Strategic Leadership in a Changing World Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Strategic Leadership in a Changing World - Essay Example News Corporation has been founded by Rupert Murdoch in the year 1979, and the company is headquartered at New York, NY, USA. The company operates in six business segments such as Cable Network Programming, Television, Direct Broadcast Satellite Television, Filmed Entertainment, Publishing and others (New York Times, 2013). Cable Network Programming division of News Corporation licenses and produces sports entertainment, business news, movies, general entertainment, etc. Filmed Entertainment division of the company offers animated and live-action motion pictures in the form of entertainment to customers. Television division of the company offers both network programming and broadcasting entertainment to customers (New York Times, 2013). Recently, News Corporation has acquired ESPN STAR Sports division through wholly owned subsidiary. According to the annual report published by News Corporation (2012), the company earns annual revenue of more than $30 billion from its global operations . Major entertainment divisions of the company include Fox Entertainment, National Geographic channel, Fox studios, etc. (News Corporation, 2012). The concept of strategic leadership in the form of competitive advantage was probably first identified by Porter (1985 and 1991). Porter (1985) has given the basic framework of ‘outside in’ approach which helps a firm to understand the particular market in terms of macro environmental (political, economical, social, technological, environmental and legal) analysis and industry force analysis. Seminal research work of Michael Porter (1985) has given a 5 force framework which helps a firm to understand the business opportunity in particular market in terms buyer power, supplier power, threat of substitute, entry barrier and competitive rivalry. However, strategic leadership is more important from the competitive advantage perspective. In simple words, it can be said that companies can only achieve strategic leadership if it is able to achieve competitive advantage over other competitors. The question may arise that how a firm can achieve competitive advantage? Well, to answer this question, research scholars such as Barney (1986) has given the Resource Based View (RBV) model. According to Barney (1986), a firm should use its financial and non-financial resources which are valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable in order to archive competitive advantage. Adner and Zemsky (2006) and Kraatz and Zajac (2001) have also found that availability of resources and optimal usage of these resources develop capabilities for firms and using the developed capabilities can help a firm to achieve competitive advantage or better to say strategic leadership. An eminent author has epistemologically created link between performance, strategic leadership and competitive advantage in the following manner; â€Å"Sustainable competitive advantage is more probable in firms that achieve sustained superior performance.â₠¬  (Powell, 2001, p. 879) Discussion about strategic leadership is incomplete without the mentioning the concept of ‘Core Competency’ given by Prahalad and Hamel (1990). These eminent scholars’ duo has suggested that companies can achieve core competency by strategically using its capabilities backed by valuable resources. Optimizing resources and capabilities in particular business operation can help firms to