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This paper aims to describe the development of reliable assessment data to support strategic planning among Purdue University Libraries.

A LibQUAL+® survey was designed to enable the data gathered to be drilled down into by subgroup. Radar charts demonstrated both consistent themes as well as differences in use patterns between the different colleges, and between undergraduates, graduates and faculty. Detailed analysis of the resultant data was then used to support the strategic planning process.

Subsequent enquiry among the Strategic Planning Group showed that the survey had had a major impact on the process, which led to scrapping of the first draft of the plan, and greatly informed the second draft.

This paper shows the practical applicability of LibQUAL+® data to support strategic planning, replacing hunches and intuitive knowledge about patron opinion with hard facts.

The purpose of this study is to propose a measuring system based on the information flow to carry out a more precise assessment of strategic plans.

An action research method is used with system dynamics. The indicators obtained from the strategic plans were assessed through information records.

The output of this study is a dynamic model which is produced by the workflows and processes in which decision-makers can apply experiments. By this means, it can be used as a measuring system based on information flows produced within the organization.

The first practical implication is that it can be possible to measure how much of the current workflows matched the strategic goals. Second, it can be possible to measure how much the budget allocated to the strategic plans corresponds to the amount of the total works. Third, it gets ability to managers to provide the opportunity to carry out experiments through the designed model.

As it uses information flows as measuring variable, this study is one of the novel approaches in strategy measurement systems. It also promises high efficiency and effectiveness because the assessment of goals and actions in strategic plans are sources of information which shed a light on the future strategic options to the decision-makers of the organizations.

A strategic plan is a document used to communicate an organisation’s goals and the actions needed to achieve those goals. Strategic planning in public organisations promotes timely decisions, enhances the management of limited resources in a more rational manner, improves service delivery and induces greater satisfaction of customers. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to critically examine the strategic planning challenges facing the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services (DTPS), and how these impact organisational performance; second, to identify strategies that can be implemented to enhance strategic planning and performance management in the DTPS.

This paper used a qualitative case study design with the aid of document analysis to provide insight into the research questions.

The paper concludes that public institutions such as the DTPS face a plethora of challenges that militate against successful strategic planning and implementation. A major challenge is resistance to change arising from a desire to maintain the status quo. This paper argues that it is important to promote strategic planning, and aligning organisational objectives with performance in public institutions.

This study is based on documentary research and therefore its findings may lack current findings that would have emerged from direct interviews.

This research contributes towards efforts being made to make strategic planning and implementation effective and credible in public institutions especially in sub Saharan Africa.

In many South African public institutions, strategic planning is viewed as the work of top management, a misconception which compromises service delivery. In addition, strategic planning has been implemented as a direct attempt to inhibit poor budgetary planning and corruption in procurement systems, and in order to effectively manage public resources. There is a need for the department to conduct regular skills development programmes, uproot top-level bureaucracy, and increase innovation, monitoring and evaluation of organisational activities.

Despite the proven link between internal communication and more effective business results, only a few attempts have been made to answer the essential question of who is responsible for managing internal communication in an organisation. This paper aims to examine the presence of internal communication management (ICM) practices in companies in Latvia and launch a new discussion on who should manage internal communication in a modern company to support business strategy and development.

In the first phase of the study, a survey was conducted in three business sectors in Latvia involved in managing and implementing the internal communications function. Using the multiple case study method, the second phase of the study examined in-depth, ICM and the implementation practices in four different Latvian companies. In total, 13 in-depth interviews were conducted within 4 companies, and thematic analysis was used to analyse the material gained from the interviews.

The target companies and relevant professionals from different fields have divergent opinions about who should manage the internal communication function. From the research across four companies, it was concluded that internal communication was implemented in a fragmented manner. There was a weak understanding of the meaning and goal of internal communication. The potential of effective internal communication in reaching strategic goals has not been realised. Responsibility for ICM is often limited to the reactive performance of public relations departments, human resources or marketing specialists. The companies clearly did not have a defined scope of responsibilities for managing internal communication amongst the different parts of their organisations. It can be concluded that company managers should pay attention to how internal communication is conducted, clearly delegate this function to a manager and define the expected results that meet the company’s strategic goals. The results of this research can be used to inform recommendations for integrating the ICM function.

Only a few research papers have discussed responsibility for internal communication functions. This research particularly fills this gap and emphasises the need to assign responsibility for an organisation’s ICM function as it is the core factor in strategic implementation and input related to business goals.

Over the past ten to 15 years, key account management (KAM) has established itself as an important and growing field of academic study and as a major issue for practitioners. Despite the use of strategic intent in conceptualizing KAM relationship types, the role of strategic intent has not previously been empirically tested. This paper aims to address this issue

This paper reports on inductive research that used a dyadic methodology and difference modelling to examine nine key account relationship dyads involving 18 companies. This is supplemented with 13 semi-structured interviews with key account managers from a further 13 companies, which provides additional depth of understanding of the drivers of KAM relationship type.

The research found a misalignment of strategic intent between supplier and customer, which suggested that strategic intent is unrelated to relationship type. In contrast, key buyer/supplier relationships were differentiated not by the level of strategic fit or intent, but by contact structure and differentiated service.

This research showed that there can be stable key account relationships even where there is an asymmetry of strategic interests. The findings also have practical implications relating to the selection and management of key accounts.

These results raise questions relating to conceptualizations of such relationships, both in the classroom and within businesses.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a quantitative methodology for setting targets in the framework of Balanced Scorecard (BSC) in order to achieve vision and goals.

Response Surface Methodology is proposed to find the significant relationships that should be included in the strategy map and the optimal values of performance measures are assessed by using the desirability function-based approach of RSM. The proposed method was created by reviewing the existing literature, modeling the problem, and applying it in an oil company. In fact, RSM is used to execute the design matrix, analyze the collected data, extract models, analyze the results, and optimize the procedures that generate multiple responses.

By applying this methodological design, a clearer picture of the relationships between strategic objectives is obtained and the influence of strategic objectives on one another is determined. Afterward, optimal values for performance measures are determined.

This paper proposes a framework for constructing a strategy map and setting quantitative targets to translate the goals and strategies into corresponding performance measures and targets. Also, this paper presents a case study to demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed approach. However, RSM-based techniques require a greater amount of data to generate more accurate results. Although the advent of the Information Age has forced organizations’ decision makers to provide sufficient information and data for business analysis, the data requirements of RSM-based techniques are met.

In practice, the process of setting targets for performance measures can be challenging in terms of reaching a consensus between managers and decision makers. The findings of this paper can offer a new approach for performance evaluation based on the BSC which allows the organization’s decision makers to reach a more accurate picture of the relationship model between organization goals and those objectives within the BSC. It also demonstrates how decision makers can be guided in the process of defining performance target values in the BSC method.

Reviewing the literature on setting quantitative targets within the framework of the BSC showed no prior study in which RSM is used. This approach has two main contributions: the associations among strategic objectives are investigated and obtained in an effective way which analytically identifies the direction and degree of the relations among the performance measures. Considering the performance evaluation structure based on the BSC, quantitative targets have been determined to help in achieving the long-term goals of the organization. The application of the proposed method in a company showed that the contributions of this research are not only theoretical, but practical as well.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the internal audit can contribute to an improvement in business performance. The goal is to develop a theoretical model of the integration of quality management systems (QMS) and an internal audit within a broader managerial system and performance reviews of the company.

A theoretical framework was developed for assessing the internal audit's contribution to the achievement of business goals. Based on the theoretically explained relationship two hypotheses related to impact of internal audits on business performance were empirically tested by a case study.

A mature QMS should contribute to the achievement of a company's efficiency, which can be based on the connection of quality goals with the company's strategic goals, and in relation to this implementation of the internal audit should also be upgraded to contribute to achievement of the company's efficiency and strategic goals. Accordingly, the results of internal audits and measures that follow the audit are discussed within a strategic internal analysis of the company.

Testing on a single case has limitations regarding the ability to generalise the results to a broader spectrum of companies, however the objective was to expand and generalise theory. With the confirmed hypothesis about the contribution and positive impact of the internal audit by the case study, the statistical generalisation by using the survey method represents a logical additional step. Further research should also analyse the relationship between subjective employee assessments and objective performance data.

Empirical results show that internal audit contributes to the achievement of business goals and that internal audit has more positive than negative effects on business performance. Therefore, the paper demonstrates that the results of an audit can be used as a foundation for choosing measures not only to assure the conformity of the QMS with the standard's requirements, but also to assure business improvements.

The paper identified the relations between three managerial systems: QMS, total quality management (TQM) (represented by the business excellence models) and strategic management. The systems are connected in the strategy development and in the analysis phase of the strategic decision‐making process. Paper integrated the internal audit into the company's performance review system. The identified positive effects of the QMS were used as a basis for assessing the internal audit's contribution to the achievement of business goals and improving company efficiency.

The purpose of this paper is to present the strategic intangible process assets characterization (SIPAC) methodology illustrated by an example of its application to the field of information technology (IT). This is a pioneering methodology for characterizing the impact and quality of intangible process assets and intellectual capital as levers to achieve organizational objectives. This strategic intellectual capital approach will help to identify both intangible assets and indicators geared to meeting organizational objectives. This is of vital importance since the success of an organization can be construed in terms of goal achievement.

The paper illustrates an example of the step-by-step application of the proposed methodology at an IT company. The aim is to describe its use in a real case so that other companies can benefit from the replication of the methodology used.

The proposed methodology (SIPAC) that the authors have designed and applied has been found to be useful and provide an insightful new point of view for strategic decision making in the IT industry taking into account intangible process assets.

The proposed methodology has been exemplified in a real case. This should help organizations to use the methodology to replicate the results.

Each and every organization has know-how represented by intangible assets. This paper meets an identified need to use intangible process assets as levers to help organizations achieve their business goals.

We develop an integrative conceptualization of how firms set and alter strategic goals, incorporating insights from goal-setting literatures across the disciplines of marketing, management, and psychology. Our framework accounts for the internal and external forces that impact the content of a firm's goals as well as the dynamic processes by which these goals are formed and changed over time. By proposing this framework, we strive to offer insights into the “black box” of organizational goals that connect firm resources and environmental context to firm strategies. Illustrative data to support our framework are provided from a case study of a Fortune 100 communication firm's entry into an emerging, high-technology, new product marketplace.

This study aims to describe how the Hoshin Kanri (HK) strategic methodology facilitates implementation of lean management (LM), achieving greater integration of the strategic and operational levels, resulting in higher performance level.

The authors conducted an in-depth case study of a top-10 Spanish food retail company with experience in HK and LM. First, the authors conducted 17 semi-structured interviews with the management team. Second, the authors analyzed all minutes from meetings of the key management entities for HK monitoring over a period of 3 years (2016–2019). Third, the authors evaluated the reports and key scorecards for the same period. Finally, authors visited the operating facilities and attended multiple team management meetings.

This study demonstrates that deploying HK creates the strategic ecosystem for operations management that facilitates successful implementation of LM. By sharing common cultural concepts, both methodologies generate faster transformation of the organization and thus push it towards its strategic objectives with more determination and better performance.

The lack of strategic alignment is one of the most important reasons for LM failure. Although HK is a strategic methodology that facilitates this alignment, a gap exists in the literature on the benefits of HK for implementation of continuous improvement initiatives such as LM. Our research shows how HK enables a participative connection between the strategic and operational areas of the firm that reinforces the fundamental elements of LM. Employee involvement, widespread use of plan-do-check-act (PDCA) methodology and multidisciplinary work (among other effects) make HK a key element for successful implementation of LM.