Dissertation Mats de Rooij Charles University Student Number: 17287595 ABSTRACT Keywords: ISIS oil financing strategy-making third-party interventions United States This dissertation will explore the US-led coalition's strategy for disrupting ISIS's oil network in Iraq and Syria. Scholars have debated the desirability of third-party interventions and strategies for countering financing structures of violent non- state actors. However, remarkably limited research exists on ISIS's estimated largest source of revenue during the existence of its caliphate: the production and distribution of petroleum. This study will therefore introduce a framework for analysing the military response enacted by the US-led coalition between September 2014 and October 2017. It will do so through a mixed method study that includes the first-hand generation and analysis of a dataset containing 5,768 unique data points that present both an insight into the strategy behind the strikes and vulnerabilities in ISIS's oil network. Findings demonstrate how the coalition was able to exploit vulnerabilities specifically in the production, transportation, and refinement stages of the production chain. It will be argued that, as the campaign proceeded, the coalition became increasingly willing to take risks of collateral damage as a...

The purpose of this research study is to explore how decision-makers at Born Global enterprises form their strategies during the pre-internationalisation phase. In this study the researcher has combined theories from two academic fields, namely the strategic management field and the international entrepreneurship field. The main theories inherent in the study are: the strategic lenses and the strategic schools of thought (theories that belong to the strategic management field) and Born Global (theory that belongs to the international entrepreneurship field). These recently mentioned theories has been combined, leading to a depiction of a general theoretical framework, illustrating for how the researcher has made use of the chosen theories in the study. In order to fulfil the study’s aim, the researcher has conducted a qualitative and multiple-case study, where seven different case companies (Algoryx Simulation AB, CodeMill AB, COS Systems AB, North Kingdom Design & Communication AB, Oryx Simulations AB, Prediktera AB and Xore AB) from a peripheral area of northern Sweden (Umeå and Skellefteå) have been investigated through semistructured interviews. After performing the seven interviews, the obtained empirical data has been analysed by using the analysis strategy theoretical propositions and the analytical technique of cross-case analysis. From this study, the researcher has found out that in the pre-internationalisation phase decision-makers at Born Global enterprises form their strategies in accordance with the configuration school, where these individuals alternates by different strategic making procedures along the process. This in turn implies that these individuals make use of a mixture of proactive and reactive strategy making procedures along the process, where the character of the strategy is determined by their respective applied procedures. Moreover, the research findings have showed that the selection of strategy making procedures is highly dependent on the company’s context. Additionally, the research findings indicated that legitimate key individuals such as the company’s founder/-s or entrepreneur/-s are highly involved and influential in the companies’ strategy-making process during the pre-internationalisation phase.

At least five decades of business strategy-making research strongly suggests that how a firm goes about strategy-making, or its strategy-making mode, is a significant determiner of firm performance. A mode can be simply described as the manner in which something happens, occurs, or gets done. Accepting the notion that strategy-making modes are determinants of firm performance, this study contends that how a firm goes about its e-commerce strategy-making, or its e-commerce strategy-making mode, can be a significant determinant of e-commerce performance. Given the paucity of work in the topic, an exploratory study to identify and characterize e-commerce strategy-making modes among small firms was conducted. The study asked three questions: (1) What e-commerce strategy-making attributes characterize e-commerce strategy making modes in small firms? (2) How can e-commerce strategy-making attributes be grouped to form e-commerce strategy-making modes in small firms? and (3) What e-commerce strategy-making modes are in use in small firms? This study combined findings from non-e-commerce domains along with findings from e-commerce practitioner interviews in order to develop a comprehensive set of attributes for classifying e-commerce strategy-making modes. A pilot study followed by a final study was conducted to collect responses to the instrument. Analysis of the data suggests that e-commerce strategy-making modes in firms with fewer than twenty-six employees can be categorized as: inclusive e-commerce strategy-making, (2) open e-commerce strategy-making, (3) clear e-commerce strategy-making, and (4) controlled e-commerce strategy-making The identification of e-commerce strategy-making modes provides the perquisite first step towards future research investigating links between these modes and e-commerce performance.

Abstract In this study, I address the need for an in-depth understanding of the temporal nature of strategic change. Accordingly, I examine how strategic change emerges in time in a small Finnish software company. The data for the study consists of strategy-making discussions with three company managers during the course of two years. With this study I contribute to process organization studies in general and post-processual strategy research in particular. By following a process-relational view of becoming reality and adopting an “in-time” view of temporality, I add to discussions on the temporal nature of strategy work. The in-time view enables me to examine strategic change as the fluidity of the present, in which both the past and the future are immanent. In addition to highlighting that processuality cannot be reduced to human actions, I follow the notion of agentic time, which analytically gives agency to relational events. With the in-time view, I aim to unpack especially two underlying tendencies behind theorizations of strategic change: first, the overemphasis on managers as the principle, controlling agents of strategic change, and second, the reduction of the complex and fluxing change processes into simple, static models. With the empirical analysis, I identify five ways in which the agency of time perceptibly manifests in strategic change: unforeseen events, the becoming meaning of events, the immediacy and irreversibility of an emerging situation, the immanent past in the present, and the conditionality of time. I also show the paradoxical tension between organizing processes efficiently over time and experiencing and reacting to novel events in time. Furthermore, I illustrate the multi-event nature of strategic change and show how the managers’ intentionality emerges from within relational events. In contrast to the prevailing view of strategic change as a pre-planned, future-oriented managerial activity, with this study I add to our understanding of strategic change as a continuous, unpredictable process emerging through the mutually constitutive relation between unowned events and human actions. Accordingly, I argue that temporality should be treated as a fundamental characteristic of reality, which defines the dynamics of strategic change, rather than as an objective background or subjective construction of strategy-making. / Tiivistelmä Tällä tutkimuksella vastaan tarpeeseen ymmärtää syvällisemmin strategisen muutoksen ajallista luonnetta. Sen vuoksi tarkastelen tässä työssä, miten strateginen muutos kehkeytyy ajassa pienessä suomalaisessa ohjelmistoyrityksessä. Tutkimusaineistoni koostuu yrityksen kolmen johtajan kanssa käydyistä strategiakeskusteluista kahden vuoden ajalta. Tutkimukseni kontribuoi yleisesti prosessuaaliseen organisaatiotutkimukseen ja erityisesti jälkiprosessuaaliseen strategiatutkimukseen. Tuon tutkimuksessani esille ajallisuuden näkökulman muutosprosessiin. Seuraan prosessi-relationaalista aikakäsitystä, jossa menneisyys ja tulevaisuus nähdään läsnä olevina alati kehkeytyvässä nykyhetkessä. Sen mukaisesti korostan ajan agenttista luonnetta prosesseissa ja keskityn analyysissäni yksilöiden sijaan relationaalisiin tapahtumiin keskeisimpänä muutosvoimana. Tällä näkökulmalla pyrin ohittamaan erityisesti kaksi vallitsevaa strategiatutkimuksen ongelmaa: yritysjohdon roolin ylikorostamisen muutoksen hallitsijana, sekä monimutkaisen ja dynaamisen muutosprosessin liiallisen redusoimisen staattisiksi malleiksi. Tutkimuksessani tunnistan viisi ajan agenssin ilmenemismuotoa strategisessa muutoksessa: odottamattomat tapahtumat, tapahtumien ajassa muuttuva merkitys, elettyjen tilanteiden välittömyys ja peruuttamattomuus, menneisyyden läsnäolo nykyisyydessä, sekä ajan ehdollisuus. Lisäksi osoitan työssäni paradoksaalisen jännitteen ajan yli jatkumaan ja kehittymään suunniteltujen käytäntöjen, sekä ajassa kehkeytyvien hallitsemattomien tapahtumien kohdatessa. Korostan työssäni myös muutostapahtumien monitahoista ilmentymistä ja osoitan, kuinka johtajien tarkoitukselliset toimet muodostuvat tapahtumien sisällä. Tutkimuksellani kyseenalaistan käsityksen strategisesta muutoksesta suunniteltuna, tulevaisuusorientoituneena prosessina. Sen sijaan kuvaan sen jatkuvana ja ennustamattomana prosessina, joka kehkeytyy hallitsemattomien tapahtumien ja yksilöiden toimien sisäisenä dynamiikkana. Väitän, että ajallisuus tulisi nähdä todellisuutta luovana voimana joka määrittää strategisen muutoksen prosessuaalisen luonteen, eikä pelkästään tapahtumien objektiivisena taustana tai ihmisten subjektiivisena tulevaisuuden ja menneisyyden tulkintana strategiatyössä.

The master's thesis deals with the issue of the strategy-making process and the development of the strategic planning cycle in sports organizations. The purpose of this thesis is to provide a qualitative study of how managers of the hockeyball club SK Suchdol nad Lužnicí are working with the strategy within the whole strategic planning cycle. The aim of this thesis is to point out the differences between theory and practice and to offer some recommendations for the improvement of the efficiency of the strategy-making process in the above mentioned club. The theoretical part of this thesis is concerned with the research and the synthesis of the contemporary Czech and foreign literature related to the strategy, strategic planning cycle and its perception in the sports environment. The practical part of this thesis deals with the analysis of the strategy-making process in the hockeyball club SK Suchdol nad Lužnicí. This analysis is executed by the qualitative method, i. e. by personal interviews with the individual members of the club, who are participating in the strategy-making process and working within the strategic planning cycle. To conclude this thesis, specific outputs are generated, which are based on a comparison of the obtained information with the theory. These outputs can serve as recommendations for the improvement of the efficiency of the strategy-making process, both for managers of the analysed sports club, as well as for other executives and managers of similar sports organizations.

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Kiruna är staden som genomgår en omdanande process, där delar av staden nedmonteras medan en ny stadskärna etableras. Kiruna kommun har haft som ambition att omlokaliseringen och stadsomvandlingen ska understödjas av omfattande medborgardialoger. Där utvecklingsstrategierna sägs bygga på kirunabornas önskemål kring vad de föreställer sig att nya stadskärnan kan bli. Stadens befolkning behöver därmed förhålla sig till att delar av deras stad nedmonteras samtidigt som de ska föreställa sig en ny. Vi analyserar processen för detta utifrån nutida planeringsteori som betonar att kunskapen som kommer från att uppleva en stad har ett särskilt värde i planeringen. Det innebär att planerare, med sin expertkunskap, behöver vidga sitt arbetssätt. Från att vara de enda som besitter kapaciteten till att föreställa sig en ny stad, till att kunna tolka och omformulera anspråk som kommer från stadsinvånare. Således fokuserar vi på hur planerare och politiker har arbetat med att behandla den lokala kunskapen, för att skapa en djupare förståelse för strategiskapande procedurer. Det som är säreget med Kiruna kan läsas utifrån två aspekter. Den ena är att nedmontering skapar en unik och känslig situation, där planerare försökt söka efter vad som kirunaborna anser som värdefullt i sin stad och sedan omformulera det till något nytt. Den andra är att Kiruna kan karaktäriseras som en stad i den arktiska regionen. Dessa samhällen har genom historien planerats utifrån att expertkunskapen premierats och mer ofta än sällan har urbana modeller söderifrån importerats till arktiska stadsbyggandet. Numera börjar det gamla luckras upp och fler designers söker efter att jobba nära befolkningen i regionen för att skapa särskilda lokala uttryck. Genom att studera fallet Kiruna söker vi efter att skapa synergier mellan dessa två aspekter där den lokala kunskapen löper som en röd tråd genom processerna för avveckling och utveckling. Vårt empiriska material bygger på analyser från strategiska dokument och kvalitativa intervjuer med nyckelaktörer. Dessa nyckelaktörer har varit planerare och politiker som haft särskilt centrala roller i Kirunas stadsomvandling. Intervjuerna blir således deras berättelser och erfarenheter. Utifrån vårt insamlade empiriska material har vi format uppfattningen att dessa två aspekter för nedmontering och arktiskt stadsbyggande har en inverkan på hur planerare behandlat den lokala kunskapen samt hur den lokala kunskapen fått forma den nya stadskärnan. Det har betonats att detta inte är något vanligt stadsutvecklingsprojekt, utan omständigheterna kräver ett särskilt åtagande från planerarna med utökad hänsyn till invånarnas kunskap och omsorg för förlusten av deras stad. Därför har det funnits ett fokus på kvalitativa samtal med medborgarna. Nedmonteringen skapar möjligheter att forma strategier för ett stadsbyggande som frångår problem som återfinns i gamla stadskärnan, uttryckta av kirunabor. Det skapar även möjligheter att bygga en stad med ett långsiktigt perspektiv där gruvan inte längre kommer vara en lika stark lokal arbetsgivare. / Kiruna is a city that is undergoing a transformative process, where parts of the city are being dismantled while a new city center is being established. Kiruna municipality has had the ambition that the relocation and the urban transformation should be supported by extensive citizen dialogues. The strategies for development are claimed to be based on the Kiruna residents’ wishes about what they imagine the new city center to be like. Therefore, the town’s population needs to relate to the dismantling of parts of their city, while also imagining a new one. The analysis of this process is based on contemporary planning theory, which emphasizes that the knowledge that comes from experiencing a city has a particular value in the context of urban planning. This means that planners, with their expert knowledge, need to extend their way of working from being the only ones who possess the capacity to imagine a new city to being able to interpret and reformulate claims that come from city residents. In this essay we examine how planners and politicians have worked to process the local knowledge, to create a deeper understanding of strategy making procedures. What is unique about Kiruna can be interpreted from two aspects. One is that the dismantling of the city creates a distinct and sensitive situation, where planners have attempted to understand what Kiruna´s residents consider valuable in their city and then reformulate it into something new. The other one is that Kiruna can be characterized as a city in the Arctic region. Throughout history, these communities have been planned on the basis of expert knowledge, and more often than not, urban models have been imported from the south for Arctic urban development. Nowadays, the old ways are beginning to dissolve, and more designers are looking to work close to the people of the region to create special local expressions. By studying the Kiruna case, we seek to create synergies between these two aspects where local knowledge runs as a thread through the processes of dissolving and development. Our empirical material is based on analyzes from strategic documents and qualitative interviews with planners and politicians. These key actors have played central roles in Kiruna’s urban transformation. The interviews thus entail their stories and experiences. Based on our collected empirical material, we have formed the perception that these two aspects of dismantling and Arctic urban planning have an impact on how planners have treated local knowledge and how local knowledge has shaped the new city center. It has been emphasized that this is no ordinary urban development project. The circumstances require a special commitment from the planners with increased consideration for the residents’ knowledge, and care for the loss of their city. Therefore, there has been a focus on carrying out qualitative dialogues with citizens. The dismantling process creates potentials to formulate strategies for urban development that depart from problems found in the current city center, expressed by Kiruna residents. It also creates opportunities to build a city with a long-term perspective where the mine will no longer be as important as an employer.

Understanding managerial behavior and its underlying motivations is of key interest in times where the role of business in society is generally viewed critically. While CEO influence on strategy making processes is almost undisputed, little attention has explicitly been paid to how CEO values and the characteristics of the top management team (TMT) interact in shaping corporate strategy making. This is surprising if one follows the assumption that top managers who work closely together will by necessity influence each other's actions. Hence, we would expect the CEO-TMT interface to be vital in understanding how leadership influences strategy making. To address this, we propose a model in which the personal values of the CEO have a direct effect on the characteristics of corporate strategy making processes yet where this association is moderated by TMT diversity. We test the model with data from Austria and Germany obtained through a large-scale survey conducted in spring 2015 and a follow-up survey conducted in fall 2015 and find general support for our model. CEO values geared towards self-transcendence (as opposed to selfinterest) seem to be associated with more formal strategy making processes, while values geared towards openness to change (as opposed to conservation) are found to be associated with more flexible and less externally open ones. TMT diversity moderates all of these relationships. Our results add to upper echelon theory as well as to strategy process research and highlight promising avenues for future research.

This study is an attempt to understand strategy-making in the European Union (EU). By targeting the strategy-making process of the European Union Global Strategy (EUGS), the stydy aims to reveal the legal provisions and the in-practice procedures of strategy-making in the area of EU foreign policy. The thesis presents two theories, liberal intergovernmentalism and neofunctionalism, from which it constructs two contrasting ideal types of policy-making. By applying the theoretical ideal types on the targeted case, that is the strategy-making process of the EUGS, the study reflects on the relationships between Member states and the EU, as well as on the inter-institutional dynamics that would come to characterize the progress and development of the EUGS.  Despite difficulties in rejecting any of the theoretical ideal types, the study finds the policy-formulation of the EUGS to be more coherent with the neofunctional ideal type than that of liberal intergovernmentalism. This is due to the central role of the European External Action Service (EEAS) which would come to conduct an innovative policy-formulation phase of the strategy and to the lack of bargaining between the Member States on the textual provisions of the strategy. The neofunctional ideal type does yet fall short in explaining for the EUGS as an initial concept and partly for the implementation of the strategy, favoring a liberal intergovernmental interpretation of how the instruments of the EUGS would come to be initiated. The study also reflects on if the experience of making the EUGS may provide for an argument to review the presumed centrality of Member States being the ultimate drivers of EU foreign policy.

Baigiamajame magistro darbe nagrinėjami marketingo strategijos formavimo etapai, prekybos įmonės santykių su vartotojais aspektai, bei atlikta rinkos analizė. Dėl vis agresyvesnės prekybos centrų plėtros, smulkiesiems prekybininkams darosi vis sunkiau konkuruoti. Todėl atsirado poreikis išanalizuoti marketingo strategijas ir nustatyti, kokie veiksniai skatina vartotojus rinktis mažas parduotuves, o ne didžiuosius prekybos centrus ir sukurti efektyvią marketingo strategiją, tinkančią mažoms parduotuvėms. Atlikta mažų parduotuvių, prekiaujančių statybinėmis medžiagomis, klientų ir vadovų apklausa, kurios rezultatais remiantis, sukurtas marketingo strategijos modelis plėtojantis mažų parduotuvių, prekiaujančių statybinėmis medžiagomis, verslą. Ši marketingo strategijos formavimo analizė aktualiausia mažoms parduotuvėms, prekiaujančioms statybinėmis medžiagomis, nes atskleidžiami šiam įmonių tipui būdingiausi bruožai. / The thesis focuses on marketing strategy formulation stages, aspects of the marketing company relationships with consumer protection, along with market analysis. Due to more aggressive development of shopping centres’, the small traders are finding it increasingly difficult to compete. Thus, there is a need to analyze the marketing strategies and identify the factors that encourage consumers to choose small shops rather than supermarkets, and create an effective marketing strategy that is suitable for small shops. Survey results of clients and managers of small shops, dealing with building materials, were taken as a basis for the development of marketing strategies model for small shops dealing with building materials business. This marketing strategy formation analysis is especially relevant for small shops which sell building materials, as it reveals the features mostly characteristic for this type of companies.