Sondra Monroe

Citation

Thesis Title
The Impact of Resource Governance Decisions on Firm Performance: What is Corporate Strategy and Does it Matter?

Read article at Massey Research Online:

Ms Monroe’s research investigated whether corporate strategy contributes to firm performance. Fifteen Fortune 1000 U.S. firms were categorised into three sub-populations based on persistent superior, persistent average and persistent inferior performance. Eighteen pre-determined indicators representing both excellence in corporate strategy and the frequency of strategic decision making were collected through the content analysis of Wall Street Journal articles from 1980 to 2004. Ms Monroe’s research showed that the number of resource governance decisions could distinguish the superior firm performance category from both average and inferior categories of firm performance. The corporate level decision making skill perspective suggests that successful firms, through the use of their superior corporate level decision making skills, are able to simplify resource governance decision making (e.g., decision making rules). This simplification then results in superior resource governance decisions which appear to lower the rate of resource governance decision making. Ms Monroe’s research provides empirical evidence of, firstly, the value of corporate level strategy; secondly, the importance of resource governance decisions in achieving persistent superior firm performance; and, lastly, the need for integration of superior decision making skills into the existing resource-based theory.

Supervisors
Dr James Lockhart