Development of enterprise strategic management theory

Based on the development history and evolution process of enterprise strategic management theory, this paper divides the emergence and development of enterprise strategic management theory into four stages: early strategic thinking, traditional strategic theory, competitive strategic theory and dynamic competitive strategic theory, and analyzes the theoretical basis and characteristics of each stage, pointing out that this process is dynamic, repeated and constantly updated, and enterprise managers should study dynamic enterprise strategic management on this basis.

? Regarding enterprise strategy, Ansoff, a famous American strategist, believes that strategic structure should be a controlled and conscious formal planning process; The top management of the enterprise is responsible for the whole process of the plan, and the personnel who make and implement the plan must be responsible for the top management, and implement the strategic plan through the decomposition of objectives, projects and budgets. Since Ansoff put forward the definition of strategy, western strategic management literature generally divides strategic management into two categories: enterprise overall strategy and business strategy.

? 1972, Ansoff published the article "Strategic Management Thought" in the magazine "Enterprise Management Policy", and formally put forward the concept of "strategic management". 1979, he wrote a book on strategic management. Ansoff believes that enterprise strategic management refers to a series of business management business formed by combining daily business decisions with long-term planning decisions. Enterprise strategic management plays an important role in enterprise development. Studying the development history of enterprise strategic management theory is helpful for people to consciously strengthen enterprise strategic management and continuously improve the competitiveness of enterprises, which has a positive effect on enterprise development. The development of enterprise strategic management theory can be divided into four stages: the first stage is the early strategic thinking stage; The second stage is the traditional strategic theory stage; The third stage is the theoretical stage of competitive strategy; The fourth stage is the theoretical stage of dynamic strategy.

? First, the early stage of strategic thinking

? At this stage, although there is no complete strategic theory system, it has produced wonderful strategic ideas. Professor Michael Porter of Harvard University in the United States made an incisive summary of this and summarized three viewpoints in the early stage of strategic thinking.

? The first point of enterprise strategic thought. At the beginning of the 20th century, Fa Yueer integrated the internal management activities of enterprises, divided various activities in industrial enterprises into six categories: technical activities, commercial activities, financial activities, safety activities, accounting activities and management activities, and put forward five functions of management: planning, organization, command, coordination and control, among which the planning function is the primary function of enterprise management. This can be said to be the earliest enterprise strategic thought.

? The second thought of enterprise strategy. From 65438 to 0938, Chester Barnard, an American economist, separated organizational theory from management theory and strategy theory for the first time in his book The Functions of Managers, and thought that management and strategy were mainly related to leaders. In addition, he also pointed out that the focus of management work is to create organizational efficiency, while the focus of other management work should be organizational efficiency, that is, how to adapt the enterprise organization to the environment. This idea of "matching" between organization and environment has become the basis of modern strategic analysis methods.

? The third viewpoint of enterprise strategic thinking. From 65438 to 1960s, Andrews of Harvard University defined strategy from four aspects and divided it into four elements, namely, market opportunity, company strength, personal value and ambition, and social responsibility. Among them, market opportunities and social responsibilities are external environmental factors, while company strength and personal values and aspirations are internal factors of enterprises. He also advocates that companies should form unique capabilities by better allocating their own resources.

Gain a competitive advantage.

? Second, the stage of traditional strategic theory.

? From 65438 to 0965, Ansoff published the first book on strategy, Enterprise Strategy, which became the starting point of modern enterprise strategy theory research. Since then, many scholars have actively participated in the study of enterprise strategy theory, during which many different theoretical schools have emerged.

? 1. Design school. Professor Andrews and his colleagues represent this school. The design school believes that the formation of enterprise strategy must be the responsibility of top managers, and the formation of strategy should be a carefully designed process, which is neither an intuitive thinking process nor a standardized analysis process; The strategy should be clear, concise, easy to understand and implement.

? 2. Plan the school. The planning school is represented by Ansoff. Planning school believes that the formation of strategy is a controlled, conscious and standardized process. Strategic behavior is a process of adapting to its environment and the resulting internal structure of enterprises.

? 3. locate the school. Its outstanding representative is Michael Porter. Orientalists believe that enterprises must do a good job in two aspects in the process of formulating strategies: first, the structural analysis of the industry in which enterprises are located; The second is the analysis of the relative competitive position of enterprises in the industry.

? 4. Creative school. The creative school believes that the process of strategy formation is a process of intuitive thinking and seeking inspiration.

? 5. Cognitive school. Cognitive school believes that the formation of strategy is based on the cognitive process of processing information, acquiring knowledge and establishing concepts-the latter is the most direct and important factor in the formation of strategy, and it is not important at which stage to make progress.

? 6. Learning schools. The difference between the learning school and the former school is that it believes that strategy is formed through gradual learning and natural selection, which can appear under the organization, and the formation and implementation of strategy are intertwined.

? 7. Power School. The power school believes that strategic formulation should not only pay attention to economic factors such as industry environment and competitiveness, but also pay attention to political factors such as interest groups and power sharing.

? 8. Cultural school. Cultural school believes that corporate strategy is rooted in corporate culture and the social values behind it, and its formation process is to integrate various beneficial factors in corporate organization.

The process of waving.

? 9. Environmental school. Environmental school emphasizes how enterprise organizations survive and develop in their environment, but its function is only to make people pay attention to environmental factors.

? 10. The structural school regards enterprise organization as a structure-an organism composed of a series of behaviors and characteristics; Think of strategic formulation as a kind of integration-a system composed of the views of other schools.

? Third, the theoretical stage of competitive strategy

? In the development of enterprise strategy theory, 10 strategy school has played a certain role in a certain period of time. However, with the development of enterprise strategy theory and enterprise management practice, the research focus of enterprise strategy theory has gradually turned to enterprise competition. Especially since the 1980s, western economists and management scholars have always put the theory of enterprise competitive strategy at the forefront of academic research, thus effectively promoting the development of the theory of enterprise competitive strategy. Looking back on the development of the past 20 years, there are three main strategic schools in the theory of enterprise competitive strategy: industrial structure school, core competence school and strategic resources school.

? (A) school of industrial structure. The founder and representative of the school of industrial structure is Professor Michael Porter. Porter's outstanding contribution lies in the innovative compatibility of industrial organization theory and enterprise competitive strategy theory, and the organic unity of strategy formulation and strategy implementation. Porter believes that the most critical part of the enterprise environment is one or several industries in which enterprises compete, and the industry structure greatly affects the establishment of competition rules and the competition strategies that enterprises can choose. Therefore, the analysis of industry structure is the cornerstone of making a competitive strategy, and understanding the industry structure is always the starting point of making a strategy. To this end, Porter creatively established five competitiveness analysis models. He believes that the competitive position and profitability of an industry depend on the interaction between five basic competitiveness, namely, entry threat, substitution threat, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers and competition of existing competitors, and each competitiveness is affected by many economic and technical factors. Under this guiding ideology, Porter put forward three basic strategies to win competitive advantage: total cost leading strategy, differentiation strategy and concentration strategy.

? (2) Core competence school. From 65438 to 0990, C.K.Prahalad and Hamel published the article "Enterprise Core Competitiveness" in Harvard Business Review. Since then, more and more researchers have begun to devote themselves to the study of enterprise core competence theory. The so-called core competence is the most core and basic part of all abilities, which can radiate outward, act on other abilities and affect the play and effect of other abilities. Generally speaking, core competence has the following characteristics: 1. Core competence enables enterprises to enter various related markets and participate in competition; 2. Core competence can make enterprises have a certain degree of competitive advantage; 3. Core competence should not be easily imitated by competitors. The school of core competence holds that modern market competition is based on core competence rather than products. The success of enterprise management no longer depends on the product and market structure of the enterprise, but on its behavioral response ability, that is, the prediction of market trends and the rapid response to changes in customer demand. Therefore, the goal of enterprise strategy is to identify and develop the core competence that competitors are difficult to imitate. In addition, in order to obtain and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage, enterprises must participate in the competition at three levels: core competence, core products and final products. On the level of core competence, the enterprise's goal should be to establish a leading position in the special design and development of product performance, so as to ensure the unique advantages of the enterprise in product manufacturing and sales.

? (3) school of strategic resources. The school of strategic resources believes that the main content of enterprise strategy is how to cultivate the unique strategic resources of enterprises and the ability to optimize the allocation of such strategic resources to the maximum extent. In the practice of enterprise competition, each enterprise's resources and capabilities are different, and enterprises in the same industry do not necessarily have the same resources and capabilities. In this way, the difference between enterprise strategic resources and the ability to use such strategic resources becomes the source of enterprise competitive advantage. Therefore, the choice of enterprise's competitive strategy must be beneficial to the cultivation and development of enterprise's strategic resources to the greatest extent, and the main work of strategic management is to cultivate and develop the unique application ability of enterprise's own strategic resources, that is, core competence, and the formation of core competence requires enterprises to continuously accumulate various resources needed for strategic formulation, and to constantly learn, innovate and surpass them. Only when the core competence reaches a certain level can enterprises form their own unique strategic resources through a series of combination and integration, and can they obtain and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage.

? Although Porter's industrial structure analysis and the later concepts of core competence and resources are different in the focus of enterprise strategy research, we can collectively call them competitive strategies, because they regard the market as the main economic feature, the complex and diverse changes in the environment as the background of strategic research, and take market competition as the main content of strategic research, and seek to establish and maintain the competitive advantage of enterprises as the strategic goal.

? Fourthly, the theoretical stage of dynamic competitive strategy.

? With the coming of 2 1 century, the competitive environment faced by many enterprises around the world is more changeable and unpredictable. Facing the challenges brought by the rapid change of competitive environment, the intensification of industrial globalization competition, the aggressive competitive behavior of competitors and their responses to a series of competitive behaviors, the traditional theoretical methods of strategic management can no longer meet the needs of strategic management decisions of enterprises in real business life. Therefore, in recent years, some management scholars have put forward new strategic theories, namely "dynamic capability theory" and "competitive dynamics method".

? (1) Dynamic capability theory. This theory is mainly based on the following understanding: in the past, the strategic theory analyzed how to maintain the competitive advantage of enterprises from the level of enterprise strategy, but rarely discussed how and why enterprises should establish competitive advantage in a rapidly changing environment. The theory of dynamic capability mainly aims at innovation-based competition, price/behavior competition, increasing income and breaking the existing competition pattern. It emphasizes two aspects that have not been noticed in the past strategic theory: first, the concept of "dynamics" refers to the ability of enterprises to reshape their competitiveness to keep it consistent with the ever-changing business environment. When the timeliness and speed of the market become the key, the speed of technological change is accelerated, and the future competition and the nature of the market are difficult to determine, enterprises need to respond specifically to innovation. Secondly, the concept of "capability" emphasizes that strategic management properly uses, integrates and recreates the internal and external resources and capabilities of enterprises to meet the needs of environmental changes.

? (2) Competitive dynamics method. Based on the theory of competition mode, enterprise capacity and enterprise resources, the competitive dynamics method analyzes the main factors that affect the enterprise's operating performance, such as the interaction between enterprises, the quality of enterprises participating in the competition, the competitive speed and flexibility of enterprises, and answers how enterprises should formulate and implement strategic management decisions in a dynamic competitive environment in order to obtain super-average income and maintain competitive advantage.

? In recent years, the research and analysis of competition dynamics have attracted more and more attention abroad, and the research results in this field have been widely used in the practice of strategic management. First of all, it studies the competitive effect between enterprises in a competitive state, the reasons for this competitive effect and the possibility of it; The second is to study and analyze the factors that affect the ability of enterprises to compete or cope with competition; Thirdly, the competition results under different conditions are analyzed and compared.

? (3) The main features of dynamic competition. The main characteristics of dynamic competition are: 1. Dynamic competition is a kind of high-intensity and high-speed competition. Each competitor is constantly establishing its own competitive advantage and weakening its opponent's competitive advantage, and the strategic interaction between competitors is obviously accelerated. Any pre-emptive strategy may be frustrated by the counterattack of competitors. Any competitive advantage is temporary, not long-term sustainable. 4. The effectiveness of competitive strategy depends not only on the time lead, but also on establishing new advantages in time. 5. The main purpose of competitive strategy is to establish, maintain and give full play to competitive advantage under static competitive conditions. It has a direct contribution to competition in four areas, namely, cost and quality, time and know-how, barriers to entry and scale advantage. However, under the condition of dynamic competition, the advantages established in the above four areas may be broken.

? Mature strategic management theory holds that strategic management is a dynamic process consisting of four different stages: environmental analysis, strategic formulation, strategic implementation and strategic control, which is constantly repeated and updated. Theoretically, the strategic management of enterprises is usually studied step by step in the above order. But in practical application, these steps often occur at the same time, or according to different steps. This requires enterprise managers to creatively design and apply strategic management system, and this system should be flexible enough to adapt to the ever-changing external environment faced by enterprises. This dynamic process is called strategic management process in theory. Based on the theory of strategic management process, the research on strategic management of dynamic enterprises at home and abroad is not long, and it is currently in the development stage. China enterprises should attach great importance to the theoretical research of strategic management and guide them to be invincible in the fierce competition. (Zhou, Chen)

Source: Online vPro Management