatment-naïve patients were analysed. Results: Compared to patients receiving a NNRTI-based initial regimen, patients treated with PI/r are slightly younger, less educated, in a later stage of HIV and have more concomitant diseases. Regression analysis revealed that being in a later stage of HIV (CDC-C) is significantly associated with a PI/r-based treatment decision. Conclusions: Our analysis is the first study in Germany investigating sociodemographic and disease-specific parameters associated with a NNRTI- or a PI/r-based initial treatment decision. The results confirm that the treatment decision for a PI/r strategy is associated with disease severity