Editor's note

Citation

(2006), "Editor's note", Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 27 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jbs.2006.28827baa.001

Editor's note

In October 1991 a storm stronger than any previously recorded hit the coast off Massachusetts. Termed by some the “Perfect Storm,” it was actually three storms combined into one, creating a dire situation in the Atlantic Ocean. The 2000 eponymous movie dramatized this confluence of factors and had viewers on the edge of their seats. In his article for the Journal of Business Strategy, “The perfect market,” Scott Bergquist of IBM Consulting may not have readers in suspense, but he draws a compelling picture of a so-called “perfect market,” fraught with as many dangers for the unprepared as a turbulent ocean. In a clever analogy to the 1991 storm, the author cites three factors – digitization, democratization, and globalization – that are coming together to topple corporate ships and careless passengers. This is a futuristic article in one sense, but a pointed commentary on the present and near future as well, where “perfect” carries the connotation not of the ideal but of the worst possible danger.

R. Duane Ireland, Donald F. Kuratko and Michael H. Morris, in the second part of their “health audit” on corporate entrepreneurship, provide hands-on guidance for determining whether a firm is ready to implement an entrepreneurial strategy and how to measure innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness. The authors, all of whom are professors at leading university business schools, developed a Corporate Entrepreneurship Climate Instrument around five factors that are antecedents to corporate entrepreneurship: management support, work discretion/autonomy, reinforcement, time availability, and organizational boundaries. They include working documents to measure a firm’s “entrepreneurial intensity,” where respondents must characterize the style of their companies, how executives make decisions, how new products, services and processes are introduced. They share a 78-question survey that many readers will want to take themselves to see how their companies measure up when it comes to entrepreneurship and welcoming new ideas.

Usha Haley and George Haley, in the second part of their article, “The logic of Chinese business strategy: East versus West,” and, along with Chin Tiong Tan, authors of The Chinese Tao of Business: The Logic of Successful Business Strategy (Haley et al., 2005) discuss the key drivers for strategic success in the Chinese markets. Their research is based on interviews with senior managers of highly successful foreign and local companies operating in China, all of whom had responsibility for deciding which markets to enter in China and how to do so.

In a complementary article on staffing high tech positions in China, Train Luo, managing director in China for Heidrick & Struggles, the global recruitment firm, shares his insider’s knowledge on how to match the appropriate leaders to the right spots in companies. Much depends on carefully assessing what stage of development the company has reached in the globalization process and who can take the organization to the next stage. There are no absolutes and the right leader may or may not be a local Chinese, but he/she must have superb skills in dealing with local markets as well as foreign ones.

Grahame Dowling, an expert on corporate reputation and a professor at the Australian Graduate School of Management, offers a new perspective on corporate reputation and boards of directors. Generally, the two have not been linked, and boards seldom consider reputation per se on their agendas. However, Dowling argues that boards are not only ultimately responsible for their company’s reputation, but also they often, and unknowingly, put that reputation at risk. Most of the information they receive is filtered through the CEO or senior managers or outside advisors, and it may be neither objective nor thorough. Further, since board members often lack expertise in the complex financial instruments used in running the company, they may be overlooking major problems.

While strategic planning as a discipline taught in business schools has been around for a long time, a surprising number of middle market organizations have not integrated its most basic tenets into their processes. Michael Allio brings his own experience and that of his firm to an article based on hard data about how middle market companies approach strategic planning and how they can improve the process and outcomes. He knows the pitfalls that too many middle market businesses encounter in their planning efforts and how to steer mangers to get beyond planning to implementation.