The central aim of the research was to evaluate the applicability of the normative strategic planning (SP) model in the context of the small manufacturing firm. A normative SP paradigm was developed from a review of the relevant literature and this was further refined through a review of the existing body of knowledge in the small business area and the attendant strategy and planning issues. To test the paradigm, in-depth studies were conducted in a sample of four small manufacturing enterprises and in each case, three strategic changes were jointly identified by the researcher and the respective managing directors. The studies were longitudinal in nature and were designed to measure the relevance and utility of the rational planning model in such businessesT. he methodsu sed compriseds en-&structuredin terviews and observation techniques and the changes were analysed to identify the factors that drove them. From this analysis, a more refined model was developed which integrated the change factors identified from the literature review and the change factors from the field-work. A particularly dominant concept emerged from the field-work, that of flexibility in the pursuit of emerging opportunities, a concept present in eight of the twelve changes. The work contributes to the existing body of knowledge by determining the part played by the rational planning (RP) model; by establishing how strategic changes are triggered, assesseda nd implementedi n the researchedc ompaniesa nd by building a more relevant model that might prove useful in a broader selection of small businesses. A key apriori assumption proposed inter alia that the RP model would be of little practical use in small business( SB) environments.T he main perceivedw eaknesseso f the RP model were considered to be the data requirements and associated data analysis resources thought rarely to be found in SBs and the capability of actually generating and sustaining radically new strategies. From the analysis of the 12 changes, the influence of the RP model was found to be minimal.

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This research examines the Supreme Court's agenda setting behavior. Specifically, I examine the impact of the external environment on the Supreme Court's certiorari process. It is hypothesized that the Court's behavior during this process is conditional upon: 1) its ideological relationship to Congress and the public, and 2) the types of issues before the Court. I argue that the Court behaves strategically, and that as the Court's ideological distance from other actors increases, it will be more likely to structure its agenda in favor of issues that fall within the Court's domain. Conversely, it is argued that the Court would be less likely to focus on issues within the congressional domain as this distance increases. The results indicate that the Court is engaging in strategic behavior in that the agenda setting process is contingent upon issue type, the Court's relationship to Congress, and the Court's relationship to the public.

The first chapter studies the strategic timing of irreversible investments when returns depend on an uncertain state of the world. Agents learn about the state through privately observed signals, as well as from each other's actions and experience. In this environment there is the possibility of learning feedback in which an agent's present action affects how much she can learn from the other agent's experience in the future. I characterize symmetric mixed-strategy equilibria, and show that private information mitigates free-riding and increases efficiency if the prior belief about the state is not too low, but that it may lead to inefficient over-investment otherwise. The second chapter examines the effect of trade opportunities on a seller's incentive to acquire information through experimentation. I characterize the unique equilibrium outcome, and discuss the effects of variations in the information structure on the probability of trade. The main result is that more accurate information for the buyer can reduce social welfare. Efficiency requires that the buyer offers a price that the seller always accepts and that the seller experiments when it is socially optimal to do so. When the buyer receives an informative signal about positive experimentation outcomes, the absence of such a signal can induce the buyer to purchase the good with low but known quality at a low price. If the buyer receives an informative signal about negative experimentation outcomes, the seller might not experiment so as to avoid the risk of generating an outcome that could trigger the buyer to reduce her offer. The third chapter analyzes the contracting problem of a principal who delegates research to two independently experimenting agents. The features of the optimal contract depend on the principal's preferences over the agents' successes. If successes are substitutes, the first agent to produce a success receives the greatest reward. The competition for the first success benefits the principal because it reduces the agents' incentive to delay their effort. In contrast, when successes are complements, the reward for the second success is greater which results in a second mover advantage that encourages agents to delay effort.

Appreciative Inquiry is a revolution in the way we look at our organizations, a holistic approach that begins with the health of the organization, understanding what we do well and building on our strengths, rather than focusing on our problems. Early in 2006, BC Electronic Library Network conducted an Appreciative Inquiry Interview Exercise, for two purposes: strategic planning, and communications. The results were astonishing: a collection of stories and quotes of BC ELN's best, from a great variety of perspectives and throughout BC ELN's history, that are being used to inform BC ELN communications, and will form part of the BC ELN website. The Weller Library, University of Northern British Columbia, conducted a recent strategic planning process employing the appreciative inquiry approach. This session will present a brief overview of the Appreciative Inquiry approach, and outline the processes and results of the BC ELN and University of Northern British Columbia exercises.

The first chapter studies the strategic timing of irreversible investments when returns depend on an uncertain state of the world. Agents learn about the state through privately observed signals, as well as from each other's actions and experience. In this environment there is the possibility of learning feedback in which an agent's present action affects how much she can learn from the other agent's experience in the future. I characterize symmetric mixed-strategy equilibria, and show that private information mitigates free-riding and increases efficiency if the prior belief about the state is not too low, but that it may lead to inefficient over-investment otherwise. The second chapter examines the effect of trade opportunities on a seller's incentive to acquire information through experimentation. I characterize the unique equilibrium outcome, and discuss the effects of variations in the information structure on the probability of trade. The main result is that more accurate information for the buyer can reduce social welfare. Efficiency requires that the buyer offers a price that the seller always accepts and that the seller experiments when it is socially optimal to do so. When the buyer receives an informative signal about positive experimentation outcomes, the absence of such a signal can induce the buyer to purchase the good with low but known quality at a low price. If the buyer receives an informative signal about negative experimentation outcomes, the seller might not experiment so as to avoid the risk of generating an outcome that could trigger the buyer to reduce her offer. The third chapter analyzes the contracting problem of a principal who delegates research to two independently experimenting agents. The features of the optimal contract depend on the principal's preferences over the agents' successes. If successes are substitutes, the first agent to produce a success receives the greatest reward. The competition for the first success benefits the principal because it reduces the agents' incentive to delay their effort. In contrast, when successes are complements, the reward for the second success is greater which results in a second mover advantage that encourages agents to delay effort.

This thesis is a collection of four manuscripts linked by the aim of extending strategic alignment thought into the knowledge management domain by explicitly including the concept of knowledge strategy into the discussion of strategic alignment. In the first paper, a set of common knowledge strategy dimensions was synthesized and used to link two existing knowledge strategy typologies. The key finding of the study was that the two typologies operated at different strategic levels, allowing for the creation of portfolios of the lower order types under each higher order type. In the second paper, a model of strategic alignment between business, information system and knowledge strategy was presented and tested using survey data. It was found that the combination of aligned information and knowledge strategies with their associated business strategy resulted in higher performance for defenders, analyzers and prospectors and that the alignment of non-viable strategies led to worse performance than individual non-viable strategies alone. In the third paper, case studies provided examples of alignment and misalignment which were used to populate a framework linking alignment and performance. Four explanations for firms’ location in the model were provided, focusing on appropriate versus inappropriate alignment, conscious versus unconscious misalignment, antagonistic alignment versus misalignment, and strategic alignment versus misalignment. In the final paper, the Strategic Orientation of Knowledge-Based Enterprises (STROKE) instrument was developed to capture the orientation of knowledge strategy employment in firms. During the development process, a new statistic was developed to aid in the validation of card sorts during the scale development step of instrument creation. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2009-04-12 16:39:28.315

This is an empirical investigation of the nature of corporate strategic planning practices among major corporations operating in the ASEAN countries - Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia. The study is structured along a hypothesis testing framework. The data was collected via mailed survey instruments (using mainly 5-point Likert-type scales) which were developed for each respondent type - the Chief Executive, Senior Manager, and Corporate Planner - and refined through pre-testing. Comparative analyses are made of inter-country and inter-industry differences in strategic planning practices. Hypotheses concerning the interrelationships of strategic, contextual and performance variables are then subjected to statistical testing. This study found interesting individual as well as patterns of correlationships between strategic-contextual, contextual-performance, and strategic-performance variables. The implications of these findings to management were discussed. Suggestions were also made as to the future directions of planning research.

This thesis is about intervening in organisations to improve both operational and strategic computer-based information systems. It addresses a particular situation, in which human activity is seen to be a key factor in the success of the system. A stance is taken regarding current approaches to such development, supported by historical analysis of both the theory and practice of such approaches: in particular, the failure of traditional information systems development methodologies to address these situations is seen to question their validity. A review of existing theory and practice shows that computer-based information systems development appears to be dominated by functionalist, reductionist, engineering methods, marginally challenged by soft, interpretivist approaches. Analysis of the computer-based information systems development domain shows this to be an impoverished view, and indicates that an approach based on social systems is likely to be more representative of the problem situations faced. As a result, computer-based information systems development is taken beyond the 'hard-soft' debate, into a search for theoretical underpinning and practical approaches informed from social theory. However, whilst the theory is readily available, the application of that theory to computer-based information systems development is seen to be problematic. Potential improvement is achieved by the development of an interventionist framework which is based on a branch of social systems theory, that of critical social theory, and which draws heavily on work already undertaken in the domain of management science under the headings of critical systems thinking and total systems intervention. This framework is applied to two case studies and a major, longitudinal action research based investigation. The findings strongly support computer-based information systems development based on social, and especially critical social, theories. These findings are critiqued within the study, and from this emerge clear conclusions, and recommendations for future development.

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