Browsing by Subject "Strategy"

This thesis investigates strategy formation and its use in the Saint Petersburg contemporary dance community. In Russia the 1920s was the golden era of contemporary dance, however, this period only lasted for a few years. As the development of the industries, modern and contemporary forms were hindered by political and societal changes. During these ambiguous times, only classical ballet and folk dance were widely accepted in the country. Still today, there is inequality in the Russian dance field between different genres since classical ballet as well as folk dance are provided government support both financially and through educational opportunities. As a result, restrictive policies and uncertainty appear in the everyday life of contemporary dance practitioners and they are part of a somewhat divided community. The main research question of this thesis is ‘How do actors in the Saint Petersburg contemporary dance industry understand their mission and what kind of strategies do they have in their use to pursue this?’. This study aims to understand their strategic planning processes; to identify the community’s current engagements in strategic management and how the actors utilize operational tools such as SWOT analysis or the inspection of goals and mission statements within the organizations. In addition, the study analyzes how these objectives can be transformed for the benefit of the industry. This research is a qualitative case study and its primary data are five semi-structured interviews conducted in Saint Petersburg in July 2019 with local contemporary dance practitioners and professionals. The materials are analyzed using applied thematic analysis and grounded theory. This study contributes to the theoretical discussions of strategic management in arts organizations and oversees how the power of a mission statement is understood and operational planning tools are used. There is still a need for actions in building sustainable infrastructure in order to ensure the continuation of financial support for contemporary dance. The main results of this research suggest that the organizations have become aware of the tools they need to use to influence and ensure the future of contemporary dance in Russia. An objective of the dance community is to increase individual engagement of contemporary dance in order to elevate this visibility of the discipline amongst decision-makers and new audiences. By not focusing on internal competition, the actors in Saint Petersburg can turn their skills into resources for the whole industry. This thesis will help to demonstrate the attempts of these professionals and the whole community and lastly, bring new topics of advocacy into discussion among the actors in the Saint Petersburg contemporary dance community, institutions and the whole cultural and creative sector in Russia.

Nowadays it is impossible to deny the importance of organizational communication and business strategy. During recent years it has been understood, that these two areas are strongly linked together it is impossible to fulfill a strategy without communication. Also research in these fields has developed into the same direction. It has been widely acknowledged, that strategy implementation and organizational communication are an important part of all employees work particularly in expert organizations. However, there is only little research of strategy communication from employee perspective. This master's thesis explores employee views on strategy and strategy communication in an expert organization. The research area is approached through two research questions. The first explores employee views on strategy communication meetings, special events that were held in spring 2009. The second research question surveys the strategy knowledge and understanding of the employees as well as their attitude to the strategy. Also willingness to work according the company values is studied. The study is done using a survey method: a questionnaire is tailored to the needs of the organization. Both structured statements and open questions are included in the survey. The gathered data is analyzed using statistical and qualitative methods. The target organization is an expert company operating in five countries. The survey was sent to company's Swedish employees in June 2009. As a result a data with 313 responses(44.4 % of employees in the country) was gathered. As the result of this study the strategy communication meetings can be regarded as successful events. Thanks to this, also strategy knowledge and understanding of personnel showed quite good levels. A positive attitude towards the strategy and the values was also noticed. In the analysis besides the overall views, also views of different respondent groups were compared. In statistical tests it was noticed that managers and persons involved in the strategy process knew and understood the strategy better than average. Ages and working units also had some influences to the views. The results of the study reinforce the strong link between strategy and communication in the target organization special communication meetings have been a way to create strategy knowledge, understanding and positive attitudes towards the strategy. Also the strong role of top and middle management is emphasized in the study. Common strategy communication problems were found as well. Employees were proved to be interested in the strategy and willing to work according the company values in their work. Communication will be essential also in the implementation phase a central requisite for success is to understand communication as a way to implement strategy.