BUS608: Ethical and Strategic Management

The SPACE analysis suggests aggressive posture for the manufacturers, and competitive posture for the traders, based on the systematic planning and implementation of organizational factor support i.e.,job resources and job demand, as they contribute to workforce's ability to support organizational performance, and also the competitive advantage of the firm.

The organizational factor support provides the bases for employee perceived behavioral control to drive contribution, which aligns with and connotes the workability of the theory of planned behavior (TPB).

The aggressive strategic posture of the manufacturers is underpinned on the SPACE logics that the manufacturers are still in stable economic condition, and the organization should examine to exploit its economic strength to protect and improve its competitive advantage. In addition, the aggressive strategic position should also carefully study its industry and broad environment conditions, and take full advantages of their opportunities.

On the other hand, as manifested with a competitive strategic posture, the traders recognize a relatively unstable environment as compared to its upstream value-chain player, namely the manufacturer, including weaknesses financially. Traders with the competitive strategy posture can aim to selectively improve and sharpen its competitive strength, and then invest appropriately to find a slot in the industry and environment for stability.

This research contributes to support the validity and usefulness of resource-based theory of competitive advantage, that is applicable to the pineapple industry, which, in this research, the resource is relating to, in particular, the human resource strategy. Due to the positive correlation shown between financial stability and competitive advantage (bivariate coefficient at 0.73** sig. to 0.01 level, 2 tails), financial resource is equally important.

The three organizational performance domains should simultaneously be targeted, as it shows significant contribution to creating competitive advantage, and also certain level of financial stability: namely (1) Cognitive –which is aligned with the concept of in-role and extra-role behaviors, (2) Affective –which manifests job commitment and loyalty,and (3) Organizational –which defines job performance i.e. ability to deliver jobs on-time and up to the standard quality requirement.

Two aspects of theoretical contributions are noted: 1) Theory of job resource-demand can be used to implement perceivedbehavioral control advocated in the theory of planned behavior, which provides a motivational trust for employee contribution to organizational performance, and 2) Workforce contribution and organizational factor supports should be systematically targetedand invested for contributing to the competitive advantage of the organization.

In the aspect of practical implications, the perceptual and competency gaps between the manufacturers and traders, and between the managers and employees reveal that they should be consciously resolved and considered in strategic management, as this could lead to strategic synergy and sustainable performance.

Limitation

The industry, without the views and actual performance states of the farmers, and the customers, would not be sufficient to provide a realistic and holistic picture of the industry. Thus, further research should incorporate these perspectives to yield a more accurate and valid picture, through informant-based triangulation. This is particularly important especially the most suffered in price-slumped situation is the farmer, which is due to a lack of financial capability to invest on hiring workers for harvesting, and far-distance from manufacturers.