OPTIMALITY: Optimisation and Strategy

Alan E Singer
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Alan E Singer: University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Chapter 12 in Integrating Ethics with Strategy:Selected Papers of Alan E Singer, 2007, pp 211-231 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: AbstractThis chapter is adapted from “Optimality and strategy,” International Journal of Operations and Quantitative Management 2(2), pp. 111–126, 1996. The original paper was prompted by conversations with Arnold Reisman of Case Western Reserve University. It is argued that conceptual models of strategy-without-trade-offs challenge conventional notions of optimality and optimisation. This challenge is broadened by the several distinctively defined forms of optimality within the behavioural and managerial sciences. It is then shown that each form of optimality corresponds with an identifiable segment of the strategic management theory. Although the metaoptimality arguments remain ambiguous or incomplete, they can play a role similar to the general theory of rationality in informing the theory of strategic management, particularly with respect to its systemic and ethical dimensions. Once again, the resulting prescription is for methodological adaptations, with their associated ideological transitions.

Keywords: Business Ethics; Strategy; Management Science; Corporate Social Responsibility; Poverty; Health; Decision Making; Corporate Governance; Global Business (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
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