Strategic management 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Strategic management 2 - Essay Example McDonald’s vision and goals would be studied for their efficacy in achieving its goals and objectives. McDonald’s is the largest chain of fast food restaurants that operates around 32000 outlets across the globe. Its mission and vision statements are key elements of its business strategy. McDonald’s vision statement wants it to become the best fast food outlet. The corporate vision clearly describes its future perspectives as to what it plans to achieve in long term. Its corporate strategy primarily relies on creating value through customer satisfaction and is intrinsically linked to its vision. It helps to achieve its vision by promoting strategic plans that would enhance its value and make it the best fast food restaurant. Bateman and Snell (2009) assert that organizational vision becomes the major motivation element for the workforce to excel. The corporate objectives of McDonald’s are developed so as its vision is aligned with its value through plans and actions that promote its goals and objective. The process of developing a mission statement is highly pertinent for an organization because it defines as to what and how the business intends to operate. The broad framework of mission statement provides firms with strong incentives and plans to focus on strategies that would help it to achieve its vision. The strategies encourage the firms to become flexible and evolve effective plans to meet the challenges of changing times. Mintzberg (1990) believes that businesses need to exploit the current choices to meet the transforming values and trends in the customers’ preferences. Indeed, the business objectives and mission are inherently linked to changing demands of the customers and therefore must constantly strive to be flexible. The mission statement of McDonald’s is to become the favorite place of the customers for their fast food (McDonalds, 2012). Hence,

STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL THEORY CHAPTER 10 Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL THEORY CHAPTER 10 - Article Example Merton studied social phenomena by studying the meanings people attach to their actions, using the methodological approach, structural-functionalism which was in vogue in the 1930s. Merton maintained that structural-functionalism is predicated upon three assumptions. The first assumption is that social systems are self-regulating and tend towards a state of equilibrium. The second assumption is that every social practice contributes to the survival of the social system to which it belongs. The third assumption is that every social practice is indispensible just as the brain and the heart are to human beings. On the converse, Merton made postulation that the degree of integration in a social system is an empirical variable and can vary from institution or society or time to the next. Merton also contended that social practices are not really functional for the entire cultural or social system. Merton also questioned the idea of universal functionalism, as the assumption that every social practice fulfills vital functions in ensuring the survival of a system. Merton also disputed the concept of indispensability, as the concept that every social practice is indispensible because it executes necessary function. To draw the proper functions of an organization, Merton drew the distinction between manifest and latent functions. With the former, he meant to denote objective consequences which contribute to the adaptation of the system recognized by participants in a system. Latent functions in turn means objectives that are neither intended noir recognized correlatively. When discussing the structural causes of bureaucratic dysfunctions, Merton points out that the ideal type of bureaucratic arrangements achieves high extent of efficiency due to application of rules that are predetermined categories of cases that preclude the need to issue certain instructions for a given