MGT703 Strategic Management GDB No.1 Discussions and Solutions Fall 2014 Last Date is 8th December



Topic: Setting Strategic Direction of an Organization
NOTE: There is no grace period in case of GDB



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Objective of GDB



To initiate a thought process about the performance impact of having a clear strategic direction for an organization.


To develop an understanding about the impact of agent based behavior on creativity of employees.


Learning Outcomes



Students should be able to have basic idea about the performance impact of having clear strategic direction in the organization.


Students should be able to assess that how “rule constrained agent based behavior” helps the organization in employees’ creativity.


Scenario



Apple Computer Inc. was founded in 1976 and changed into Apple Inc. because of its future plans for the addition of new product lines like iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV etc. From 2007 onwards, Apple enjoyed a great era for the success of mobile phone model series of iPhone. Apple’s shares hit $97.80, an all-time high at that point. Apple became world’s second largest IT and mobile company. According to Fortune magazine, Apple was most admired company in USA in 2008. During this great era of success under the leadership of Steve Jobs, Apple promoted rule constraint agent based behavior for giving strategic direction to the organization. Steve Jobs had the options either to introduce participatory mechanism or rule constrained structure in the organization. He opted for rule constraint agent based behavior. Strategists of Apple were of the view that rule constrained agent based behavior encourages creativity for giving strategic direction and competitive advantage to the organization. This mix of bureaucratic and participatory structure gave a unique internal organizational environment to Apple that was different from its competitors. Now the situation is that team Apple regularly comes up with updated models of its products that are highly welcomed throughout the world with a huge market share.

Requirement:-



How did “rule constrained agent based behavior” helped Apple in gaining a strategic direction and creativity of employees? (05 Marks)

Note:



You are required to thoroughly study reference article titled “Setting strategic direction: a top down or bottom up process?” before attempting this GDB. This article is available in the download section of this course in LMS. Article is uploaded with the tag of “GDB 1 Article (Fall 2014)”.


Student’s Guide


Keep your discussion with the mentioned scenario and irrelevant answers and material will not be graded.
Be careful from those blogs who are promoting cheating culture among our students and killing their creativity and critical thinking. Answers copied from such blogs will be straightaway marked as zero. Similarly any relevant or irrelevant material copied from internet sources will get the same treatment. It can seriously damage your grades.