Methodologies for formulating business strategies and stakeholder management strategies : Korean healthcare IT business cases

Abstract

The management of competing stakeholders has emerged as an important topic for formulating business strategies and effective stakeholder management strategies. Typically, reactive, defensive, accommodative, or proactive (RDAP) strategies have been employed for getting into the world of stakeholder management. Healthcare IT (Information Technology) industries especially have the cases in the complicated business environment. However, most current research has explored their relationship in isolation. To fill this gap, this dissertation focuses on two research objectives; (i) to formulate business strategies from a stakeholder perspective and (ii) to formulate strategies for stakeholder management with a case-based reasoning approach. For the first objective, this dissertation proposes a methodology for helping formulate business strategies based on stakeholder demands. This methodology begins with the understanding of stakeholder demands. This understanding is particularly useful for the businesses with conflicting stakeholders. This methodology consists of four phases: current business analysis, strategy development, strategy evaluation, and strategy implementation. Power, legitimacy, urgency, interdependence, cooperation, and conflict are used as stakeholder related variables. Strategic alternatives are derived on the basis of stakeholder demands. Resolution, replacement, integration, reaggregation, and balance guidelines are employed for this derivation. Strategic alternatives are then evaluated according to a business social performance index. In order to demonstrate the practical usefulness of a methodology, three business cases for the Korean healthcare IT (Information Technology) industry are illustrated. The case results imply that this methodology is useful for strategy formulation, especially in the case of competing business stakeholders. For the second objective, this dissertation proposes a methodology for formulating strategies for stakeholder mana...