The effect of strategic project leadership elements on successful strategic management implementation
- Authors: Nel, Nevin Narhan
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Strategic management , Project management
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: vital:8819 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1018931
- Description: Executives and managers are required to develop the required competencies to ensure the long term success of their organisations. In the competitive and dynamic business environment organisations are faced with, strategic management and planning has gained momentum as a management science which aids managers and executives in circumventing the challenges that such a dynamic environment can present. Strategic management and planning is, however, of no consequence unless the strategic plan is deployed and implemented in an organisation and the implemented plan is evaluated in action. Many organisations find the process of strategy implementation much more of a challenge than the process of strategy formulation. Consequently, many of these organisations have utilised project management to assist in the strategic management implementation process. The competitive and dynamic business environment also requires organisations to constantly develop and execute more innovative business strategies to remain competitive. In order to do this, many organisations have started to explore the alignment between business strategy and project management strategy. Various commentators note that successful implementation of strategy is challenging, especially considering the 70 per cent execution failure rate. It is further noted that organisations only realise 60 per cent of the potential value of their intended strategies due to failures in planning and implementation. Consequently, projects are often chosen as vehicles to implement these business strategies. The primary objective of this research is to improve the implementation of strategic management initiatives within organisations. This was achieved by investigating whether Shenhar’s strategic project leadership elements (i.e. organisational structure, process definition, implementation metrics, implementation tools and organisational culture) have an impact on the successful implementation of strategic management initiatives. The study also aims to investigate whether age, gender, race, designation, education, industry experience and tenure at Eskom Telecommunications, have an impact on the perception of the following variables under investigation: Implementation metrics; Implementation tools; Organisational structure; Organisational culture; Process definition; and Strategic management implementation. If the correlation between strategic management implementation and Shenhar’s strategic project leadership elements is established, it would assist organisations in the implementation of successful strategic management initiatives, by aiding an understanding of how these independent variables affect the implementation process. Improved implementation of strategic management initiatives would assist management teams in organisations to overcome the unique challenges that change in an organisation’s internal and external environment cause. The scope of this study was limited to be conducted in Eskom Telecommunications only. The study is concluded with a number of recommendations that Eskom Telecommunications could implement to improve strategic management implementation and a synopsis of this study’s contribution to theory is provided, in addition to recommendations for future research.
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- Date Issued: 2012
Developing a decision-making model that best closes the gap between strategy and the capital investment procedure for Cadbury South Africa
- Authors: Wilson, Brendan David
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: Chocolate industry -- Capital investment -- South Africa , Chocolate industry -- South Africa -- Finance , Chocolate industry -- South Africa -- Decision making , Cadbury Ltd
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: vital:8596 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/406 , Chocolate industry -- Capital investment -- South Africa , Chocolate industry -- South Africa -- Finance , Chocolate industry -- South Africa -- Decision making , Cadbury Ltd
- Description: This study addresses the fact that the current Cadbury investment appraisal process does not adequately address the strategic implications of many capital investment decisions. Although attempts are made to quantify, in financial terms, the strategic benefits from a given investment, it appears that many perceived benefits are left out of the appraisal process because they lack precise financial quantification, resulting in managers placing greater reliance on the qualitative dimensions of their investment decision-making such as judgement and intuition. The current Cadbury process is based on the unequivocal advice that academics give to organisations and to managers about how to appraise largescale capital investment projects. The use of discounted cash flow techniques, based upon the discounting of decision contingent cash flows at the organisations opportunity cost of capital is regarded as the definitive investment appraisal technique. On this, the academic literature is clear. Whilst there are strong theoretical justifications for the use of discounted cash flow based models, managers continue to use non-DCF appraisal techniques such as payback irrespective of their theoretical shortcomings. The lack of use of a sophisticated risk assessment model is also disappointing, with Cadbury ignoring individual project risk and adopting a naive approach. Finally, this study indicates that Cadbury managers need not be forced into choosing either an economic/normative approach or a strategic/managerial approach to capital-investment decision-making but that rather a hybrid approach, including both the economic and strategic dimensions of choice, is more applicable for effective strategy incorporation.
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- Date Issued: 2005