This book challenges the universal applicability of strategic management concepts. It argues that it is necessary to pay attention to contextual facets of the environment, in particular to societal culture. It also depicts the current planning situation in the banking industry. The culture-boundness of strategy formulation and implementation is challenged and advocated trough discussing planning systems, processes, and heuristics, and contextual influences both an a theoretical basis and with empirical research. The book is based an my doctoral dissertation, which was completed at the Marketing and Banking Departments of the Vienna University of Economics under the auspices of Fritz Scheuch and Gustav Raab. Their teaching, constructive criticism, and encouragement provided the intellectual stimulation for bringing this dissertation to completion. This applies equally to several professors at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Harry Triandis and Anant Negandhi introduced me to cross-cultural research and inter national management. Howard Themas, Marjorie Lyles, and Irene Duhaime helped me to crystallize thoughts. Hanns-Martin Schönfeld, Seymour Sudman and Gerald Salancik challenged my thoughts about organizational behavior and methodology. Richard Watson, Univer sity of Georgia, and Louis Flores of Northern Illinois University were very helpful in providing address material for Australia and Latin America, as well as through assistance with translations. Norihiro Suzuki of Int'l Christian University, Tokyo, and Hiro Matsusaki of Tokyo University helped with Japanese translations.

This unique book is positioned at the crossroads of strategic management and international business. Based on an in-depth literature review, the author empirically assesses the widely shared, implicit assumption that strategic management processes can be globally applied in a standardized, i.e., culture-free, manner. So far, a variety of tools have also been recommended but without incorporating cultural differences. As many organizations observe that this ethnocentric view is more an illusion than reality, strategic management research has started to focus on the cultural sensitivity of its theories, tools, and processes to provide practitioners in a multicultural setting with adequate know-how and tools. To foster long-term decision-making despite uncertainty, scenario planning is frequently applied by practitioners. Up until today, scenario planning has however gained little attention from the academic community. Through this book, the author presents a newly developed framework for strategic management that combines the cultural value scale to test the cultural sensitivity of the long-term planning tool called “scenario planning.” The different process steps of scenario planning have been individually examined for their sensitivity toward the cultural dimensions of uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation. The investigation is based on a unique, global set of management consultants working for a leading professional service firm. The results of this research show the cultural sensitivity of scenario planning, with different degrees of the process steps and the tested cultural dimensions.

Keep up with management issues in the rapidly changing Islamic business world! Islam and Business: Cross-Cultural and Cross-National Perspectives reviews important changes, cross-cultural differences, and management issues in the turbulent Islamic business environment. With the shift from government ownership of companies and commodities toward more open markets and the product/service diversification that this change brings, the need to understand how business is done in these countries is more vital than ever before. The research in this book will help you understand the impact of Westernization upon business practices in Islamic nations. With contributions from experts on four Islamic business environments (Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon), this book: provides a framework to guide corporations in policy and strategic planning examines the impact of Western reforms on selected Islamic business sectors discusses the training, leadership, and management development needs of companies doing business in or with Islamic nations Section 1: Business in Turkey presents: a framework for corporate policy making and for strategic planning activities an assessment of what can cause strategic alliances to succeed or to fail—illustrated by a case study of the relationship between Turkish Airlines and the Qualiflyer Group—this study considers the question in terms of goals, partner selection, alliance management, and areas of cooperation an examination of value-at-risk (VaR) models that can be used to compute market risk for financial institutions—with a study of crisis scenarios as applied to the four largest Turkish banks Section 2: Business in Jordan presents: a study of the impact Westernization has had on the efficiency of Jordanian commercial banks an examination of current practices and procedures for management training and development (MTD) needs in public and private organizations in Jordan—and suggestions for future improvements an exploratory study of how national and regional socio-cultural values affect organizational culture—considering such factors as Power Distance (PD), Uncertainty Avoidance (UA), the Individualism-Collectivism (IDV) dimension, and the Masculinity-Femininity (MAS) dimension, as well as power culture, role orientation, achievement culture, and the support-oriented organization Section 3: Business in Egypt and Lebanon presents: a comprehensive model of relationships between transactional and transformational leadership trust in terms of organizations, organizational justice, intention to leave, and organizational citizenship behavior—using data supplied by 179 middle and direct level managers in 17 private Egyptian organizations an analysis of the factors affecting the advancement of the Lebanese tourism industry, which has suffered tremendously in the wake of civil war and political unrest The information in Islam and Business will be helpful to anyone practicing management or studying how management works in the Islamic world. Make it a part of your professional/teaching collection today!