Effective strategic management for technology-based firms: context, management style, and incentives

Summary form only given, as follows. A study of strategic planning in technology-based firms indicates that the appropriate alignment of three basic organizational factors significantly improves a firm´s long-term effectiveness, that is, its ability to achieve its goals. The factors, which act individually and interactively, are: the nature of a firm´s competitive environment, which can range along a scale from static/nonthreatening to dynamic/threatening; the style of the management control process, ranging from centralized/rigid to decentralized/flexible; and the type of incentive system, ranging from weak to strong. The three factors and an index of effectiveness are combined in an equation that closely tracks the qualitative principles of current organizational theory. The equation has been solved for wide ranges of the factors. Results were in the form of sets of contour graphs. A firm´s current factors are measured along their scales by responses to sets of questions submitted to managers. Given the scale location of a particular firm´s competitive environment, the graphs suggest a style of management control, and a type of incentive program that, compared to those currently in place, can create a more appropriate environment for maximizing the firm´s effectiveness