Management
Alireza Mohammadi bajgan; Mohammad Montazeri; Yousef Ahmadi
Abstract
This research was carried out by analyzing the theme and interviewing 22 university professors and shipping experts on the southern line of Iran. During the coding process, 436 codes, 130 sub-themes, 18 main themes and 6 core themes were extracted and their characteristics in shipping on the southern ...
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This research was carried out by analyzing the theme and interviewing 22 university professors and shipping experts on the southern line of Iran. During the coding process, 436 codes, 130 sub-themes, 18 main themes and 6 core themes were extracted and their characteristics in shipping on the southern line of Iran using MAXQDA2020 software were detected. The results showed that: managerial and behavioral conflicts, structural conflicts, environmental conflicts (extra-organizational) and personal conflicts of employees as causal conditions are among the main causes of intergenerational conflicts in Iran's southern shipping line Company. And the solutions and strategies provided by the experts are effective communication, culture building, incentives and conflict management, which are based on the background conditions, which were: organizational culture and structure, employee challenges, rules and regulations, and the weakness of the evaluation system. The performance of employees must be implemented. Also, among the facilitating factors such as: the creative role of personnel in order to reduce and eliminate negative conflict, outsourcing to private sectors, etc. as facilitating factors in this research can make the implementation of solutions easier and speed up.
Management
Ali shariatnejad; Farnaz Mehdikhani; Zahra Ghafoori
Abstract
One of the management errors of managers, which is the result of making non-optimal decisions, is strategic regret, which shows itself in the form of a Weakening of the performance, efficiency, and effectiveness of government organizations managers and causes severe damage to government organizations'. ...
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One of the management errors of managers, which is the result of making non-optimal decisions, is strategic regret, which shows itself in the form of a Weakening of the performance, efficiency, and effectiveness of government organizations managers and causes severe damage to government organizations'. Therefore, the present study was conducted to identify and analyze the antecedents and consequences of strategic regret in the managers of government organizations using the fuzzy cognitive mapping method. The current research is exploratory in terms of the practical purpose of gathering information. Also, this research is a mixed type of research and is based on qualitative and quantitative research. The statistical population of this research includes managers of government organizations who were selected by purposive sampling and based on the principle of theoretical adequacy. The data collection tool is an interview in the qualitative part and a questionnaire in the quantitative part. The validity and reliability of which were evaluated using content validity and theoretical validity and intra-coder and inter-coder reliability methods for the interview and content validity and retest reliability for the questionnaire, respectively. Qualitative data were analyzed with "Atlas T" software and content analysis and coding method, and quantitative data were analyzed with the fuzzy cognitive mapping method. This research indicates that not having a strategic approach and thinking, being in conditions of high uncertainty, and lack of vision and short-term vision are the most important factors that cause strategic regret in the managers of government organizations. Also, increasing the atmosphere of lack of trust in managers, reducing the credibility of the organization and managers, and increasing the atmosphere of organizational pessimism were identified as the most important consequences of strategic regret in the managers of government organizations. Therefore, as a general conclusion, it should be stated that according to the findings based on the results section, the strategic regret of managers is a risky phenomenon for the organization. According to the antecedents identified in this research, managers should take into account the approach and strategic thinking so as not to fall into the trap of this phenomenon.Introduction In today's turbulent world where managers are faced with difficult ups and downs, depending on their position, they react differently to conditions of ambiguity and uncertainty; there have not been few managers who, by making wrong decisions, have caused irreparable damage to their respective organizations and caused severe regrets. Regardless of which school of thought managers follow, sometimes there are situations when managers experience strategic regret when they look at the actions they have taken and the decisions they have made. This regret can be caused by using or not using a strategy or excessive allocation of resources to realize a strategy. Therefore, based on what was said, managers of government organizations may be in a situation of strategic regret for various reasons (Mintzberg et al.,2005). It is certain that the organization's choice among several options, which is naturally influenced by the mental patterns and analyses of their top managers, will be accompanied by an opportunity cost (caused by choosing other options) for the organization. Examining this opportunity cost and looking for ways to reduce it can lead to the improvement of the strategic management process in future periods. According to the discussed topics, it is clear that between the "stages before and during strategy selection" and "stages of action, control and evaluation" in the minds of managers, events and processes occur that ultimately lead to selecting an option among the available options. It provides the context for the phenomenon of strategic regret for the organization (Azizi et al.,2015). Therefore, based on what was said, managers of government organizations may be in a situation of strategic regret for various reasons.Literature ReviewKazimieh and Malmir (2021), in research titled "Evaluating the effect of strategic regret on organizational performance with the mediating role of managers' experience, showed that strategic regret has a significant and negative effect on organizational performance and managers' experience." Shalini and Gray (2020) did an article titled Manager's Strategic Regret, Organizational Performance and the Role of Firm Adaptation. This research aims to investigate the relationship between the manager's strategic regret, the organization's performance, and the role of the company's adaptability. By examining three studies on companies, the results showed that the manager's regret has a negative effect on the organization's performance. Diecidue & Somasundaram (2017), In a research entitled Theory of Regret: A New Foundation, presented a new behavioral foundation for the theory of regret based on continuous exchange. In this theory, for the first time, regret has been seen continuously and separated from desirability.MethodologyIn terms of method, this research is mixed and based on qualitative and quantitative research. Therefore, the current research is applied in terms of purpose and terms of method; it is among exploratory research. The statistical population of the current research consists of experts, consisting managers of government organizations in Lorestan province, and 27 of them were selected as sample members using the purposeful sampling method and based on the principle of theoretical saturation. The data collection tool is in the qualitative part of the interview, whose validity and reliability were measured using content validity and theoretical validity, and intra-coder and inter-coder reliability methods. Also, the data collection tool in the quantitative section is a questionnaire whose validity and reliability have been confirmed through the content validity and retest reliability of the test. Qualitative data were analyzed with "Atlas T" software and content analysis and coding method, and quantitative data were analyzed with the fuzzy cognitive mapping method. The fuzzy cognitive map method is a method that identifies the most important dimensions of a concept by analyzing the centrality indicators and then examines the set of relationships of variables with each other through causal relationships. ResultsIn addition, the research results can be presented in quantitative and qualitative sections. The results of the qualitative part show the antecedents and consequences related to strategic regret in managers of public organizations. Based on this, the factors that cause strategic regret in the managers of government organizations are lack of strategic thinking and approach, lack of vision and short-term horizon, suffering from intellectual arthritis syndrome, use of microscopic management style and myopic management, suffering from analysis paralysis syndrome, placement In the state of cognitive fatigue and decision fatigue; they are placed in conditions of high uncertainty, delusional idea of genius and personal knowledge, use of ineffective models of decision-making, and managerial short-sightedness. Also, the consequences or consequential factors of the occurrence of strategic regret, loss of intellectual and material capital of the organization, organizational blockage and strategic impasse, increasing the atmosphere of lack of trust in the managers of the organization, the phenomenon of intellectual and mental imbalance of managers, increasing the atmosphere of organizational pessimism, inability to implement plans and The organization's strategies are jeopardizing the organizational goals, reducing the credibility of the organization and managers, the emergence of the rumination state of managers and weakening the mental well-being of managers. In addition, the results of the quantitative part of the research include the prioritization of antecedents and consequences related to strategic regret in the managers of government organizations.Discussion In today's highly dynamic, turbulent, and ambiguous environment, managers are involved in complex challenges that make decision-making a complex process for them (Boalhari et al., 2022). So they have to solve them in a short time, and this causes that sometimes their decisions are based on bias or innovative options. One of the consequences of making such decisions is the manager's regret. The issue of strategic regret in government organizations is very important in comparison with non-governmental sector organizations due to having a broad and diverse range of stakeholders. Therefore, in this research, an attempt has been made to study the factors that lead to the occurrence of strategic regret in government managers, as well as the resulting consequences.ConclusionAccording to the research, the most important antecedents of strategic regret in managers are, respectively, not having a strategic approach and thinking, being placed in conditions of high uncertainty, and lack of short-term perspective and horizon. Also, increasing the atmosphere of lack of trust in the organization's managers, decreasing the organization's and managers' credibility, and increasing the atmosphere of organizational skepticism were identified as the most important consequences of strategic regret in managers.
Management
Shahram Khalil Nezhad; Nader Mazloomi; Hoseyn Rahmanseresht; Akbar Moghaddar
Abstract
The formation of strategic thinking in today’s organizations is a complex concept, and the ever-increasing uncertainties of the business environment have made addressing it inevitable. A systematic literature review shows some cognitive concepts in forming strategic thinking, which crystallizes ...
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The formation of strategic thinking in today’s organizations is a complex concept, and the ever-increasing uncertainties of the business environment have made addressing it inevitable. A systematic literature review shows some cognitive concepts in forming strategic thinking, which crystallizes in the higher-order theme of “mental abilities.” This paper specifies these mental abilities in two levels, “theme” and “sub theme.” This research employs the thematic synthesis method to analyze 84 selected sources published between 1980 and 2021. The analysis generated 1110 supporting codes, which identified 37 themes (including five themes and 32 sub-themes) related to the mental abilities required for strategic thinking in organizations and formulated as a thematic map (research model). In order to enhance the reliability and quality of the themes, this research underwent an external audit by seven domain experts.It is worth noting that this article is the result of the first research using the thematic synthesis method on the research topic, and 70.3% of the themes included in the research model have created new concepts and constructs.IntroductionTurbulence and uncertainty are the most important factors in today’s business. These environmental factors render the classical strategic planning approaches ineffective and emphasize the critical need to form strategic thinking. A systematic review of the literature reveals that the formation of strategic thinking in an organization comprises two higher-order themes: “mental abilities” and “administrational capabilities.” Mental abilities have been discussed as “cognitive elements,” “mental process,” “mental power,” and “thinking abilities” by prior researchers, which resulted in ambiguity in terminology in the literature. On the other hand, mental abilities are a vague and complex concept in forming strategic thinking that requires clarification.This research provides a model of mental abilities themes in the formation of strategic thinking as a “thematic map“ in two levels of “theme“ and “sub theme, “using a systematic review of the literature by the “thematic synthetic“ method.Materials and MethodsThis research is “quantitative” in its approach, “exploratory” in its results, and “developmental + applied” in its goals. This research uses the thematic synthetic method to discover themes of mental abilities in forming strategic thinking in organizations at two levels of themes and sub-themes and provides them in a thematic map. The main sources of this research include 84 selected references, 69 in English (spanning 1980 to 2021) and 15 in Persian (spanning 2003 to 2021) with the following typology:- English references: papers (56), thesis (5), books (8).- Persian references: papers (12), thesis (1), books (1).It should be noted that these sources provide 89 models/ classifications regarding the mental abilities in forming strategic thinking in organizations, as follows:- Models (54): English (41), Persian (13).- Classifications (35): English (31), Persian (4).This research is based on 1110 extracted codes from the literature. These codes are as follows:- Type I codes (elements of models/ classifications in the literature): 257.- Type II codes (statements and quotes from the literature): 853. Discussion and ResultsThe research model (thematic map) includes 37 mental abilities in forming strategic thinking at the organizational level, including five themes and 32 sub-themes. A study of the models/ classifications of the sources of this paper resulted in a minimum of 1, an average of 2.88, and a maximum of 11. Comparing the 37 elements in the research model of this paper with the previous studies shows a 37-fold advantage compared to the minimum, 12.84-fold against the average, and 3.36-fold increase compared to the maximum number of elements in those studies, which indicates the superiority of the research model over the previous body of work.In 70.3% of the identified themes, some form of construct creation has happened (54.1% of themes with "concept conformation + concept creation" and 16.2% "concept similarity + concept creation"). Only in 29.7% of the themes in the research model complete "conformity" with the previous works is evident. It indicates the research's innovation level in creating new concepts and constructs and the conceptual development of the work.ConclusionsProviding a precise formation of the identified themes as a thematic map (research model) reduces the complexity, clarifies the research subject, and enhances its understanding. In addition, two levels of themes and sub-themes and laying out the themes in a thematic map play a critical role in this end.Moreover, “trustworthiness” in the thematic synthesis method is crucial. This research studied the views of credible and related methodologists and identified common points in their views to clarify the definition of trustworthiness in thematic synthesis and utilized these views to increase the trustworthiness of the work. In this regard, expanding the number and period of the sources used in the research to increase “credibility,” properly extracting the basic research codes to increase “confirmability,” using a team of expert external auditors to increase “dependability,” and clarifying the method of selecting primary research resources in increase “transferability” of the research are some aspects of this attempt.
