Running Head: DOCTORAL COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION
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A) Corporate Social responsibility; sustainability:
Plan a strategy for sustainability from the perspectives of social, economic, and
environmental aspects.
Your plan must include changing corporate culture about the importance of
sustainability, and demonstrate that the move towards sustainability is profitable.
Corporate Social Responsibility; Sustainability
Corporate social duty (CSR) is support services rendered to the society through initiatives
that are not meant to boost the company financially or promote the company's financial wellbeing. Corporate social responsibility can as well be defined as an engagement by an
organization to provide services that will help the surrounding community to benefit and grow as
a result of such an initiative. Corporate organizations participate in corporate social
responsibility for environmental purposes focuses n improving the environment and helping the
surrounding society to overcome social, economic challenges that are associated with
environmental pollution.
The idea of a company implementing a corporate social responsibility program is
supported by the availability of body corporative that may form partnerships with the company
to give this very special service to the citizens, the partnerships do not just represent the financial
gains that the companies will leap from this program but the overall impact that they will make
in the society (Thiel, 2015). Conventional perspectives about organizational aggressiveness,
business survival, and productivity are not given priority when a company undertakes a corporate
social responsibility program aimed at promoting productivity and the social well-being of the
society without causing any other challenges leading to a lack of productivity and slow
development of the community.
DOCTORAL COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION
Some companies incur expenses in implementing corporate social responsibility
programs aimed at building the society and enabling it to overcome environmental pollution
which might have been possibly caused by the firm and its affiliates. For instance, manufacturing
firm involved in the production of goods and services can easily face challenges as a result of
legal penalties being imposed on them due to lack of involvement in local corporate social
responsibilities and this prompts corporate to participate in community uplifting activities at
times not just because it is the wish of the management of the company but because of the legal
corporate responsibility that they are made to undertake.
Some of The Driving Factors That Push Businesses Towards CSR Include:
The contracting part of government
Business organizations are in agreement that indirectly binds the business organizations
to be responsible and care for the environment. Companies are obliged to work in the protection
of the environment and protect natural resources. For instance, mining companies whose
operations will by operation lead to degradation of the environment have an obligation to
rehabilitate the land that they mine their minerals from before they could close down their
business (Thiel, 2015). This corporate social responsibility requires that organizations leave the
environment clean and well maintained even after they are through with their business.
Previously, governments have depended on enactment and control to convey social and
ecological targets in the business area. Contracting government assets, combined with a doubt of
directions, has prompted the investigation of willful and non-administrative activities.
Requests for More Involvement of Companies
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There is a developing interest for corporate divulgence from partners, including clients,
providers, workers, groups, financial specialists, and dissident associations. These groups of
stakeholders of an organization play a significant role in the success of the organization and their
quest to solve some of the challenges faced by the surrounding community and the communities
that they belong to engage in corporate social responsibility programs in a bid to uplift the plight
of their constituents (Thiel, 2015). The involvement of these very close associates to a business
in corporate social responsibility undertakings push the business executives to consider
undertaking corporate social corporate activities to be able to able be at par with their associates.
Increase in The Number of Clients
There an argument that the moral direct of organizations implies that an organization
should be in touch with the needs of the surrounding that make the primary market of the
company's product. In a current review by Environics International shows that corporate makes a
significant impact on environmental conservation and growth of the larger community, more
than one in five purchasers detailed having either compensated or rebuffed organizations given
their apparent social execution (Thiel, 2015). The growth of organizations is dependent on the
goodwill that the firm has from its shareholder, the clients and the government that keeps in
check the operations of the firm. In a bid to maintain these goodwill companies find it necessary
to be involved in the right protection and development of the environment.
Developing specialist financial weight
Financial professionals are changing the way they evaluate organizations' execution and
are settling on choices in view of criteria that incorporate moral concerns. The Social Investment
Forum reports that in the US in 1999, there was more than $2 trillion worth of benefits put
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resources into portfolios that utilized screens connected to the earth and social obligation (Thiel,
2015). A different review by Environics International uncovered that more than a fourth of
share-owning Americans considered moral contemplations when purchasing and offering stocks.
(More on socially mindful speculation can be found in the 'Managing an account and venture'
area of the site.)
Aggressive work markets
Stakeholders of businesses are progressively looking past CSR corporate that the
organization has been involved in and the advantages that the CSR activities have brought to the
surrounding communities and the environment (Thiel, 2015). With a specific end goal to procure
and hold talented representatives, organizations are being compelled to enhance working
conditions. Managers of organizations find it to include corporate social responsibility programs
that aim to protect and grow the environment as one of the core activities of the firm to achieve
the goals of the firm. Companies that have implemented their CSR activities well and have been
able to protect and improve the environment successfully have a better customer rating, and
more people will prefer trading with this company basing on the positive goodwill and the
reputation they have in solving problems in the society.
Provider Relations
As partners are turning out to be progressively keen on business undertakings, many
organizations are finding a way to guarantee that their accomplices behave in a socially
intelligent way. Some are presenting sets of principles for their providers, to ensure that other
organizations' approaches or practices don't discolor their notoriety (Tiel, 2015). Some
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businesses may not want to enter into a business undertaking with organizations with poor CSR
ratings and poor environmental care. These companies will insist to their compliances that they
need to b involved in environmental conservation programs that will benefit the organization and
the surrounding communities.
There are several benefits that are realized by both the firm and the public as a result of
the firm engaging in corporate social responsibility programs.
Organization benefits:
Companies in successful CSR activities are rewarded with goodwill that will attract
investors to the organization who will be involved in the growth and development of the
enterprise. Investors who are concerned with environmental conservation will find it attractive to
invest their funds in companies that are involved in CSR activities that conserve the
environment.
Cutting Down On Operational Expenses
Companies that for a long time are involved in environment conservation activities have
an advantage of receiving tax waivers and incentives from the government in a bid to promote
environmental conservation.
Improved brand picture
Companies with a good conservational policy that involves CSR activities that aim at
protecting the environment and safeguarding natural resources attract a good reputation from
their customers making them the leading companies in the industry (Thiel, 2015). Expanded
deals and client faithfulness, more prominent efficiency and quality, greater capacity to draw in
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and hold workers, decreased administrative oversight are among many other advantages that
accrue to a firm with good CSR activities.
Benefits of the group and the overall population:
Corporate inclusion in the conservation of the environment
The business is assumed to be an artificial member of the society with the capability of
making prudent decisions and contributing to the growth and protection of the environment.
When the company takes up conservational measures to conserve the environment, it takes up a
moral responsibility as a good member of the society to take part in communal development
Team building and cohesiveness
Conservational programs that are accepted by both the organization and the community
help the community to bond with the organization and build closer relationships with the
organization for having championed for a typical course. This helps the community and the
organizing in creating healthy relationships and peaceful coexistence.
Natural advantages:
Recycling of waste materials
Waste materials such as sawdust can be recycled and used as a material to make other
products. The recycling of this waste material helps to remove waste from the environment and
create job opportunities to the members of the society as well.
Putting material to better use;
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When the corporative use technology to put more wasted material into use such as huge
rocks and breaking them into smaller building blocks the environment benefits from reduced
degradation as a result of used materials
Other advantages to the environment include improved survival of essential organisms in
the soil waste and the air, decreased accidents and injury of people and organisms in the
environment and conservation of natural resources such as rivers and lakes.
B) Strategic Planning & Implementation: Develop a construct towards the ability to
incorporate these initiatives into the strategic plan of the organization. Perform a
SWOT analysis and investigate how this can aid in attaining organizational goals.
How can these initiatives be implemented successfully?
Strategic Planning & Implementation
Strategic planning is a process with inputs, the conversion processes, and the outputs.
Strategic planning is a scientific approach in which organizations find the most appropriate way
of allocating resources for use by the organization while focusing on the most desirable
outcomes of the managerial process. Strategic planning is an integral part of the plan and,
monitoring, controlling and coordinating activities I a strategic planning environment with the
aim of promoting growth and development in a firm.
Formulation of a strategic plan in a business encompasses various elements that are
essential in the formulation of business strategy. These factors include the company weaknesses
and strengths. The management of the company should accept the company's facing weaknesses.
The company loses value from the weaknesses that it faces, and for this reason, the business
needs to find a reason as to how it will have to carry out an analysis of the weaknesses that it
faces to come up with an approach to hedge risks from this weak points. The company needs to
identify the strengths it has in its internal environment while making strategic plans; the strengths
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will help the firm to overcome challenges passed by the weaknesses faced by the company. In
instances where the company internal environment does not capitalize on the strengths that the
business has, it becomes very hard for the business to overcome external challenges that the
corporation faces.
The company also has o establish external opportunities and threats that it faces in its
operations. Opportunities in a business represent the factors that exist in the external
environment of the business that is likely to lead to the success of the firm if they are taken up
and utilized as expected by the management of the enterprise. Firms must strategically ensure
that they will use the opportunities presented to them in the external environment with the aim of
ensuring that the business successfully achieves its targets by taking up the opportunities
presented by the company's industry environment (Gamble, 2013). Some of the possibilities in
the industry are not exclusive to the business, and if they are not taken up quickly by the
business, they can lead to serious challenges as they may offer an opportunity to competitors of
the firm in the industry. Threats f a company represents all factors that originate from the
external environment that can cause an adverse impact n the firm on their occurrence. These
factors lead to the decline of business and cause the sinking of the business profits the company
should come with a strategic measure to overcome or contain the external threats by use of the
company’s strategic plan.
The personality and goodwill of the implementers of the strategic plan also make a great
impact on the capability of the firm to achieve its long-term goals through an approach that aims
to grow the firm and to improve the output of the enterprise. The companies that have the
supervision with an extensive experience in the implementation of strategic plans and
management, been able to grow their capacity and enlarge operations over the expected period.
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The peroud, to enable the company to grow and achieve the expected. Managers who have the
commitment and an aggressive personality drive an organization to achieve the organizational
strategy. This is direct to the opposite of a manager who lacks the motivation and aggressiveness
to achieve these goals.
Societal expectations of the community that surrounds the community around the
organization also determine the implementation of the company strategist. For instance, a
community may expect the company to open a new service line to offer other new services to fill
the market gaps. The company must come up with strategies to fill these existing gaps and fulfill
the needs of the customers to retain them and ensure that the company continues making more
profits from trading with the customers. Societal expectations at times may create a barrier to
organizational strategies that will prevent the organization from advancing and growing. When
the society is not in support of a policy that the organization wants to implement the organization
should not go ahead to apply the approach without necessarily getting into a conflict with the
organization.
The SWOT Analysis
The SWOT analysis is a scientific tool that helps to identify opportunities strengths,
weaknesses and threats that the company faces. The SWOT analysis works by analyzing both the
internal environment and external environment of an organization. The strengths and weaknesses
of a business belong to the internal environment of business while the opportunities and
weaknesses of a business belong to the Macro environment of the company (Gamble, 2013).
When companies are unable to make good managerial decisions as a result of lack of proper
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analysis of the company and both internal and external environmental factors the company is
likely to deviate from its budgets and plans.
Strengths
The strengths of an organization are internal advantages that the organization has and are
likely to contribute to the long-term growth and success of the firm. The strengths of the
organization that the organization will have to invest in should be characteristics and favorable
conditions within the organization.
Weaknesses
These are internal factors that can lead to a decline in the level of sales and profits
generated by the organization. Weaknesses are things that the organization should avoid because
they exist within the internal environment of the organization. Organizations that can control
their internal environment overcome their weaknesses and provide services and goods to their
customers (Gamble, 2013). Weaknesses that have been pointed out by their customers or clients
of the organization should be addressed immediately by the organization to avoid losing the
customers due to weaknesses that can be prevented. Some weaknesses can be pointed out by
having a focus on the reasons that make the company not being able to perform as the
competitors. For this reason, the company needs to a carry a peer preview to establish the reason
to why the company may not be able to achieve its long-term objectives as the enterprise.
Opportunities
The management of an organization should be focused on the possibilities that the
business will succeed and grow shortly to fulfill its long-term objectives in acquiring a larger
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market share and being able to utilize the available opportunities in fulfilling its goals. In any
market, there exists a market gap that organizations strive to fulfill, and for this reason, the
company needs to undertake a gap analysis to identify these challenges to be able to achieve its
long-term goals. The businesses that cannot utilize the available opportunities leave a gap that
will eventually lead to the collapse of the company.
Threats
These are the obstacles that an organization can face. Some of the threats come from the
strategies that the companies competitors take to expand their markets. The policies undertaken
by the competitors of an organization directly affect the opportunities of survival of the firm and
growth of the company in future (Gamble 2013). Changing technology and economic forces may
cause the organization not being able to implement these strategies and being able to adapt to
variations in the environment thus posing a significant threat to the organization. The
organization's management should carry out an analysis of the forces that control the
environment that they operate to establish the outcomes of their trading and foresee the possible
risks in the environment. Measures to evade or contain the risks should be planned in advance to
enable the organization to be able to grow and maintain a healthy cash flow to support the
company’s operations.
C) Creative Solutions: Organize a team that will incorporate activities that lead to
creative problem-solving techniques and foster an environment in the organization for
creativity and innovation to flourish. Investigate the creative process and outline a
plan to incorporate creativity and innovation into the corporate culture, and discuss
how the plan can aid in important decision-making.
CREATIVE SOLUTIONS LEADERSHIP
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Creativity and innovation is an important aspect in the growth and development of
business. Innovative and creative companies discover new opportunities and products that fill the
gaps that exist in the market to gain a competitive advantage and grow their profits (Schilling,
2013). Companies that have made budget allocations aimed at building the business by research
and development make an impact in the market by coming with new brands of products that will
create more demand for the company products. Because of the many advantages that accrue to a
firm as a result of proper planning and investment to creativity and innovation many businesses
have embraced this trend of activity. There various approaches that business managers use to
create value to their firms through innovation and creativity.
Building of enthusiastic and motivated teams
When carrying out innovative research discoveries to create a new product, it is good that
a company ensures that its workers are motivated to achieve these processes through a guided
interdisciplinary exercise that involves experts from all the functional areas of the organization.
Coordination of the multidisciplinary teams requires the company ensures that there exists a
multi-sector communication infrastructure that will support the growth of the firm and
improvement of output to foster proper communication between the teams (White, 2011).
Effective communication between the groups improves the level of creativity and innovation of
the teams by enabling information sharing. For instance, in a car manufacturing firm the
engineering comes up with a model idea that they can use to build a good car, the financial team
should come up with budget approximations to evaluate the viability of the project while the
human resource team will be tasked to evaluate the human resource requirements of the project.
The marketing department in such a company will be expected to come up with the market
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trends to determine whether this product can perform well in the market and the expected
response that the market will give after the launch of the product.
Pilot tests and production of small samples.
Organizations like any other risk facing enterprises must always hedge against risk risks
by employing precautions. The precautions used by the teams include the use of risk hedging
methods such as risk avoidance in order not to incur massive losses. For instance, a company that
is committed to innovating a new product in the market will have to carry out a market analysis
on the existing market challenges that face the firm and the possible methods that the firm can
use to overcome this market challenges. Can be employed by the firm to reduce the risks and
massive losses as results of production of goods that may not perform in the market to the
expectations of the company (Schilling, 2013). Companies produce goods in small quantities that
will be used for market testing and engineering prototype testing before they embark on Mass
production of the products. Defects in prototypes have little or n consequence on the financial
statements of the company because of their defects can easily be provided for in the research and
development fund.
Nurturing of talent and retention of skill
Businesses nurture talents and grow skills of employees who are talented and dedicated
to serve the companies and help the businesses to reach their goals. Some employees may be
very creative and innovative in coming with ideas that will eventually promote the growth of the
businesses. This employee must be motivated to continue being innovative to support the growth
of the firm and channel their skills to create value for the firm. The management of companies
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needs to motivate these employees by offering better payment incentives and provide better
working conditions to retain their skills and talent.
Skills and competencies are essential elements in innovation and creativity.
Organizations utilize these skills by encouraging their employees to carry out research studies
that will enable the companies to come p with better product ideas that will enable the company
to overcome competition and gain more revenue from the sale of the new products.
D) Management of Technological Innovation: Strategize how to incorporate and manage
new and emerging technologies that will enable the firm to be more competitive.
Discuss concepts such as flexible manufacturing, and how to manage new
technologies.
Management of Technological Innovation
Companies exist in a dynamic environment which changes from time to time according
to new trends in the market and the industry in which the company operates. Challenges that are
as a result technological innovations in the environment cause the organizations to adopt new
production and operational approaches that will enable the organization to overcome challenges
associated with technological incapability and lack of capacity by the organization to adapt to
new technology
The management of firms seeks to identify new opportunities that are created by
advancement of technology to help the organizations to be more efficient and effective. The
capacity of organizations to utilize the available resources and use technology to grow the
business depends on several factors. The factors, including the stage of growth of the firm, the
level of business activities taking place in the company, some resources required by the firm to
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incorporate technological innovation into the operations and running of the company and the
future growth objectives of the enterprise. All these factors need to be put into consideration to
determine the type of technology and the level of implementation. The increase of the firm
depends on the strategic decisions made by the management of the company to promote the
running of the organization.
To conclude Managing business processes in a firm is one of the most crucial factors that
affect the running of any firm. Workers and the executive members of the firm should be
determined to make important decisions that will shape the future of the company. The managers
of the firm should learn the level of growth that their firm is and make prudent decisions on the
kind of technology, innovation and corporate social responsibilities to undertake. Firms grow and
prosper as a result of proper communication and planning by all functional departments of the
firm.
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References
Belussi, F., Gottardi, G., & Rullani, E. (Eds.). (2012). The technological evolution of industrial
districts (Vol. 29). Springer Science & Business Media.
Essentials of Strategic Management Edition/ Year: 3rd/ 2012 Authors: Gamble, J.; Thompson,
A., & Peteraf, M. Publisher: McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 978-0078029288
Proctor, T. (2010). Creative Problem Solving for Managers: Developing Skills for Decision
Making and Innovation, Third Edition. Routledge. ISBN: 9780203859827
The Social Domain in CSR and Sustainability: A Critical Study of Social Responsibility among
Government, Local Communities, and Corporations, Thiel, M. (2015). New York:
McGraw-Hill Higher Education. ISBN: 978147248456373
Schilling, M. (2013). Strategic Management of Technological Innovation. McGraw-Hill. ISBN:
978-0-07-802923-3 http://www.mhhe.com/schilling4e Supplemental Readings
The Management of Technology and Innovation: A Strategic Approach, 2nd Edition;
White/Bruton © 2011 Cengage Learning, 416 pages ISBN: 9780538478229,
9781133465904, 9781111548438 Article: Benchmarking the strategic management of
technology - I Roberts, Edward B. Research Technology Management 38.1 (Jan/Feb
1995): 44. Video: How to Write a Great IT Strategic Plan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lnOBK hzdhS4
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