Strategy Planning

Flexible Footprints: Reconfiguring MNCs for New Value Opportunities

by Andre Sammartino

Co-authored with Elizabeth Maitland in California Management Review (2012).

Full cite: Maitland, E. & Sammartino, A. (2012), 'Flexible Footprints: Reconfiguring MNCs for New Value Opportunities', California Management Review 54(2):92-117.

Powerful technological, regulatory, and economic forces compel the senior executives of multinational corporations... more Powerful technological, regulatory, and economic forces compel the senior executives of multinational corporations (MNCs) to repeatedly reevaluate and reconfigure value chains in the search for ongoing competitive advantage.

However, releasing assets from existing activities and redeploying them to new opportunities is a challenging and poorly understood task. In particular, the standard strategic management concepts of use- and firm-flexibility overlook the crucial international dimension of location.

Utilizing examples from GM, Qantas, and a mining MNC, this article argues that strategic flexibility should be consciously measured along all three dimensions. By using the decision tool set out in this article, MNC executives can map their worldwide footprint of strategic roadblocks and opportunities to expand into new markets, divest redundant businesses, and build flexibility to adapt to future challenges.


(Keywords: International business, Decision making, Strategic
planning, Multinational corporations, Corporate strategy, Reorganization, Foreign investment, Foreign subsidiaries)

PILCO: A Model-Based and Data-Efficient Approach to Policy Search

by Marc Deisenroth

Action Learning & Strategy Making as a process

by John Oliver

Geography of Strategic Thinking in the US in post-Cold War Era

by Mehmet OZKAN

Islam Arastirmalari Dergisi - Turkish Journal of Islamic Studies, No 20, 2008, pp. 115-122.

Inconsistencia de la moral tributaria: un modelo fenomenológico de mecanismos culturales

by Rodrigo Lopez-Pablos

Breve descripción de un modelo fenomenológico en desarrollo por el autor sobre mecanismos culturales aplicado a la moral general y tributaria.

Oil scenarios for long-term business planning: Royal Dutch Shell and generative explanation

by Vlasios Voudouris

Co-authored with Michael Jefferson

Most executives know that overarching paints of plausible futures will profoundly affect the competitiveness and... more Most executives know that overarching paints of plausible futures will profoundly affect the competitiveness and survival of their organisation. Initially from the perspective of Shell, this article discuses oil scenarios and their relevance for upstream investments. Scenarios are then incorporated into generative explanation and its principal instrument, namely agent-based computational laboratories, as the new standard of explanation of the past and the present and the new way to structure the uncertainties of the future. The key concept is that the future should not be regarded as ‘complicated’ but as ‘complex’, in that there are uncertainties about the driving forces that generate unanticipated futures, which cannot be explored analytically.

A TERCEIRA VAGA DOS PDM’S E AS QUESTÕES ESTRATÉGICAS

by Jose Lucio

Co-authored with Gonçalo ROSA, in V Congresso da Geografia Portuguesa, 14 a 16 de Outubro de 2004, Guimarães

Na década de noventa assistiu-se em Portugal a uma intensa produção de documentos de ordenamento territorial, com... more Na década de noventa assistiu-se em Portugal a uma intensa produção de documentos de ordenamento territorial, com particular destaque para os designados Planos Directores
Municipais (PDM’s). Tendo em consideração a urgência da sua produção (recorde-se que os municípios que não possuíssem PDM aprovado e plenamente eficaz, não teriam acesso a determinados apoios, enquadrados, por exemplo, sob a forma de contratos programa) e o quadro temporal em que decorreu a sua elaboração, percebe-se que as questões de planeamento físico assumissem uma clara primazia em desfavor de outro tipo de leituras territoriais, com particular destaque para o domínio estratégico.

Dez anos decorridos após a segunda vaga de PDM’s, os municípios portugueses lançam-se, desde já, no processo de revisão destes mesmos planos. A leitura crítica do processo de
elaboração dos PDM’s em vigor e o ganho de consciência que não é possível desligar uma política de planeamento físico de uma reflexão estratégica determinaram, em grande parte,
que no quadro das revisões se atribua um peso considerável ao domínio do desenvolvimento.