Title: Understanding and defining long-term business objectives and strategies of potential parties in complex environments: a case study

Authors: María Paz Salmador Salmador Sanchez, Roncalli Maranhao

Addresses: Campus de Cantoblanco UAM, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Ctra. de Colmenar, km 15, Pabellon C, 1° planta, 28049 Madrid, Spain. ' Universidade Federal do Ceara, Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil

Abstract: High levels of competition and complexity are reshaping the landscape of corporations worldwide. In this particularly ever-changing environment, procurement, that is, understanding and defining the long-term business objectives and strategies of all potential parties becomes crucial. The aim of this paper is to explore how this process develops in high-velocity environments. Our research focuses on whether and how the planning process unfolds and adapts from corporate planning to new strategic orientations for facing critical and very turbulent environments over time, what happens to the front-line level of organisation when these systems fail and what line managers do to develop strategy when the planners fail. In particular, we focus on whether and how the front-line organisation perceives such new strategic orientations, as existing works mainly study the conceptualisation of top management. We use a case-study methodology with a real-time longitudinal study in the airline industry. The research shows the main findings and discusses the main implications as well as future lines of research.

Keywords: procurement; strategic planning; case study; crisis; long-term objectives; business objectives; business strategies; airline industry.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2009.021644

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2009 Vol.5 No.1/2, pp.41 - 60

Published online: 30 Nov 2008 *

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