Integration of Corporate Sustainability †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Integration of Corporate Sustainability. Answer: Introduction: Strategic management can be defined as the process of identification as well as description of the strategies which the managers can adapt and carry forward. This would help in achieving better performance and at the same time provide competitive advantage over the other rival organizations. In other ways, it can be defined as the bundle of decisions as well as activities which a manager usually undertakes and which decides the result of the firms performance (Hill, Jines and Schilling 2014). In most cases, managers usually have a thorough knowledge and thereby conduct proper analysis if the general as well as the competitive environment of the organization in order to take the most promising decisions of the organizations. Therefore this type of management mainly focuses on the planning for both the predictable as well as the unfeasible contingencies. This is adapted by both small and large organizations where professionals formulate and implement appropriate strategies. This is don e to attain sustainable competitive advantage (Peppard and Ward 2016). The most conventional form of strategic management mainly depended upon the linear strategy which has been adapted by firms for a long period of time. This approach mainly focuses on the idea that the result for the strategic management is the goals and the different ways to achieve the goals successfully. By the statement it means, the leaders will first provide the strategies based upon which the girl and the ways to reaching the goals will be finalized (Barney 2014). The leaders mainly plan how they will deal with the competitors so that organization can achieve the objectives. Here the phases are dependent on each other and they are executed in a sequential order with no feedback loops. This model of strategic management only produces solution at the end phase. Benefits of linear model: Such a model has number of benefits as well as a number of disadvantages also. The advantages are that the project remains under control and the different milestones set are known and tracked. Moreover other benefits of this model are that here the resources are known and also there is proper work distribution (Wheelen and Hunger 2017). They are very helpful for workers who are inexperienced developers. The different disadvantages are often found with this model which had cause many other strategists to think beyond the linear structure model. The main disadvantage is that the model is highly inflexible and often requires a long period of development. Moreover this model is also found to bring in no proper business value until it is late in the development. Moreover, it also requires heavy documentation procedure with little or no focus on customer value. In this model, the managers have to look over all the functioning like stating form recruiting to settling of wages, evaluations and planning and therefore a manager with a vast and extensive knowledge is required which may not be always possible to find. Managers need to tackle so much which may result in stress and might not always be successful (Slack 2015). This model also faces problem when adapting to new and changing operating conditions which include introduction of new legislations. Moreover, it is also seen to promote the centralization of power which actually limit the suggestions and initiatives of the workers. Moreover another negative factor which also may be included is increasing risk of immobilization of the company which may take place mainly due to interruption of business routes mainly during the absence of the managers. As the model gives the scope for very few flexibility it causes problems during changes (Carroll and Cuchholtz 2014). Disadvantages of linear model: As a result of these disadvantages, many alternative strategies are proposed out of which the stakeholder approach is one such model which is not fo1llowed by many managers. The stakeholder approach to strategic management mainly provides the idea that every managers should develop and implement plans which would result in satisfaction of all the stakeholders who are involved in the business. The main focus of this approach mainly remain on the fact that it is important to manage as well as integrate the relationship as well as the interests of employees, shareholders, customs and communities as well as other groups (Grant 2016) . This should be done in a way which would help in insuring the long term success of the organization. In altogether, this approach mainly emphasizes the active management of the business environment as well as the relationships and the promotion of the shared interest. There are many important groups in an organization who have a stake or are contributors to the success of the firm. Many traditional views of strategic management had for long avoided the interest of the stakeholders and marginalized others. It also constantly traded off the interest for others against favored stakeholder groups. Such traditional strategic management approach like the linear model may work well in a stable environment but in the world of turbulence as well as in the times of accelerating changes, the limitation of the traditional approaches become prominent (Tantalo and Priem 2016). It is very much important for the managers into include the stakeholders interest in the purpose of the firm. This approach would also help in maintaining the stakeholder relationship to be managed in the coherent and strategic fashion. Benefits of Stakeholder approach: There are benefits of this approach. Firstly, this approach is intended to provide a particular strategic framework which is very much flexible. It helps to deal with the environmental shifts without requiring managers to search and monument for new strategic paradigms. This helped to avoid the confusing and time consuming circle of facing an environmental shift, resulting in new strategic problem, developing new framework, adopting new strategic practices, again resulting in new environmental shift and gain new problem (Vogel and Guttel 2013). Secondly this approach is mostly a strategic management process and goes far beyond a strategic planning process. The later mainly focuses on the developing of plans for the organization to develop its position in compassion to a strategic management process which not only provides new direction but also show how the firm affect the environment and vice versa. Thirdly, it is seen that unlike the traditional method it rejects the very idea of m aximizing the single objective function as the useful way of thinking about the strategic management procedures. Rather it mainly believes that the strategic management is a never ending task of balancing and integrating multiple relationships and multiple objectives (Helfat and Peteraf 2015). Fourthly, this approach also ensures that development of strategies take place by inverting in all the relationships which ensure long term success by setting a proper perspective for values and value based management within their business strategy. Diverse stakeholders can only collaborate over a long run is they share common values and therefore this approach provides importance to values as a key empathy for strategic management. Fifthly, it is seen that this approach suggests that stakeholders relationship can be created or influences and not be simply taken or given (Kor and Mesco 2013). Unlike the other models, it does not believe on the process of adapting the firm to managements best g uess of the future environment. Disadvantages of Stakeholder approach: There are certain disadvantages of this model which must be also discussed. These are that they are best done on the continuous basis. Moreover another negative point is that the assessment so analysis may be subjective. Moreover, it might also happen that all the stakeholders interests may be different and there might be situation when all the interest may not meet at the same time. Selecting particular ones view may result in biasness (Beske, Land and Seuring 2014). In such a situation, management may face difficulty and therefore then they have to focus on most important stakeholders which thought to lead to dissatisfaction among others. There is often also need to balance and also reconcile all interests according to importance for urgency. Another important approach of strategic management is called the dynamic capability approach. The author Teece mainly describes it as the organizations capability to integrate, build and thereby reconfigure both external as well as internal competencies to address the rapidly changing environments in the organization. It is different from the other approaches in the strategic management which follows operational capabilities, pertaining to different current operations of the organization. This approach mainly differs from the other due to the capacity of the organization to purposefully create and then extend and modify the resource base (Schaltegger and Wagner 2017). While other approaches do not pay importance to the core competencies but this strategy mainly focuses on the fact that core competencies should be used for modification of the short term competitive positions which can be used to build linger tem competitive advantage. Unlike the other approaches, this approach influences the organization as well the employees working for them to develop the capability to learn quickly and build totally new type of strategic assets which include developing capability, technology as well as customer feedback which remain integrated in the company. Corporate agility is also promoted by this approach in comparisons to that of the other approaches. This includes sensing and shaping the different threats and opportunities, seizing opportunities and also maintains competitiveness. This can be done through enhancing, combining, protecting and also when necessary, this also influences to reconfigure the business enterprises intangible and tangible assets. This approach introduces the concept of routines which are patterns of interactions that provide good solutions to particular approaches. These patterns of interactions are resident in good forms in group behaviors. They also help in providing sub routine which are import ant in individuals behavior (Beske and Seuring 2014). Collaboration as well as partnership help in group learning. Similar to learning, building strategic assets is another dynamic capability. This includes effective as well as efficient internal coordination as well as integration of strategic assets. This also determines a firms performance. This helps in gathering as well as in processing of information as well as linking the customer experiences of engineering choices. They also coordinate factories and component suppliers. it also influence transformation of existing assets. This approach helps to keep in pace with the changing environment and the mw time fast changing markets require the ability to reconfigure the firms assets structure and accomplish different internal and external transformation (Scalteger and Burrit 2014).. This approach also puts importance to co specialization. Here with time firm assets may become co-specialized were they become uniquely valuable in comb ination like where physical assets, human resources and intellectual property altogether provide a synergistic combination of complementary assets. Therefore this is different from other approaches as it helps in finding a predetermined idea and governance of the asset system of the organization so that it bring the best benefit been in time of crisis. Disadvantages of Dynamic capability approach: However there have been many criticisms that have been found to be associated with the dynamic capability approach. Dynamic capability can take a variety of forms and can also involve a large number of different functions. They often include marketing, product development, development of process. however the main disadvantage is that they are higher level capabilities which provide opportunities for knowledge gathering and sharing, continuous updating of operational process , interaction with environment and decision making evaluations. These higher level capabilities may not be possessed by new managers or new start ups or has those who have less experiences (Engert et al. 2015). This means that the approach is not easier to be adopted by new firms or novice managers making them take a long time to be prepared to follow this approach. Moreover this is beneficial for dynamic companies like those of biotechnology or semiconductor industry but is not enough beneficial for traditional c ompanies. Moreover there are also not clear linkages in the approach about how dynamic capabilities include the utilization of resources and the implementation of new processes. Moreover there is also requirement for proper linking between dynamic capabilities and more micro issues, such as managerial cognition and search processes. Lastly there remains conceptual problems such as distinguishing between operational and higher order capabilities and also between capabilities which rely on incremental learning processes and those that presuppose dramatic new knowledge trajectories. Sustainable approach in strategic management has been given attention by Business all over the world scenes people realise the importance of environment in business systems point business sustainability can be defined as the management of mainly the triple bottom line which mainly comprises of the process by which different organisations take part in the management of their environmental social as well as his financial risk. This also help in managing obligations as well as meeting all the opportunities (Sancjez 2015). There are three main impacts of this approach which are referred as the people profit and the planet. Recent researches are of the opinion that changes in climate are adding a new layer of complexity in the development of sustainability. Different types of environmental factors such as warming temperatures changing precipitation patterns, rising sea levels are all having impacts on natural and human systems. This is directly threatening the success of business as well as the productivity produced by people working in such organisations. Benefits of Sustainability approach: Sustainability approach of strategic management is one of the successful medium of any business strategic plan which impacts positively by how effective the organisation is able to address the sustainability as well as the climatic risks. This approach is found to have a direct connection to the bottom line performance which mainly comprises of cost reduction as well as margin and also the brand value that determines the sales of the organisation. This approach has a comprehensive procedure for sustainable development and maximization of revenue and for this Business professionals are now taking an immediate interest in sustainability management by starting from carbon management or Greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers believe that this approach is mainly done by carbon management as the kickoff step to get into the temple of sustainability (Formentini and Tatichhi 2016). This Temple usually has three pillars with are environmental protection, social development and economic growth. This in turn supports the roof of sustainability which is the highest School of Business sustainable profitability. There are many benefits of this approach. The main are that the sustainable practices are resulting in cost savings as well as increase sales point projects. Well structured environmental project protection has resulted in the reduction of consumption of a particular type of resource which has resulted to the saving of operation cost. This is not only developed from advanced Technologies but also from the change of different behaviours of humans, employees, customers as well as suppliers. Secondly this is also resulted in increase sales. Sustainability approach in strategic management can bring out higher levels of products as well as help in getting service quality giving customers richer experiences. This in turn helps in higher levels of customer loyalty that overall leads to sustainable branding and brings out tangible increases in business sales and profits.. The main disadvantages which this type of approach has in comparison to the other approaches are that it results in huge flow of resources and finances while implementing the sustainability strategies. The projects developed to maintain the stability of the environment often requires huge amount of money which might not be redeemable by the company and therefore the small and medium organisations try to save the cost by not taking this approach. Many companies have to pay for environmental programs (Gianniakis and Papadopolulos 2016). More employees training are required and also programs of waste management are to be introduced point. All this requires huge amount of money at the beginning which might not be in stock for many organisations who starting their business. Conclusion: From a large period of time it was the linear structure of strategic management which was implemented by a large number of organizations. Over the years it has been found that there are many disadvantages of this approach. The first one is that it is quite inflexible and requires a long time for development. Moreover it is not suitable to match up to the expectations of the organization when there is a certain environmental change. Therefore many other approaches have been proposed by different researchers overtime, the first one is the stakeholder approach which mainly concerned of involving all the stakeholders into business so that each and everyone's concern can be incorporated while developing different interventions for the organization .This approach is quite flexible and helps to face many obstacles when there is any environmental shift. One of the main disadvantage of this is that it sometimes may result in delay in implementing strategies because the interest of all the sta keholders might not meet at a particular point which results in dissatisfaction among different people point. The next form of strategic management is the dynamic capability approach which mainly gathers information and helps them to process them with internal coordination and integration of strategic assets. Billing customer experiences with each of their aspects and coordinates with the fast changing market to reconfigure the forms and accomplish different internal and external transformations. However this approach is not possible to be taken by all companies because of its dynamic characteristics which requires large amount of training as well as finances to set up the strategies in the working environment. Researchers are also of the opinion that they do not form clear linkages in the approach about how dynamic capabilities include the utilization of resources and implementation of new processes. And other important approach that has been stated is the sustainable approach wher e the organization should develop strategic plans for environmental sustainability for cost savings as well as increase sales. Also results in increasing reputation of the organization and helps in sustainable branding and brings out tangible increases in business sales and profits. In this case also, it has been found that many small and medium size countries have to spend huge amount of money for the environmental programs and this might not always be possible for those organizations who have low financial strength. This approach requires huge expenditure of money at the beginning which might not be possible for all the companies. Therefore researchers have to come up with more approaches or develop a new model which would help to overcome all the disadvantages of these models for betterment of business. References: Barney, J.B., 2014.Gaining and sustaining competitive advantage. Pearson Higher Ed. 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