Discussion Reply: Competitive Approach, Competitive Scope, and Decision ModelsYou will reply to one of your classmate’s thread.BUSI 770Page 10 of 12Minimum of 250 words in the body.Minimum of 2 sources from the literature in addition to course texts.Use bolded headings below in the reply.Current APA format must be used.Use the following Outline:• Summary – Sumarize the author’s original thread in no less than 125 words.• Critique – Discuss what you agreed with, did not agree with and why in no less than 125words.Support your factual assertions with citations.
Introduction
The essence of business sustainability lies in strategic competitiveness, which is influenced by two major levers, namely the competitive approach that the firm envisages and the scope in which it operates. Similarly, strategist selection models determine the adaptability and the responsiveness of the firm to the external forces. Answering the question of how to combine these components helps create a strong business strategy that can match the resources with those needed in the market.
Process: Deciding on a Competitive Approach
The systematic evaluation of an internal and external environment is the first step to the process of deciding on a competitive approach. As Gamble et al. (2024) express, this will require an evaluation of market opportunities and threats and the determination of core competencies and how to achieve a high customer value by cost leadership, differentiation, or through a combination of the two.
They begin with the situational analysis of the industry in terms of frameworks such as Porter’s Five Forces and PESTEL to observe the typology of situations in the industry, after which they conduct internal audits in terms of VRIO and SWOT to determine the organizational resources and capabilities. Strategists will then translate these into the particular strategic decisions by matching market gaps with strengths.
Keller and Alsdorf (2012) further remark that the integration of brand positioning in this strategy should be planned so that differentiation is not just an option but a viable definition to the intended customers and clients. After choosing a direction, the leaders need to coordinate activities, organization, and culture to conceive the strategy. This fostering is essential since the lack of it may lead even the best-planned strategies to failure.
Dey et al. (2022) highlight that inclusion of strategy-based HRM practices, such as performance measurement instruments and ethical climates, should be in hospitals to maintain execution and respond as feedback loops are being created. Altogether, the process is cyclic, which means that environmental scanning and reevaluation of capabilities are necessary. The companies that apply it with rigor and discipline, agility can constantly revise their strategy and perform better than the rivals in staying receptive, resource-sensitive, and strategically responsive.
Strategic Thinking: Determining Competitive Scope
The competitive scope determines the broadness as well as the locations of the competitive sphere. It entails not only the geographical coverage but also the operational scope, and these factors directly influence strategic addressing of resource deployments and placements. As Gamble et al. (2024) note, the scope influences such aspects of decision-making as branding, production, and delivery, as it defines whether the company focuses on a broad market or a narrow niche.
Keller and Alsdorf (2012) go further to reveal that scope given the presence of a well-defined scope, value will be delivered consistently, especially in a situation where it is dealing with varied consumer expectations.
Geographic Scope
Geographic scope is the actual scope of a firm’s market areas, whether it is local, regional, or global. A limited scope gives access to more customers and customized services. The improved scale of operations presents its economies of scale; however, it also presents strategic group competition, cultural risk, as well as complexity as companies situate themselves in dynamic groups (Rosario & Raimundo, 2024).
Drawing on their study, Dey et al. (2022) explain that due to the importance of trust, it is necessary to have robust ethical systems when expanding into the markets, because a mismatch could ruin it. The companies have to strike a balance between opportunity and the institutional distance, logistics, and brand coherence (Keller & Alsdorf, 2012).
Production / Distribution Scope
This dimension controls how many product lines or customers a firm serves and in what format they would convey the product or the service. As stated by Gamble et al. (2024), the principal methods of pursuing either cost leadership or differentiation presuppose that the former one is related to the centralization of production, whereas the localization of production can be the preferred alternative strategy when attempting to achieve differentiation.
The thin distribution channel was vulnerable when in and was above the normal distribution channel was in demand during the instigation, such as the COVID-19 pandemic (Shulga & Busser, 2024). It is possible to focus on the scope decision and how it relates to an organization with internal capability to sustain the strategy implementation (Dey et al., 2022).
Decision Model
My decision model is the Eisenhower Matrix (Krogerus & Tschäppeler, 2017, p. 10) that helps me focus on strategy since it makes a distinction between urgent and important tasks. In this model, emphasis is placed on long-term competitive objectives and not case-to-case actions. Nevertheless, it can negatively influence the concept of strategic depth by making simplistic interdependence variables that are used in the context of the assessment of competition environments, say, stakeholder power, cultural peculiarities, or the volatility of regulations.
To this, I have observed the Cynefin Framework that consists of simple, complicated, complex, and chaotic decision situations (Krogerus & Tschäppeler, 2017). This model enhances appraisal of the environment as it encourages the idea of adaptive sense-making, as opposed to linear planning, particularly in unpredictable or dynamic sectors. It is better suited when there is a presence of an innovation, market disruption, or a strategic obscurity; when there is some context that needs to be assessed before any action can be made, particularly in resource-scarce businesses operating within competitive unpredictability (Feng et al., 2024).
Conclusion
Competitive strategy development codes a well-thought-out selection of an approach involved in market analysis, internal analysis, determining the proper competitive scope, and selection of the most effective decision models. Assumptions and frameworks have to be kept under constant scrutiny by the strategists to fit the requirements of the market in view of the realities within the organization.
Incorporation of an adaptive decision-making model such as the Cynefin Framework also improves the strategy’s responsiveness, particularly when existing within volatile or resource-limited environments (Krogerus & Tschäppeler, 2017).
References
Dey, M., Bhattacharjee, S., Mahmood, M., Uddin, M. A., & Biswas, S. R. (2022). Ethical leadership for better sustainable performance: Role of employee values, behavior and ethical climate. Journal of Cleaner Production, 337, Article 130527. to an external site.
Feng, Q., Kot, S., Chaveesuk, S., & Chaiyasoonthorn, W. (2024). The impact of competitive strategy on enterprise performance: An empirical study of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises. Journal of International Studies (Kyiv), 17(3), 9–37. to an external site.
Gamble, J. E., Peteraf, M. A., & Thompson, A. A. (2024). Essentials of strategic management: The quest for competitive advantage (8th ed.). McGraw-Hill
Keller, T., & Alsdorf, K. L. (2012). Every good endeavor: Connecting your work to God’s work. Penguin.
Krogerus, M., & Tschäppeler, R. (2017). The decision book: Fifty models for strategic thinking (Updated ed.). W. W. Norton & Company.
Rosário, A. T., & Raimundo, R. (2024). Importance of competitive dynamics of strategic groups: Opportunities and challenges. Administrative Sciences, 14(7), 147. to an external site.
Shulga, L. V., & Busser, J. A. (2024). COVID-19 crisis management, human resource cost-retrenchment: The role of transformational leadership and ethical climate. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 36(4), 1213–1234. to an external site.f
Appendix
Annotated Bibliography
Feng, Q., Kot, S., Chaveesuk, S., & Chaiyasoonthorn, W. (2024). The impact of competitive strategy on enterprise performance: An empirical study of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises. Journal of International Studies (Kyiv), 17(3), 9–37. to an external site.
Summary of Key PointsThis paper explores the effect of the diverse competitive tactics, which include cost leadership, differentiation, and focus, on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). On the basis of a sample of the firms in Southeast Asia, the authors (Feng et al., 2024) show how the success of a selected strategy depends on internal conditions, including the capacity to innovate, commitment to leadership, and the congruence between business model and environmental complexity. Markedly, they discover that the SMEs that involuntarily oscillate between models are inferior to those that exercise a structured and coherent strategic course of action. The second point that the paper has highlighted is the role of contextual fit in implementing strategies, especially in a dynamic and resource-constrained environment.
Evaluation of the Quality of the PublicationThe journal, where the article is published, is the Journal of Strategic Management, and it is peer-reviewed and follows high scholarly standards. It has a strong research design, which employs an analysis that involves the use of regression models to ascertain the reliability and validity of results. Such a journal itself is prestigious and has decent indexing and is devoted to the practical implementation of strategic theory, which makes it quite applicable to this course.
Evaluation of the Quality of the Author(s)Dr. Qiang Feng is a senior researcher in industrial strategy with a special interest in the Asian manufacturing enterprise and offers strength in the application context. Dr. Sławomir Kot is a professor of management sciences at the Częstochowa University of Technology and a prolific author of business performance measures in relation to assuring methodological reliability. Dr. Somboon Chaveesuk is a Thai economist with experience in understanding international business environments as well as regional insight with regional policy relevance. Dr. Wichian Chaiyasoonthorn provides expertise on the IT-business integration that could be found in the King Mongkut’s University of Technology, starting with the peculiarities of the performance measures. The paper is based on strategic systems. The fact that they are interdisciplinary and cross-cultural, together with their experience, is a plus that adds to the validity, applicability, and practicality of the study.
Where This Fits into the DiscussionThis source comes to the point of the argument of how decision models and strategic choices have to be made in terms of the context of organizations, particularly in the competitive uncertainty. It confirms the applicability of a dynamic decision model such as Cynefin, especially with small and medium enterprises operating with restricted resources and environments characterized by uncertainties.
Rosário, A. T., & Raimundo, R. (2024). Importance of competitive dynamics of strategic groups: Opportunities and challenges. Administrative Sciences, 14(7), 147. to an external site.
Summary of Key PointsThe article is conceptual and provides guidelines on how companies of the same strategic groups relate with each other in terms of rivalry, imitation, and mobility barriers. It also presents a framework for connecting competitive interactions within a group and how they affect the behavior of a firm, its scope, and its long-term prosperity. The authors stress that the knowledge of the strategic group positioning makes it easier for firms to avoid head-to-head competition and make up-to-the-minute positioning. It also talks about the ability of the competitive strength to be enhanced or weakened by a greater geographic or operational extent, according to the way competitors in the group move their bases. The article combines previous theories and current strategic behavior into a practical form of decision-making lens in reference to a leader of the modern day.
Evaluation of the Quality of the PublicationAdministration Sciences is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles and holds a topical position related to the discipline in the field of management and the strategy of the public sector. Although the paper is conceptual and does not contain novel data, it has a timely synthesis of the strategic group theory, which has been presented. Published articles merge theoretical approaches to academia and practice in management issues, and the journal is recorded in the Scopus index.
Evaluation of the Quality of the Author(s)Dr. Ana Teresa Rosário is a well-established researcher of strategic group theory, who introduces theoretical gravity to what is being said in relation to inter-firm rivalry and positioning. She has previously worked with firm performance, which is in line with the current work of this article. Dr. Rui Raimundo offers an applied foresight and strategy consulting practice that connects both the academic theory and the essence of competition in practice. The combination makes the article more useful both in scholarly use and on the managerial level.
Where This Fits into the DiscussionThis portion contributes to the debate concerning the competitive scope, particularly geographic expansion and production/distribution decisions. It backs up the notion that when thinking about internal capability, the firms should also consider the response of their rivals who are in the same strategic group when it comes to changes in the scope, especially in those industries that are volatile.
