Business strategy: good, consistent, effective, winning or sustainable?

Evaluating business strategy and trying to establish whether this is good or bad may prove to be a sorely tricky exercise to conduct in practice, insofar as many employers and practitioners, taking heed of the circumstance that strategy execution is of paramount importance for organizational success, tend to prioritise the significance of strategy implementation over the quality of its definition.

The efforts aiming at assessing the worthiness of strategy could be actually considered meaningless from a purely practical point of view, but concentrating all the company resources on its implementation cannot be indeed considered as a recipe for a howling success. Despite the genuine intent of a strategy should emerge from its formulation in fact predicting whether a consistent and effective execution will actually enable the employer to pursue the right direction definitely represents a virtually impossible feat to perform.

 

Strategy execution should be invariably regarded as a means to an end, that is, organizational success and not as an end in itself. Whether business leaders have not correctly and appropriately identified the firm journey’s end, or rather, the never ending journey’s direction, an outstanding strategy implementation process would anyhow bring an employer to the wrong place at best and directly to bankruptcy at worst. It clearly emerges thus that identifying and adopting the right strategy is crucially important for a business, even more so when this is operating under adverse contextual economic circumstances.

Taking heed of what strategy is and of the reasons behind a strategy formulation and implementation, it definitely is much more appropriate and meaningful referring to strategy, intended in a positive fashion, as consistent, effective, winning and as long as possible sustainable, rather than good.

Whereas the concept of “good” can be subject to different appreciations by the different individuals eventually involved in the tricky strategy evaluation exercise, the ideas of  “consistent”, “effective”, “winning” and “sustainable” more aptly represent the desired outcome and result an employer is expected to obtain from its business operations. Organizations do not merely need strategy as a good plan of action or as something nice-to-have, but need it to set guidelines and identify the direction enabling them to enhance their performance, increase revenues and profit, and ultimately being successful in their relevant market outperforming their competitors. Firms essentially need strategies to attain competitive edge and maintain it over time.

The circumstance that the pre-set objectives are subsequently achieved and that an organization gets where this intended to go clearly implies a very high quality of strategy execution. It can be thus concluded that strategy requires two main, fundamental processes: identification and execution.

The end of the identification process leads to strategy formulation, which should aim at clearly stating the business intent in terms of the definition of the market(s) in which the organization has decided to compete, how to approach this and the position in the market the business aspires to occupy. Once strategy has been carefully and thoroughly identified and formulated, however, it will be sorely tricky to judge whether this is good or bad. By contrast, for difficult it may prove to be, it would be much worthier the efforts aiming at determining whether the identified strategy is clear, consistent, likely to be winning and over what length of time likely to be sustainable.

Since strategy is determined and defined by employers according to and on the basis of the information available to them at the moment these plan for the future, it can be regarded as a speculative process. At the outset, business leaders cannot be sure that their intended plan will take them where these intended to go or whether the direction they have identified may prove to be winning. These clearly develop expectations, but cannot be sure that these will be met; which is perfectly consistent with the risk associated with every business activity, that is, with the initiative of setting up and running an organization.

As a general rule, transparency and comprehensibility can be both considered as mandatory requirements to ensure consistency within an organization so that these should be invariably included amongst the most important features of any given strategy. First and foremost, strategies need thus to be clear and coherent with the genuine aim and objectives an employer aims at pursuing; to produce the desired effects these need to be clearly linked to and to some extent evocative of these. Once an employer has thoroughly investigated the exogenous and endogenous contexts by means, for instance, of PESTLE, SWOT and scenario planning tools the approach to the market and the positioning of an organization within it have to be clearly reflected in the identified strategy.

Consistency is a feature which can and should be assessed from the outset, that is, from the moment strategy has been identified and should be subsequently monitored throughout the execution process. In the event of the implementation process, either deliberately or inadvertently, deviating from the initial plan, business leaders, strategy specialists and managers should be able to identify the emerged gap and decide how to bridge this.

Ensure strategy effectiveness is basically concerned with assessing whether the approach identified by the employer to execute strategy actually supports this in obtaining the planned and expected results.

Whereas monitoring consistency essentially enables employers to assess whether the programme unfolds as originally planned, assessing strategy effectiveness enables these to evaluate whether what defined and prepared in theory produces the intended outgrowth in practice. This does not necessarily entail that the identified strategy will show to be winning, but just that the plan is unfolding consistently with the initial plans.

Despite strategy effectiveness is impossible to predict and let alone estimate at the outset, this can be properly monitored and appraised throughout the strategy implementation process.

A consistent, effective and well executed strategy cannot ensure of its own that employers will be successful in the relevant markets these have decided to compete in. Employers can indeed make plans, monitor and keep under constant control strategy execution in order to ensure this to lead the organization where this intended to go; notwithstanding, the identified direction could finally prove to be wrong. This being the case, the pre-identified strategy will prove to be unproductive, fruitless and unsuccessful.

A winning strategy is a strategy enabling employers to gain competitive advantage over competitors and a steadily dominant position in the market. Strategy can be thus deemed winning whether after being properly identified and executed enables employers to increase revenues and profits and stabilize the business presence in the market.

Any identified strategy, nonetheless, can hardly firmly ensure a business existence and stability, even more so in the mid- to long-term. Despite sustainability definitely represents one of the most significant features of strategy, this characteristic does not imply that strategy has to be maintained unaltered over time. A winning strategy has to be maintained as long as it shows to be successful, the moment business leaders should ascertain that the adopted strategy is no longer sustainable, or is about to become no longer sustainable, these should promptly amend this accordingly.

Being able to assess whether and for which period of time a strategy may prove to be sustainable is obviously extremely tricky, arguably impossible. Predictions can only be based on what employers consider probable and expect thus to practically happen in the future. This process aims at envisaging and anticipating future trends and customers’ wants and expectations and identifying the most suitable way to meet these. Make predictions hence essentially represents a prospective exercise.

Many industries, especially consumer electronics and more in general employers operating in sectors whose products are sensibly influenced by technological advances, might sometimes find it relatively straightforward to develop a new winning strategy, but are at the same time likely to be exposed to more serious threats in terms of strategy sustainability. Consequently, these types of firms need to more frequently assess and amend their strategies to ensure their survival prior to their success.

 

The problem with a winning strategy is that, differently from consistency, business leaders are able to find out whether a strategy is winning or otherwise somewhat of retrospectively. It is in fact only after having implemented a series of actions and activities that employers will be able to assess the worth and value of their plan. Under some circumstances, employers might find out that the pre-identified strategy is even detrimental to the same preservation of the business operations when it is definitely too late to even try to change or reverse the course of action, which may have already reached a point of non-return. Being able to discern at an earlier stage whether a strategy will prove to be winning or otherwise is an utterly difficult feat to perform; employers typically find it out only by looking back on past events and with the wisdom of hindsight.



The circumstance employers can assess the effectiveness of their strategies only retrospectively, nonetheless, should not be associated with the idea of emergent strategy. Supporters of the emergent strategy idea contend that the pace at which change occurs in the external environment accounts for employers being unable to formulate strategies and that these are thus only retrospectively identified. It is an axiomatic fact that the exogenous environment is changing at an increasingly rapid pace; notwithstanding, it cannot be backed the idea that employers are to some extent victim of the circumstances and have no influence at all over their strategies. Whether this should be the case, businesses would all point to the same direction and would find it harder to determine the reasons behind their and their competitors’ success and failure. Consumer electronics manufacturers, for instance, are arguably more exposed to change than the employers operating in other industries, but this does not entail by any means that these employers do not accurately and craftily devise their strategies.  

It can be argued, in contrast, that it is just when employers lose control of their strategies that organizations start getting into serious and all too often irreversible troubles. Under some instances, employers are even forced to leave their market and cease their business operations for not having taken appropriate action, to wit: for not having timely changed strategy or for having persisted with the current inappropriate, obsolete plan of action.

When in the mid-1990s Mr Jong-Yong Yun was appointed as Samsung Group President and CEO, for example, he definitely had crystal clear ideas about the change of strategy needed by the South-Korean company to recover and emerge from the severe financial crisis affecting at the time the entire Asian region. A similar story is that of Lenovo’s 2009 appointed CEO Mr Yang Yuanqing, who by means of a tremendous rally enabled the Chinese computer manufacturer to become, in a period of less than three years, the leading PC global manufacturer ahead of HP, Dell, Acer and Asus (The Economist, 2013 – Source Gartner). Whereas the South-Korean organization owes it spectacular success to the restructuring plan developed by Mr Yun, supported by a radical change process based on encouraging a sense of crisis and instilling in management a sense that the company could go bankruptcy any day soon (Yun, 2003), Mr Yang strategy was based on the “Protect and attack” approach, namely protect the Chinese market and corporate PC sales unit, while attacking new markets introducing new products (The Economist, 2013).

Both Mr Yun and Mr Yang strategies proved to be more than simply successful. These examples are unquestionably astounding; notwithstanding, none of them clearly owed these results to something which just happen, but rather to the previous meticulous and crafty prepared plan of action and to the subsequent constant monitoring and control activities performed.

The strategy developed and executed by the South-Korean giant has proved to be absolutely winning and sustainable; albeit this does not really necessary entail that no change of strategy has been implemented during these years. The secret of the success of the South-Korean electronics manufacturer should not be indeed regarded as a secret, Samsung success is clearly due to the strategy identified and pursued by Mr Yun, which proved in practice to be winning in combination with the radical cultural change simultaneously implemented.

Considering, for instance, the smartphone market, Samsung’s strategy has been defined “spray and spray.” The overwhelming success of the electronics giant is essentially based on the incredibly wide range of Android models introduced by the South-Korean manufacturer in the market, which have enabled this to meet all types of customers’ wants, at every price. The unquestionable success of Samsung seems to be hence based on the “breadth and depth” of its offering (Mobile Network Comparison, 2013). Sony, by contrast, is allegedly likely to change its strategy in the incoming future. According to Mr Hirai, Sony CEO, the Japanese reputable manufacturer might soon abandon the low-level market to focus its offering on top-of-the-range products (Mobile Network Comparison, 2013). As further explained by Sneeden, probably by reason of the failure of the Sony Xperia J, Sony will abandon the smartphone entry level segment in a period of approximately two-year time to concentrate its efforts on the “mid- to premium tier” (Low, 2013 – CNET Asia). The final aim is clearly that to produce quality items only and preserve the “Sonyness” considered as a distinctive hallmark of the Sony’s high quality products. The same approach is likely to be used by both the Taiwanese HTC and the American Motorola (Mobile Network Comparison, 2013). Apple, which since its founder’s Steve Jobs death in 2011 has offered little in terms of innovation, is rumoured to preparing for introducing a cheaper iPhone. The firm has denied having such a plan, however, rumours has it that a cheaper iPhone, to be marketed in the emerging markets only, is indeed under preparation (The Economist, 2013).

The strategy pursued by Samsung in the smartphone market seems to be different from that embraced by its competitors. Reportedly and unsurprisingly, as a consequence of the current global economic slowdown, the organizations performing better are in general those producing low-cost and top-quality items (France 24, 2013 – Source Les Echo). This could indeed justify the change of strategy in terms of positioning in the mobile phones market decided by Sony, HTC and Motorola basically aiming at averting the presence of too many competitors in the same share of market or niche. It is clearly difficult to predict which strategy will prove to be winning in the future. What it is sure is that business leaders invariably have clear ideas about what they want to achieve and about the strategy and direction their organization have to pursue; they are obviously unsure about the final outcome or aftermath of these. Keeping focused on the current and future trends and constantly analysing the market, nonetheless, can undoubtedly enable employers to avoid a complete failure or, the worst comes to the worst, to eventually cushion the blow.

It can be concluded that whereas the concepts of good and bad can be hardly considered meaningful when associated with strategy, the ideas of consistent, effective, winning and sustainable, albeit not invariably being under the employers’ full control, can definitely prove to be much more appropriate and significant. Especially when the economic landscape appears to be bleak, employers need to be more focused on their strategies and take prompt action to adapt these accordingly as soon as they perceive and receive the first signal that the market trends are likely or about to change.

Longo, R., (2013), Strategy: good, consistent, effective, winning or sustainable?, HR Professionals, Milan, [online].

Does culture eats strategy for breakfast?

The concept of corporate culture basically refers to the unwritten rules influencing and guiding the way employees perform their activities in the workplace, that is, “the way we do things around here”, and to the behaviour employers expect their employees to exhibit in the organizational settings, whereas organizational strategy is basically concerned with the identification of the direction an organization decides to point to and more in particular with what an employer needs to do to reach the identified position.

Inasmuch as organizational strategy is concerned with the “what” side of the process aiming at identifying and attaining the organizational objectives, corporate culture is concerned with the “how” side of the same course of action. Organizational strategy and corporate culture can thus be regarded as the two sides of the same coin: organizational success. As such, it might apparently seem making no point contending that “culture eats strategy.” Since the dictum “culture eats strategy for breakfast” is used to stress the circumstance that culture prevails over strategy, it might provide the idea that “how” things are done in the workplace is more important than “what” organizations should do to achieve competitive edge. This may lead to a situation in which employees actually know how to do things and how to go somewhere, but have indeed no idea of what the employer wants and where this aspires to go. The meaning behind the assumption “culture eats strategy”, however, is not as simplistic as it might apparently seem to be.

The dictum “culture eats strategy for breakfast”, attributed to Peter Drucker, become popular in 2006 when Ford Motor’s president Mark Fields during a public speech, taking heed of the experience he had gained when working at Ford, emphasized the remarkable significance of the role played by a supporting culture throughout the implementation of change. The significance of this statement and the idea behind it clearly have far-reaching implications.

The need for change emerges nowadays at an increasingly faster pace; it is hence of paramount importance for organizations being flexible enough to, if anything, promptly adapt to the impulses coming from the exogenous environment. The introduction of change, notwithstanding, is habitually likely to be opposed by antagonistic forces, better known as restraining forces, which more often than not are so strong as to seriously risk jeopardizing the successful implementation of the overall change project.

A supportive culture indisputably plays a fundamental part in the effectual introduction and implementation of change in a business. Despite the increasing pace at which change occurs in the exogenous environment, corporate culture, whose speed of change has actually lately increased too, is unlikely to be subject to change at the same pace as that characterizing the external context.

Employers habitually encounter considerable, sharp resistance when implementing change processes within their organizations. Yet, most of these projects actually miserably fail in that organizational culture not only proves not to be supportive of the process, but what worse actually favours the emergence of a strong resistance to its successful implementation. Employers at large are well-aware of the dangers caused by the restraining forces to change insofar as, in most of the cases, needing to implement change procedures concerned with organizational culture prior to introduce other types of change, which may affect the entire or the largest part of the business.

This does not clearly mean that changing culture is a straightforward process; on the contrary, the processes of change concerned with organizational culture invariably prove to be the most difficult processes to manage insofar as some practitioners suggest never drastically changing organizational culture (revolutionary approach), but rather working on it moulding and adapting it as better as possible to the changed circumstances (gradual approach).

Changing organizational culture invariably shows to be a very tricky exercise; notwithstanding, it sorely depends on how deeply a company culture is rooted in the business: deeply-rooted cultures obviously represent the hardest type of culture to change, whereas corporate cultures underpinned by readiness to change typically constitute the kind of culture most likely to be promptly altered. In the latter case, culture is indeed likely to be amended more straightforwardly and the implementation of change expected to encounter limited, if any, employee resistance.

As it actually nowadays happens with change at large, also corporate culture, using Lewin’s wording, should ideally be kept somewhat of in a state of constant “movement” and never be allowed to “refreeze” after the conclusion of a process of change. This despite, external pressure notwithstanding, corporate culture is not habitually subject to change at the same pace at which, for instance, technology, products, services and external markets trends are.

A completely different idea on the subject is advanced by Thomson, who maintains that an organization can be successful in the long-term only whether it is supported by a “viable corporate culture” which also has to be a “long-term culture” (Alofs, 2012). This view can be actually regarded as debatable in that long-term cultures will certainly become well-rooted cultures at some point in the future; giving thus rise to harsh resistance once the need to change these emerges.

As for what concerns business strategy, trying to determine whether this could be regarded as good or bad would definitely prove to be a pointless exercise. The most relevant features of strategy are arguably represented by consistency and coherence; the direction identified by the employer must essentially be that enabling this to attain its intended objectives and most of all to gain competitive advantage over its competitors. Corporate culture should be in turn consistent and coherent with the direction an organization intends to pursue. In order to effectually help employers to attain their intended objectives culture should hence be necessarily supportive of organizational strategy. As long as organizational culture will help employers to go where they have planned and intend to go this could be indeed deemed strong.

Employers should invariably pay particular attention to culture; these might also fail to pursue their strategy, but this should never occur for reasons related to the inadequacy of the culture these have fostered within the organization. The exogenous environment poses in fact enough threats of its own so that employers have to do whatever they can to avert additional problems arising from within.

As the right culture for an organization is that enabling this to attain its intended aims and objectives, corporate culture should theoretically change at the same pace at which strategy does. This entails that since strategy changes at an increasingly faster speed also organizational culture should. Yet, an increased frequency of change should enable employers to avert that the current culture may reach or stay for an exceedingly long period of time in the “refreezing” phase referred to by Lewin as the final stage of his change management model. This mechanism should in turn enable employers to develop and implement change management processes more confidently and with much more chances to be successful. On the other hand, nonetheless, changing too often corporate culture may cause confusion, mistrust and uncertainty amongst employees and give thus rise in the workplace to the formation of stronger restraining forces to change over time. Moreover, the activation of a process of constant cultural change may not invariably prove to be viable.

According to the circumstances, a change in strategy might not necessarily invariably entail a change in culture; yet, the culture existent in an organization may show to be effective to support the employer in the attainment of the identified objectives albeit these are subject to changes over time. Rather than constantly changing culture, with the risk of making unnecessary adjustments, employers should hence try to do whatever they can to develop and foster a culture supportive of change and organizational success, averting to revise it unless genuinely necessary. Cultures fostering innovation and flexibility are the less likely to cause the emergence of restraining forces. Under some circumstances, business leaders try to achieve this result instilling a constant sense of urgency, which whether not properly managed can in the mid- to long-term make employees feel under somewhat of an eternal state of siege and cause stress, anxiety and ultimately distress.

The best culture is that underpinned by the right values, which regardless of the circumstances and strategy pursued by a business remains invariably significant and appropriate. In general, it should be avoided to introduce “alien cultures” based on top-down, command and control management, nowadays very likely to prove to be sorely inappropriate and ineffective.

Culture clearly exerts a remarkable power and influence over strategy, but also strategy, that is to say the direction an organization wants to go to in order to achieve competitive edge, should be in turn capable to influence culture. For right or wrong a strategy might be perceived to be by employees, employers develop these in order to attain the business objectives and yield results for the benefit of their employees too.

Strong cultures can act as powerful motivators and are clearly of paramount importance for organizational success, these must support and favour the attainment of the organizational objectives, whereas do not have to contribute by any means to threat the organizational stability from within, in addition to the hazards and threats already posed by the exogenous environment.

Having a strong organizational culture, but not having an effective strategy can be tantamount to having tens of thousands of barrels filled up with oil whilst not having a car or akin to having a fantastic sport car and letting it standing still into the carport in that do not having any idea of where to go.

Organizational culture practically exerts a much stronger influence on individual motivation than strategy, but employees need to be aware of the importance that it has for their employers achieving their intended objectives and should hence support these in the quest. To receive the adequate support from their employees and provide these with more meaningful insight about organizational strategy, employers should involve as many individuals as they can in the strategy definition process.

Corporate culture is clearly as important as strategy; the two should not be indeed considered separately the one from the other, it is in fact just by virtue of the consistent combination of these two powerful components that employers can actually confidently and bravely strive in the market to gain competitive edge.

Corporate culture can potentially eats strategy, no matter whether for breakfast, lunch or dinner, but employers should do whatever they can to avert this to happen and make understand their entire workforce, by means of their involvement and the activation of a clear and open communication process, how significant is for them to achieve their intended objectives and yield the expected results. For the sake of the overall business stability and existence, employers should also clearly make individuals understand that it would really be ludicrous whether they should not achieve their intended results by reason of the lack of support of their staff. The market and competitors pose enough serious threats so that the organization resources and efforts should be definitely used to struggle in the exogenous environment, rather than in the endogenous.

Longo, R., (2012), Does culture eats strategy for breakfast?, HR Professionals, Milan, [online].

The role played by Line Managers in strategy execution

It is an axiomatic fact that the phase of execution of any business-related strategy assumes a central and pivotal importance for the successful and coherent achievement of the pre-identified organizational objectives. Notwithstanding, more often than not organizations find it difficult to consistently attain in practice their strategy aims so that it can be argued that in many cases a gap between intended strategy and what it is attained in practice actually exists; the most likely and obvious reason for the emergence of such a gap can typically be related to the inadequacy of the execution process. In this instance the direction the employer was expected to go to is different from that in which the organization actually finds itself, by reason of the ineffectiveness of the strategy implementation process.

Albeit the effectual execution of strategies necessarily needs the truly and genuine involvement of all of the organization employees, from the shop floor to the executives directors, particularly important for the successful attainment of this aim is the support and thus the role played by line managers. This is even truer for those organizations not having an HR department where the responsibility to perform and co-ordinate people management activities totally rests with the line managers.

Armstrong (2006) and Smith (2006) argue that the line managers role is of paramount importance for the successful implementation of HR practices and that the “effective implementation of HR strategies depends on their involvement, commitment and cooperation.” This is indeed unsurprising in that line managers unquestionably represent the people within any organization who better know the individuals composing its workforce and spend most of their time with these.  Since organizational strategy is also pursued by means of the implementation of the practices and policies designed and developed within any business, it is sorely appropriate and coherent devolving this activity to the line managers. These individuals are in fact those who have a direct, constant contact with the employees and have thus the opportunity and the capability to motivate, control and promptly respond to the employees’ queries (Ulrich, 1997; Budhwar and Khatri, 2001).

The full and active involvement of LMs both in the HR and business strategies implementation processes on the one hand contributes to enhance their own role, whereas on the other hand enables the business to create and consolidate an “harmonious relationship” between staff and their managers (Gilmore and Williams, 2009). LMs and employees are essentially working together and in synergy for the attainment of a mutual purpose, that is, their organisation success. This approach is clearly reversing the trend once characterizing the practices widespread across the UK, when conflict between employers and their management on the one side and trade unions and employees on the other side was seen as inevitable.

Putting aside the importance attached to HR in the strategy formulation process, which can be indeed taken as axiomatic, Sparrow et al. (2008) stress the importance of strategy execution as a driver for the attainment of competitive edge, suggesting that “competitive advantage lies in the differentiated ways in which organizations ultimately execute their strategies, in which people-related factors play a highly influential role.”

Boddy (2008), to emphasize the significance of the role played by LMs for the attainment of an organization competitive edge, maintains that line managers behaviour affects the business performance and image as they and their reports are in direct contact with the business customers. LMs influence over the HR practices implementation process is clearly remarkable in that they are essentially accountable for communicating and explaining to their direct reports the meaning of the HR practices and how these have to be intended.

The effect produced by HRM policies upon performance is essentially based on the way individuals experience HR practices; their discretionary behaviour is driven or restrained according to the employees’ different perceptions (Kinnie et al., 2005). The same conclusions were reached by Hutchinson and Purcell, (2004), who claim that it is indeed on the basis of their direct experience that employees evaluate HR policies; their performance is thus clearly invariably influenced and affected by these. In practice employees are much more sensitive to the way strategies are implemented, rather than to the way these are formulated. Integrity, consistency and coherence are as usual of paramount importance.

To perform their role well LMs should have and hence show good leadership abilities in that, both for the position they cover and for the wider relational aspect linked to it, these clearly have a considerable impact on the creation of the business organizational climate (Hutchinson and Purcell, 2007). Whether that is not the case, the consequences can reveal to be utterly detrimental for the employer by reason of many individuals deliberately underperforming and ultimately deciding to leave the organization. This occurrence can be aptly summarized in the dicta “employees leave their manager, not their employers” (Buckingham and Coffman, 2005), and “employees join organizations but they leave their managers” (MacLeod and Clarke, 2009).

In order to effectively and properly carry out their activities LMs, as everybody else in a business, need to be truly involved and engaged in the process and not just considered as mere executors of instructions, which they might do not even understand and support. That is possibly why Ulrich et al. (2009), once stressed the significance of line managers in strategy execution, emphasize the importance of transferring on these individuals a high degree of ownership and accountability during the implementation process.

The findings of an investigation carried out by Currie and Proctor (2001) in the UK NHS revealed that to enhance LMs effectiveness, organizations should allow these a certain degree of latitude during the strategy implementation process. This is clearly aiming at encouraging and obtaining their real involvement and participation in the activities these perform.

LMs support could indeed turn to be very useful also during the HR policies formulation process. Since these know better than anyone else in the organisation a large number of employees, LMs should be in a position to predict their direct reports reaction to any policy proposition and able to suggest suitable, valuable, but also viable for the employer, options.

McGuire et al. (2008) suggest that the role played by LMs during the strategy implementation process can also represent a means to devolve them part of the HR responsibility. This devolutionary process implies that the HR accountability for strategies implementation and the links this has with performance, would no more be in the hands of the HR function. Many Authors actually welcome this proposition in that this move may enable HR to focus and concentrate its effort and resources on more strategic organizational aspects and to strengthen and consolidate thus its credibility (McGuire et al., 2008; Gilmore and Williams, 2009).

Albeit a common consent on this topic has not yet been reached, it cannot be denied that devolving part of the HR daily traditional activities to LMs could enable HR to investigate and come up with more effectual, suitable approaches to strategy implementation from a people management perspective (Sparrow et al., 2008).

This activity should more specifically aiming at determining how people management strategy should be adapted and changed in a context in which business models are constantly subject to an evolutionary, whether not revolutionary, process.

The practice of devolving to line managers part of the activities typically performed by HR, nonetheless, is not completely immune from problems. This additional activity may in fact be perceived by LMs as a burden, that is to say as the transfer of supplementary tasks in addition to their typical activities, and might be consequently perceived by them as the employer disinterest in, and lack of appreciation for, their current workload. Johnson and Sholes (2002) claim that more often than not the failure of strategy implementation is due to the circumstance that line managers, who are in charge of this activity, are so absorbed by their day-to-day tasks as to prefer ceding responsibility for strategic issues to specialists, who do not clearly have the power “to make things happen.” This accounts for strategic planning being reduced to an “intellectual exercise” removed from its genuine, original operational reality and as such very likely to fail. On the other hand it should not be neglected the circumstance that the devolvement of responsibility to line managers, already extremely busy, could also produce some undesirable downsides to the HR function itself. By reason of their heavy workload and of their consequent difficulty to prioritise their activities, LMs may opt to neglect HR-related activities to the detriment of the organization HR standards and of the HR overall credibility (McGuire et al., 2008).

The role and activities performed by line managers are extremely important to be exclusively and blindly left on their hands. The need for ascertain that HR policies are implemented by managers “with equity, vigour and belief” should be then duly considered (Richardson and Thompson, 1999). It cannot be taken for granted that all the LMs working within an organisation are, either it is a matter of good or bad faith, acting properly and showing no bias. This is also crucial for the achievement of the intended strategy objectives.

The lack of coherence in the HR policies implementation process is very likely to cause negative consequences on staff morale, attitudes and hence performance. An inconsistent implementation is due to cause worse effects on individuals than the lack of policies itself (Purcell et al., 2003). Before giving line managers such responsibilities, employers should invariably be sure, and should then asses, that all of their LMs have the capabilities required to perform this role and that all of them have gained a clear and full understanding of the policies they are called to help implementing.

For extremely important these are, good leadership skills and abilities are not enough. When executing business and HR strategies LMs can actually fail for different reasons; in addition to their frequent lack of leadership skills these could also feel not to be sufficiently trained to assume such responsibility and unsecure to be able to yield the results expected by the employer. Organizations should do their utmost to enable their LMs to gain the knowledge necessary to properly and effectually carry out this significant task, training is hence key.

McGovern et al. (1997) warn employers against the risk habitually associated with bad strategy implementation, which can ultimately expose businesses to lawsuits and employment tribunal cases.

An example of how important is for LMs to be trained and to gain a clear knowledge and understanding of what results the organisation is expected to achieve is provided by an investigation carried out in two different Tesco stores where the same policies were simultaneously introduced, but where different results were indeed achieved because of the different ways the same practices were implemented (Purcell et al., 2003). Ensure and assure consistency and uniformity is therefore of paramount importance.

Longo, R., (2011), The role played by Line Managers in strategy execution, HR Professionals, [online].