Behavioural Influences on Strategy

Abstract

Product and organisation excellence are not enough to guarantee commercial success. People must feel good and confident about working in the particular organisation and on its products and services. Others must also feel good about using and consuming these products and services as customers. This is true even where the organisation in question is the major source for the area as, for example, with Boeing at Seattle, and Ford Chrysler and General Motors at Detroit, where great cities have been built around major industries. Elsewhere, communities have grown up around smaller pockets of activity, as witness the coal mining industry. The establishment of activities in hitherto undeveloped regions has brought fresh prosperity to these places. In each case the particular community must feel good about playing host and supplying it with staff and customers. Organisations must bring a general positive aura, reputation, confidence and integrity, whatever its business and activities.