Preference For Objectives And Choice Of Strategies

The traits of the manager will influence her choices of strategies, and the pattern of preference for all kinds of objectives is an important factor.As far as business activities are concerned, the ultimate objectives of the manager can be boiled down to the scale of the enterprise and the profit of the enterprise. Measures to achieve these two goals can be categorized as market development and diversification. The pattern of preference for scale and profit decides how much emphasis will be attached to each means, and meanwhile the life cycle of the enterprise.When we are comparing the strategies of managers with different preference patterns, it appears to us that they diverge at first, but converge at last, and the life-cycles of their strategies are the same. Namely the managers will devote themselves in market development at first, then engage themselves in relative diversification, then vertical integration and irrelative diversification, and finally globalize their business.If the opportunities are homogenous, market development is comparatively effective in increasing the scale of the enterprise, so under such circumstance the manager who prefer the scale will emphasize market development, and the vice versa.If the opportunities are heterogeneous, diversification iscomparatively effective in increasing the scale of the enterprise, so under such circumstance the manager who prefers the scale will emphasize diversification, and likewise, the vice versa.The conclusion mentioned above is generalized with the omission of the competitors, the change and fluctuation of macro-environment, the risks, the substitution of the products and the improvement of the technologies. In the future, researchers should take these factors into consideration so as to come to a more realistic conclusion.