Strategic Management in Action

This paper sets out to overview the strategic management process and its alignment with a systemic approach and to briefly review the necessary enablers, namely: the presence and practice of learning at the individual, group, and organizational level, a culture of exploration and innovation, which implies a receptiveness to new ideas, and the space or opportunities to practise the skills putting the learnings into action. Having set the study's theoretical context, the paper then explores some of the realities and implications, both for strategic management and the action researcher, by examining two quite different case scenarios from within a large Australian-based financial services organization, the first, Case Study A, involving a more strategic focus, and the second, Case Study B, an operational one.     

Speculation on the timing and nature of Late Pleistocene hunter－gatherer colonization of the Tibetan Plateau

1 Human biogeography on the edge The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau occupies nearly 1.25 million km2 of the Asian continent and reaches an average elevation of more than 4000 m a.s.l. (Fig. 1). In addition to playing a critical role in global climate systems[1,2], the plateau is distinguished as the largest continuous high elevation ecosystem on the planet. This harsh, barren Fig. 1. Map of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (left) and an elevation cross-section from the Badanjaran Desert in the n…     

Mutations in the gene encoding c-Abl-binding protein SH3BP2 cause cherubism

Cherubism (MIM 118400) is an autosomal dominant inherited syndrome characterized by excessive bone degradation of the upper and lower jaws followed by development of fibrous tissue masses, which causes a characteristic facial swelling. Here we describe seven mutations in the SH3-binding protein SH3BP2 (MIM 602104) on chromosome 4p16.3 that cause cherubism.     

Cellular events in denervated limb stumps ofAmbystoma larvae during re-innervation and subsequent regeneration

Summary Amputated, denervatedAmbystoma forelimbs undergo cellular dedifferentiation and slight resorption through 12 days post-amputation. Subsequently, as limb stumps become re-innervated, there occur mitosis, blastema formation, and regeneration. The initial increase in the mitotic index in once-denervated limb stumps is closely correlated with the presence of ingrowing nerve fibres.This work was supported by grant PCM 76-11807 from the National Science Foundation.     

Small-scale structure of the geodynamo inferred from Oersted and Magsat satellite data

The 'geodynamo' in the Earth's liquid outer core produces a magnetic field that dominates the large and medium length scales of the magnetic field observed at the Earth's surface. Here we use data from the currently operating Danish Oersted satellite, and from the US Magsat satellite that operated in 1979/80, to identify and interpret variations in the magnetic field over the past 20 years, down to length scales previously inaccessible. Projected down to the surface of the Earth's core, we found these variations to be small below the Pacific Ocean, and large at polar latitudes and in a region centred below southern Africa. The flow pattern at the surface of the core that we calculate to account for these changes is characterized by a westward flow concentrated in retrograde polar vortices and an asymmetric ring where prograde vortices are correlated with highs (and retrograde vortices with lows) in the historical (400-year average) magnetic field. This pattern is analogous to those seen in a large class of numerical dynamo simulations, except for its longitudinal asymmetry. If this asymmetric state was reached often in the past, it might account for several persistent patterns observed in the palaeomagnetic field. We postulate that it might also be a state in which the geodynamo operates before reversing.     

Business Action Research in Practice—A Strategic Conversation About Conducting Action Research in Business Organizations

The objectiveof this paper is to provide practitioner researchers with insights into the initial findings around the challenges of conducting business action research in practice in commercial settings on the basis of experiences of a PhD cohort at Monash University in the first 18 months of candidature. In performing the role of a concluding paper, it sets out a generic framework for action research that the cohort has come to embrace. In doing so, it draws on emergent themes spread across the six diverse topics that are the subject of action research interventions of the cohort members. The paper then identifies and analyses the common patterns that have emerged and offers observations and conclusions for those involved in practitioner research.