Week 15 — Strategies and Mediated Communication

The first part of Chapter 10 is about various kinds of strategic organizational behavior: strategic thinking, strategic alignment or positioning, competitive strategy. Strategic thinking involves using data to making deliberate choices about the organization’s values, positioning, and direction. Data here refers to consumer data (e.g., taste, preferences), market conditions and indicators (e.g., growth), and competitors’ data (e.g., their values, their message). Strategic positioning is about choosing a strategy for distinguishing your organization from its competitors — this doesn’t apply only to marketing products but also to the businesses themselves. For instance, your organization may need to use strategic positioning to attract employees or partners as well as customers. Competitive strategies are clear statements about why customers should choose Organization A over it’s competitors. Kinky Boots, the movie for this week, wrestles with questions of competitive strategy and positioning in the shoe industry. We can see examples of competitive strategy in the headlines this week too: Amazon Challenges Netflix by Opening Prime to Monthly Subscribers, AMC Entertainment CEO Open to Allowing Texting in Some Theaters. In the first story, you’ll see some analysis of the competition between Amazon and Netflix in the streaming video space. Amazon is pitching Prime as a “full entertainment package” while Netflix offers movies (and games?). What does that tell us about Amazon’s competitive strategy? In the second story, we first hear about AMC’s recent most to become the biggest movie theater chain the world. The “biggest” is a pretty common competitive strategy, but it’s not often achieved. This story is really about AMC’s consideration of another competitive strategy, allowing cell phone use during movies, to reach a underperforming moviegoer market — millenials. Cue the backlash.

The “biggest” strategy falls under one of the two common strategies: lowest cost, differentiation. Often, being bigger means companies can take advantage of economies of scale and therefore offer lower prices. AMC may now be trying to differentiate itself from other chains as well by offering something — texting — that no other chain does. The backlash suggests that’s not a great strategy for them though.

The 7-S Model

Competitive strategies are only successful if the organization actually structures itself to pursue them, and that process is called strategic alignment. The 7-S model is a process of strategic alignment — or aligning the organization’s activities with it’s strategy:

1. Strategy. Strategy provides a common purpose for all employees and stakeholders and differentiate the company from its competitors.
2. Superordinate goals. These are specific targets on which all employees are motivated to achieve; they must flow logically from the company strategy.
3. Structure. The formal reporting relationships prescribed by the organizational flow chart should reflect the company’s values and strategy.
4. Systems. The flow of information through various media (e.g., telephones and computer systems), the formal systems of operation (e.g., management information systems), the informal operating procedures (e.g., cultural practices), and the informal connections among people (e.g., emergent networks) should be aligned with the company’s strategy.
5. Staffing. This includes the people in the organization, their backgrounds, and how they are recruited and assigned to positions in the structure.
6. Skills. The employees’ level and range of talents and abilities, including their technical and interpersonal skills, are needed to accomplish the company’s strategy.
7. Style. Management style, as well as the organization’s prevailing attitude and treatment of employees, can contribute to the success or failure of a company’s strategy.

After the 7-S model, there are a couple sections on human resources (in the department sense rather than the theory sense) and learning. I’ll leave those to you to summarize.

Communication Technologies

The book makes a distinction between two types of communication technologies: those that support communication and those that support decision making (p. 320). I don’t make this distinction in my own work. Instead, I lump them both together under the broad umbrella of communication technologies. Or, if the decision-support technology is actually an information technology (meaning it’s about finding information, not facilitating interactions or communication), then it’s probably best understood as something else entirely. I was sort of surprised by this turn in our book because the authors are usually more broad in their definition of “communication” and what it means to communicate within and beyond organizations. They go on to mention Mouritsen and Bjorn-Andersen’s concerns in analyzing technology (p. 324). Then, there’s a short section on social media, urgency, privacy, etc. But, I’m guessing that you are all more familiar with social media and can readily comment on how it should fit in this chapter on alignment and strategy.

Ideas for your Blog Posts

pp. 321–322 have an interesting What Would You Do? for us to think about, especially as we use a blogging platform for class. First, you should read the New York Times article it mentions. My, how much has changed since 2004. Or, has it? Addressing the discussion questions on 322 would make for a great blog post this week.

This week’s movie, Kinky Boots, is a story about reinvention. Charlie Price is trying to save his family business and has to make some changes to their competitive strategy to do so. He also demonstrates remarkable commitment to his employees. You could write a post about Charlie and the factory — what can we learn about alignment, management, and organizational communication from their story?