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Abstract- The pan national corporation (PNC) with its inherently complex structure is the organisational form most severely affected by globalisation. It is therefore important for the management of such corporations to improve the control and co-ordination of the corporations ' spatially dispersed subsidiaries. IT has been hailed as an important tool in changing traditional control and co-ordination processes in complex environments. This paper presents the results of a study which examined the role of information technology in the control and co-ordination of pan national corporation subsidiaries in Ireland. The findings indicate that IT is being used to change the nature of the relationship between headquarters and subsidiaries in a manner that makes the PNC more global in orientation. This is occurring as operations and decision making processes in subsidiaries are redesigned to improve global management and local responsiveness. I.

It has been recognized that in today’s highly competitive industrial markets, one of the few ways left to gain differentiation from competitors is by offering value-added services. To do so, however, requires a service-oriented strategy and the active implementation of this strategy which includes significant internal changes in management philosophy and approach. Unfortunately, no study has examined the implementation aspects of a service-oriented strategy. In this context, our research focuses on two important “soft factors”, corporate culture and human resource management, that are necessary for a successful implementation of a serviceoriented strategy in industrial marketing companies. We analyze the mediating role of these two soft factors in the causal chain leading from a service-oriented strategy to organizational performance. We find that that the soft factors play an important mediating role in the link

As the trend toward economic globalization increases, the internationalization of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) has become an important topic. Research on the performance outcomes of foreign market entry strategies has been primarily considered from the perspective of the multinational corporations. In this paper hierarchical regression analyses were conducted on archival data of 123 publicly held manufacturing SMEs based in the United States to test a contingency model that hypothesizes more of the performance variance is explained when the foreign market entry mode is strategically aligned with domestic and foreign environmental factors. The results indicate that firms will have a higher rate of international revenue growth using non-equity based (exporting) foreign market entry modes in growing domestic environments. International revenue growth is higher for equity-based modes when foreign market risks are high. The findings should provide managers of SMEs with contextual evidence for making successful foreign market entry decisions. 1 Foreign Entry Mode and Performance: Moderating Effects of Environmental Factors Growth through foreign market expansion has become an increasingly popular strategy, as previously closed foreign markets open, and economies around the world globalize. Spurred

Redefining managerial effectiveness in a multilevel organization: a structurationist account.

The purpose of this dissertation is the delineation of a new approach, or, more precisely, a new “role ” and “methodological system, ” for those persons engaged in building and managing multi-actor structures, or “networks, ” for the purpose of policy implementation. As policy formulation and implementation can be viewed increasingly as taking place inter-organizationally, and consisting of individuals, special-interest groups, public organizations, private organizations, non-profits, etc., none of whom have the individual power to autonomously determine the strategies and actions of all the other actors, policy processes can no longer be viewed as the implementation of ex ante formulated goals, but instead must be seen as an interaction process in which actors exchange information about problems, preferences and means, and trade-off goals and resources. That is, the context of “getting things done ” in the public sector is changing from a singular organizational context to a multiple-organization network context. Managerially, we must respond accordingly. While there has been an increasing recognition in the literatures of at least three distinct fields of enquiry [political science, organization theory, and policy science] that such

Even though the influence of information and communication technologies (ICT) on business performance has been widely investigated, researchers have come to contradictory results. There is no unanimity about a positive relationship between ICT use and company results, and it is also unclear which factors influence or determine this contribution. Moreover, as it often happens within management science, most of the available literature refers to large companies. On the contrary, this work has a specific focus on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and concentrates the investigation of the IS/business performance relationship on the issue of strategic alignment. The paper presents the results of a survey carried out on a sample of 174 Italian SMEs. Data were collected through a questionnaire filled-in through direct interviews to Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). The empirical work shows that information systems are developed coherently with SME strategic imperatives. Moreover, research results provide evidence that such alignment The existing literature has been showing an increasing interest toward the influence of information and communication technologies (ICT) on business performance. Although this