The contemplation of the reorganisations of the Australian Defence Group of departments over the past 34 years led to a notion that for organisations operating in turbulent environments there may exist a hypothetical re1ationship between perceived environmental uncertainty and organised complexity. This hypothetica1 relationship is described as 'coping' and is based on an assumption that in an organisational setting, individuals make some form of response to changes in their environment and this response is manifest in organisational change. The notion of this hypothetical relationship also led to the development of two 'ideal type' models - the Coping Model and the Overload Model. The application of contingency theory through the Overload Model showed that the State of an Organisation could be defined acccrdicg to its mode of existence in relation to some optimal level of information processing and some optimal level of organised complexity. A typology of ths States of Organisations has been derived from the Overload Model and design strategies which are appropriate to each state have been ranked according to an ordinal preference scale. The 'ideal type' models have allowed subjectively weighted judgements to be made about the present state of the Defence organisation and the ranking of design strategies to avoid the perceived undesirable state of overload. The Department of Defence is now imputed to be in a state of 'disorganisation'. The Overload Model suggests that there has been an over-investment in vertical information systems at the expense of lateral relations. The policy-making implication of this suggestion is that the state of 'overload' can be avoided through a reduction in organised complexity and the creation of lateral relations. This can be achieved if the Central Office is restructured to reduce the number of committees and if appropriate co-ordinating representatives are placed in the Service Offices.

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:51:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 61060100568.pdf.jpg: 18399 bytes, checksum: f82bfec86544c0f12a5ebdb3aef6631e (MD5) 61060100568.pdf: 792066 bytes, checksum: 0bcb9e00755d9fbc4f06bcc39488063b (MD5) 61060100568.pdf.txt: 324684 bytes, checksum: f09264179ea4b0717c8e43bef29fb9c4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-07-18T00:00:00Z / This dissertation deals with strategy of family firms in turbulent environments, aiming to particularly explore two research questions: (1) how do family businesses from traditional family sectors consider the impact of environmental turbulences over the industry’s family dimension?; (2) which is the family firms’ strategic behavior, considering their family dimension, in a turbulent environment? Strategy in turbulent contexts has been studied for more than two decades. However, the focus on the family businesses’ strategic behavior in this kind of context is still unexplored on the literature. Based on two case studies, one in a large company and another in a small one, and on an inductive approach, the research questions were explored. The Brazilian sugar-ethanol sector, during the period 2003-2008, is the context for this research. Beyond being traditionally composed by family firms, this industry is characterized by significant turbulences, during the period, especially due to demand growth and to the expectation related to a bigger improvement in the near future. The turbulent environment is completed by pressures on the companies’ operational scale, new entrants, new investments and consolidation movements. The results show that the main impacts on the family dimension are pressures for family firms’ professionalization and for the owner’s mindset change, especially in respect to funding and control solutions. These pressures have the potential to create generalized movements among the industry’s family firms, making the results an important contribution for the understanding about turbulences. For the family firms’ strategic behavior in turbulent environments, the results suggest, first, that strategies in this kind of environment include the family dimension, which is greatly related to control consolidation and professionalization solutions, considering rules for succession among other factors. Professionalization in family firms in turbulent environments can have functional or symbolic roles, including the company’s exposure to external stakeholders. Finally, the results show that the studied companies’ strategies, in relation to professionalization, are a set of elements conceived by diverse theoretical perspectives (agency theory, firm’s growth theory, stewardship theory and resourcebased view). Through these theories, it is possible to better understand the main components from each strategy, being pro or against professionalization. / Este trabalho trata da estratégia de empresas familiares em ramos turbulentos, procurando explorar especialmente duas questões: (1) como empresas familiares situadas em ramo tradicionalmente familiar contemplam o possível impacto de turbulências setoriais sobre a dimensão familiar do ramo?; (2) qual o comportamento estratégico de empresas familiares, considerando sua dimensão familiar, num ambiente turbulento? A estratégia em contextos turbulentos tem sido objeto de pesquisa há pouco mais de duas décadas. O foco, no entanto, no comportamento estratégico das empresas familiares, nesse tipo de contexto, é ainda inédito na literatura. Através de dois estudos de caso, com uma empresa de grande porte e uma de pequeno porte, e sob uma abordagem indutiva de teoria, as questões foram exploradas. O ramo sucro-alcooleiro brasileiro, no período de 2003 a 2008, foi o contexto adotado para desenvolver o trabalho. Além de ser tradicionalmente formado por empresas familiares, o setor é marcado, no período citado, por turbulências, especialmente em relação ao crescimento da demanda e à expectativa de maior crescimento no futuro próximo. O ambiente turbulento é completado por pressões para aumento da escala das empresas do ramo, atração de entrantes, novos investimentos na capacidade de operação e movimentos de consolidação. Os resultados indicam que os principais impactos do ambiente turbulento na dimensão familiar do ramo são pressões para a profissionalização das empresas familiares e para a mudança no mindset dos controladores dessas empresas, especialmente no tocante a soluções de funding e de controle. Essas pressões têm potencial de gerarem movimentos generalizados entre as empresas familiares do ramo, tornando os resultados uma contribuição importante ao entendimento das turbulências. Quanto ao comportamento estratégico das empresas familiares no contexto turbulento, os resultados sugerem, primeiramente, que a dimensão familiar faz parte das estratégias dessas empresas nesse tipo de ambiente e está, em grande medida, relacionada a soluções de consolidação do controle e de profissionalização, incluindo o estabelecimento de regras de sucessão. A profissionalização de empresas familiares em ambientes turbulentos pode ter um papel funcional ou simbólico, de exposição da empresa para stakeholders externos. Por fim, os resultados mostram que as estratégias das empresas estudadas, no que tocante à profissionalização, são a composição de elementos previstos por diferentes perspectivas teóricas (teoria da agência, teoria do crescimento da firma, stewardship theory e resource-based view), sendo possível analisar, através de tais perspectivas, os componentes que mais se destacam em cada estratégia, sejam favoráveis ou contrários à profissionalização.

Bakgrund och problem: Vikten av de snabbväxande företagens påverkan på marknaden är något som på senare tid fått extra uppmärksamhet. Andelen snabbväxande företag i Sverige är hög jämfört med andra länder, men bara en liten del lyckas fortsätta överleva på lång sikt. Detta sker på grund av att företagen befinner sig i föränderliga miljöer som många av dessa snabbväxande företagen inte lyckas anpassa sig till samt klara av utmaningarna som uppstår vid tillväxt.   Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att få en djupare förståelse för hur omgivningen påverkar styrningen i snabbväxande företag som befinner sig i föränderliga miljöer. Vidare sökes en förståelse kring hur företagen agerar för att växa och hur tillväxten påverkar utvecklingen av styrningen i företagen.   Metod: Baserat på syftet och de valda forskningsfrågorna valdes en flerfallstudie som forskningsdesign. De tre fallen som valdes består av svenska företag som under en kort period upplevt en mycket hög tillväxt. Semistrukturerade intervjuer valdes för insamling av empirin.   Slutsats: Studiens resultat tyder på att externa faktorer såsom digitalisering, konjunkturförändringar, politik och media har tvingat företagen att utvecklas från tidigare arbetssätt till en tydligare planering av verksamheten. De valda strategierna för snabb tillväxt är att antingen öka försäljningen eller expandera geografiskt. Det konstaterades att externa faktorer som politiska beslut kan möjliggöra tillväxten samt interna faktorer som viljan för tillväxt och kompetens driver tillväxten framåt. Dessutom konstaterades legitimitet vara en intern faktor som möjliggör tillväxt. / Background and problem: The importance of the influence of fast-growing companies in the market is something that has recently received extra attention. The proportion of fast-growing companies in Sweden is high compared to other countries, but only a small number manage to survive in the long term. This is due to the fact that companies are in turbulent environments that many of these fast-growing companies are unable to adapt to and meet the challenges posed by growth.   Purpose: The aim of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of how the environment affects the governance of fast-growing companies that are in changing environments. Furthermore, an understanding is sought of how companies act to grow and how growth affects the development of corporate governance.   Method: A multiple case study was selected as a research design based on the purpose and the selected research questions. The three cases selected consist of Swedish companies that experienced very high growth in a short period. Semi-structured interviews were selected for the collection of the empirical data.   Conclusion: The study's findings indicate that external factors such as digitalization, business cycles, politics and the media have forced companies to evolve from previous work methods to a formal planning of the business. The chosen strategies for rapid growth are to either increase sales or expand geographically. It was found that external factors such as political decisions may enable growth as well as internal factors such as the will for growth and competence to drive growth. In addition, legitimacy was found to be an internal factor enabling growth.