Development of Enterprise Strategic Management Theory

Abstract: Starting from the development history and evolution of enterprise strategic management theory, the emergence and development of enterprise strategic management theories are divided into four stages: early strategic thinking, traditional strategic theory, competitive strategy theory and dynamic competitive strategy theory, it also analyzes the theoretical basis and characteristics of each stage, and points out that this process is dynamic and constantly repetitive and updated. Enterprise Managers should carry out dynamic enterprise strategic management research based on this.

Key words: enterprise strategy; strategic management; dynamic competition

Regarding corporate strategy, ansov, a famous strategist in the United States, believes that the strategic structure should be a controlled and conscious formal planning process. The senior managers of an enterprise should be responsible for the whole process of the plan, the specific personnel who formulate and implement the plan must be responsible to the senior manager and implement the formulated strategic plan through the decomposition of objectives, projects and budgets. Since ansoov's strategic definition was put forward, western strategic management documents generally divide strategic management into two categories: corporate overall strategy and business strategy.

In 1972, ansov published the article "strategic management thoughts" in the magazine "Business Management Policy" and formally proposed the concept of "strategic management, in 1979, he wrote the book strategic management theory. Ansuo believes that enterprise strategic management refers to a series of business management businesses 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, continuously improve enterprise competitiveness, and play a positive role in enterprise development. The development of enterprise strategic management theory can be divided into four stages: the first stage is the early stage of strategic thinking; the second stage is the traditional strategic theory stage; the third stage is the competition strategy theory stage; the fourth stage is the theoretical phase of dynamic strategy.

I. Early stages of strategic thinking

At this stage, although there was no complete strategic theoretical system, great strategic ideas have emerged. Professor Michael Potter from Harvard University summarized the three ideas in the early stages of strategic thinking.

The first point of enterprise strategic thinking. In the early 20th century, fayol integrated internal management activities of enterprises and divided various activities of industrial enterprises into six categories: technical activities, commercial activities, financial activities, security activities, accounting activities and management activities, and put forward five management functions: planning, organization, command, coordination and control, the planning function is the primary function of enterprise management. This is the first strategic thought of an enterprise.

The second point of enterprise strategic thinking. In 1938, American economist Chester barard separated organization theory from management theory and strategy theory for the first time in his book "manager's functions, it is believed that management and strategy are mainly related to leaders. In addition, he also proposed that the focus of management work should be on the creation of organizational efficiency. Other management work should focus on organizational efficiency, that is, how to adapt enterprise organizations to the environment. This idea of "matching" the Organization and environment has become the basis of modern strategic analysis methods.

The third point of view of enterprise strategic thinking. In 1860s, Andrews of Harvard University defined the strategy in four aspects: market opportunities, company strength, personal values and aspirations, and social responsibility. Market opportunities and social responsibility are external factors, while corporate strength and personal values and desires are internal factors. He also advocated that companies should better configure their own resources to form unique capabilities,
To gain a competitive advantage.

Ii. theoretical stage of traditional strategy

In 1965, ansov published the first book on strategy, enterprise strategy, which became the starting point for the study of modern enterprise strategic theory. Since then, many scholars have actively participated in the study of corporate strategic theories, and there have been many different theoretical schools in this period.

1. design school. This school is represented by Professor Andrews and his colleagues. The design school holds that the formation of enterprise strategy must be the responsibility of high-level managers, and the formation of strategy should be a well-designed process, which is neither an intuitive thinking process, it is not a process of standardized analysis; the strategy should be clear, concise, easy to understand and implement.

2. Planning School. The scheduler school is represented by ansov. The planning school believes that the formation of strategy is a controlled, conscious, and standardized process. Strategic behavior is the process of adapting to the environment and the internal structure of the enterprise.

3. positioning school. Its outstanding representative is Michael Potter. The positioning school believes that enterprises must do a good job in two aspects in the process of formulating strategies: one is the structure analysis of the industry in which enterprises are located, and the other is the analysis of the relative competitive position of enterprises in the industry.

4. creative schools. Creative schools hold that the process of strategic formation is a process of intuitive thinking and inspiration.

5. cognitive school. The cognitive school holds that the formation of strategy is a cognitive process based on processing information, acquiring knowledge, and establishing concepts. The latter is the most direct and important factor for strategy generation, the progress at which stage is not important.

6. Learning School. The difference between the Learning School and the previous school is that it believes that strategy is formed through gradual learning and natural selection and can appear in organizations, the formation and implementation of the strategy are intertwined.

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

8. Cultural School. The Cultural School holds that corporate strategy is rooted in corporate culture and its social values. Its formation process is to integrate various beneficial factors in an enterprise organization to develop
The process of playing a role.

9. Environmental School. The Environment School emphasizes how enterprise organizations survive and develop in their environment, but its role does not play a role that attracts people to pay attention to environmental factors.

10. Structure School. The structure school regards enterprise organizations as an organism consisting of a series of behaviors and characteristics, and strategic formulation as an integrated system consisting of the views of various other schools.

 

Iii. theoretical stages of Competitive Strategy

During the development of enterprise strategic theory, all 10 strategic schools have played a certain role in a certain period of time. However, with the development of enterprise strategic theory and business practice, the research focus of enterprise strategic theory has gradually shifted to enterprise competition, especially since 1980s, western economists and management scholars have always placed the strategic theory of enterprise competition at the forefront of academic research, which has effectively promoted the development of the strategic theory of enterprise competition. Looking back on the development history of the past 20 years, the company's competitive strategy theory has emerged in three major strategic schools: Industry Structure School, core competence school, and strategic resource School.

(1) Industry Structure School. Professor Michael Potter is the founder and representative of the industry structure School. Porter's outstanding contribution is to realize the innovative compatibility between the industrial organization theory and the enterprise's competitive strategy theory, and organically unify the strategic formulation process and strategic implementation process. Porter believes that the most important part of the enterprise environment is one or several industries in which enterprises are engaged in competition. The industrial structure greatly affects the establishment of competition rules and the competitive strategy available for enterprises. Therefore, industry structure analysis is the cornerstone of establishing a competitive strategy, and understanding the industry structure is always the starting point of strategic formulation. To this end, Potter creatively established five kinds of competitive force analysis models. He believes that the competitive status and profitability of an industry depend on the interaction between the five basic competitive forces, that is, the threat, alternative threat, buyer bargaining power, supplier bargaining power, and the competition of existing competitors, each of which is affected by many economic and technical factors. Under this guiding ideology, Potter proposed three basic strategies that win the competitive advantage: the total cost leading strategy, the differentiated strategy, and a concentrated strategy.

(2) Core Competence schools. In 1990, prahard and Hamel published the article "core competence of enterprises" in Harvard Business comments. Later, more and more researchers began to invest in the study of enterprise core competence theory. The so-called core capability is the core and most fundamental part of all capabilities. It can exert its influence on other capabilities through outward radiation. Generally, core capabilities have the following features: 1. core capabilities allow enterprises to enter various related markets for competition; 2. core capabilities can give enterprises a certain degree of competitive advantage; 3. core capabilities should not be easily imitated by competitors. The core competence school holds that the competition in the modern market is not so much based on product competition as the competition based on core competence. The success of an enterprise's operation no longer depends on the product and market structure of the enterprise, but on its ability to respond to behaviors, that is, the prediction of market trends and the rapid response to the changing customer needs. Therefore, the goal of enterprise strategy is to identify and develop the core capabilities that competitors cannot imitate. In addition, to gain and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage, enterprises must participate in the competition at three levels: Core capabilities, core products and final products. At the core competence level, an enterprise should establish a leading position in the special design and development of product performance to ensure its unique advantages in product manufacturing and sales.

(3) strategic resource School. The strategic resource school holds that the main content of the enterprise strategy is how to cultivate the unique strategic resources of the enterprise and optimize the allocation of such strategic resources to the maximum extent. In the practice of enterprise competition, the resources and capabilities of each enterprise are different, and enterprises in the same industry do not necessarily have the same resources and capabilities. In this way, the differences in strategic resources and the ability to use such strategic resources become the source of competitive advantages. Therefore, the choice of an enterprise's competitive strategy must be conducive to cultivating and developing strategic resources to the maximum extent, the main task of strategic management is to cultivate and develop the unique application capabilities of enterprises for their own strategic resources, that is, the core capabilities, the formation of core capabilities requires enterprises to constantly accumulate various resources required for strategic formulation, and enterprises to continuously learn, innovate, and surpass. Only when the core capabilities reach a certain level can enterprises form their own unique strategic resources that are not easily imitated, replaced, and possessed through a series of combinations and integrations, in order to gain and maintain a sustained competitive advantage.

Although Porter's Industry Structure Analysis and later appearance of the core competence and resource view have different focuses on Enterprise Strategic Research, given that they take the market as the main economic characteristic of the buyer's market, the complex and diverse changes in the environment are the background of strategic research. market competition is the main content of Strategic Research, and the strategic goal is to seek to establish and maintain the competitive advantages of enterprises, we can refer to them as competitive strategies.

Iv. theoretical stages of dynamic competition strategy

With the advent of the 21st century, the competitive environment faced by many enterprises around the world is easier to change and unpredictable. Faced with the rapid changes in the competition environment, the intensification of global competition in the industry, the aggressive competition by competitors, and the challenges brought by competitors to respond to a series of competition behaviors, traditional strategic management theories and methods cannot meet the needs of strategic management decisions of enterprises in real business life. As a result, some management scholars have put forward new strategic theories in recent years, namely, "dynamic capability theory" and "competitive dynamics method ".

(1) dynamic capability theory. This theory is mainly based on the following understanding: the past strategic theory consists of the analysis of how enterprises maintain their competitive advantages at the strategic level of enterprises, there is not much discussion about how and why enterprises should establish competitive advantages in a rapidly changing environment. The dynamic capability theory focuses on competition in fields such as innovation-based competition, price/behavior competition, increasing returns, and breaking the existing competition pattern. It emphasizes two aspects that have not been taken seriously in the past Strategic Theory: first, the concept of "dynamic" refers to the ability of an enterprise to rebuild its competitiveness to keep it consistent with the changing operating environment, when the time effect and speed of the market become the key, the speed of technological changes is accelerated, and the future competition and the essence of the market are difficult to determine, enterprises need to have a specific and innovative response. Second, the concept of "Capability" emphasizes the appropriate use, integration and re-engineering of internal and external resources and capabilities of strategic management to meet the needs of environmental changes.

(2) competitive dynamics method. The competitive dynamics method is based on the competitive model theory, the Enterprise Ability Theory and the enterprise resource theory, through the internal and external factors that affect the enterprise's business performance-the interaction between enterprises, the quality of enterprises involved in competition, the speed and flexibility of competition, to answer how enterprises should formulate and implement strategic management decisions in a dynamic competitive environment, only in this way can we obtain benefits that exceed the average level and maintain a competitive advantage.

In recent years, the research and analysis of competitive dynamics has received more and more attention abroad, and the research results in this area have been widely applied in the practice of strategic management. First, it studies the competitive effect between enterprises in the competitive status, the reasons for this competitive effect, and the possibility of a competitive effect. Second, it studies and analyzes the capacity factors that affect enterprise competition or respond to competition. Third, it also analyzes and compares the competition results under different conditions.

(3) Main Characteristics of dynamic competition. The main characteristics of dynamic competition are: 1. dynamic Competition is a high-intensity and high-speed competition. Every competitor is constantly establishing their own competitive advantages and weakening their competitors. strategic interactions) significantly accelerated. 2. Any preemptive strategy may be defeated by the competitor's counterattack. 3. Any competitive advantage is temporary, rather than long-term. 4. The effectiveness of the competitive strategy depends not only on time leader, but also on the establishment of new advantages in a timely manner. 5. under the conditions of static competition, the main purpose of the competition strategy is to establish, maintain and give full play to its competitive advantages, it directly contributes to competition in four fields, including cost and quality, time and proprietary technology, establishment of barriers to entry, and scale advantages. However, under the dynamic competition conditions, the advantages of the above four fields can be broken.

Mature strategic management theories hold that strategic management is a dynamic process composed of four stages: environmental analysis, strategic formulation, strategic implementation, and strategic control, this process is constantly repeated and updated. In theory, the strategic management of enterprises is generally studied step by step in the above Order. However, in practice, these steps often happen at the same time, or follow different steps above. This requires managers to design and apply strategic management systems creatively, and the system should be flexible enough to adapt to the changing external environment faced by enterprises. This dynamic process is theoretically called the strategic management process. Based on the theory of strategic management process, the research on dynamic enterprise strategic management is not very long at home and abroad, and is currently in the development stage. Chinese enterprises should attach great importance to strategic management theory research to guide enterprises to remain invincible in the fierce competition.