Book contents
Nine - The Role of the Executive
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
Summary
INTRODUCTION
The stakeholder approach proposed in the preceding pages dictates a conception of the role of the executive as one who serves a set of stakeholders of the firm and as one who is the guardian of the direction and the values of the enterprise. In this chapter, I will briefly indicate the implications of the stakeholder approach to Strategic management for the executives who are responsible for the health of the corporation. I shall begin with the general manager responsible for integrating a number of functional responsibilities and move on to a discussion of the job of the chief executive, who I believe must learn to manage in turbulence. Finally, I shall summarize the main argument of the book and suggest some avenues for further research.
THE GENERAL MANAGER
I began this book with a discussion of the problems of Bob Collingwood, the CEO of the U.S. subsidiary of a large multinational, Woodland International. Within Woodland there are many such managers who are responsible for integrating a number of functional areas. And, even within Bob's subsidiary there are managers responsible for particular businesses, who are in some sense, “CEOs” of their particular businesses. As the modern corporation has decentralized and begun to use Strategic management models, the number of general managers and their scope of responsibility has increased. As outlined in chapters Four through Six, Strategic management involves a number of managers from all areas of the corporation. It falls to the lot of the general manager to pull these diverse Strands of thought and action together.
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- Strategic ManagementA Stakeholder Approach, pp. 238 - 250Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010