The Political Market and Its two Key Players
Question:
Discuss about the Managerial Decision Making in Gray.
The attractiveness of the political market and its implications for the firm’s strategy is one of the crucial subjects to unveil and browse to lay out the facts in critical thinking and managerial decision making. Apparently, this topic has been given a blind eye by scholars who have opted to provide much attention to the economic market neglecting its better part, political market. However that has been the case, there has not been the absence of brave faces to shed some light on the same (Soltes, 2017). This essay reviews the article of Jean-Philippe Bonardi, Amy J. Hilman and Gerald D. Keim who compare democracy to a market process whereby the demanders and suppliers of the public policy interact. This article will identify the title of their article; give a brief detail of what the article concerns. It will also identify gaps that need to be filled, if any, comment on how the research was conducted, clearly spell out the findings of the study, talk about the implications of the article for management practice and finally evaluate the article’s effectiveness and credibility.
Now, Jean’s article titled ‘The Attractiveness of The Political Markets: Implications For Firm Strategy’ raises a few concerns and curiosity of knowing the content that is therein depending on the fact that this is apparently one of the most important topics (Klein, 2016). According to the topic, the market should not only be looked at only in the economic but also the political angle. Something that many business and management scholars have not yet appreciated is that public policy prescription and implementation serves a key role in managerial decision-making (Kobayashi, 2017). A precise illustration is the lobbying aspect of firms to be protected by the government against foreign competition whereby the government takes an initiative of reducing or banning imports to enable the domestic companies to grow.
The authors have put out the fact that the political market consists of two key players, i.e., demanders and suppliers of public policy. Tue demanders of the public policy are the citizens, firms, special interest groups, voters and other governments. On the other hand, the suppliers of the public policy are the elected and non-elected politicians, the legislators, members of the judiciary and the bureaucrats. Now, since the political market is a process, the demanders and suppliers in this market actively exchange roles such that the demanders become suppliers and suppliers become demanders (Wylie & Neeley, 2015). These elected politicians and bureaucrats demand votes, information and financial support from the firms while firms demand regulation, public policy, and deregulation.
The Effect of Firms on Public Policy for Economic and Profit Favors
The authors through their argument have precisely made it clear that firms actively seek and influence public policy for economic and profit favors. For instance, a firm that operates in monopoly would find government protection and regulation for a financial benefit such that no other firms venture into the same business in the zeal of avoiding competition (Gehrke & Ball, 2015). On the other hand, politicians influence the public policy concerning regulation and deregulation of business to seek and acquire votes to remain in power. Whereas this is the case, at times some politicians enter into public offices unopposed and therefore have less worry of votes into the office due to monopoly and thus would not actively influence the public policy (Laudon & Laudon, 2017). However, it should it should be appreciated that bureaucrats and members of the judiciary have more power to influence the public policy, regulation, and deregulation of business activities as opposed to their elected politician counterparts.
While substantial and evident research has been done to come up with adequate evidence to support the topic and the thesis statement, there is no much exploration on the negative impacts of firm’s protection, regulation, and deregulation by the government. It is an indisputable fact that when domestic firms are left to compete on their own, many of them would be out-competed by foreign firms something that would eventually lead to their paralysis and death maybe (Morton, Fontaine, Hudak, & Gallo, 2017). However this is a fact, every step taken comes with both pros and cons, and sometimes the disadvantages outdo the pros. In this case, the authors should have told us what the impacts of firm’s protection against foreign competition are. Firms that are certain about of government support and protection would enjoy much comfort instead of looking for ways of competing favorably and convincing the buyer that they stock the best products.
Consequently, protected firms will eventually lower the standards of the goods and services offered and therefore affect the buyer. These firms may reduce the quantity and quality of the services provided at a specified price (Fan & Golder, 2017). Other firms may even double or even quadruple the prices and still get the customers buy their products because of an absence of equivalent foreign substitutes.
The authors have attempted to explain the behavior that would be exhibited by firms when the political market is or is not attractive. That is commendable. They’ve told us for example that if the political market demand side is attractive while the supply side is attractive, firms will opt for a leader strategy in the market (LoBiondo-Wood & Haber, 2017). This statement is true. However, there are other situations and circumstances that force the firms to delay or enter into the political market which ought to cover. Basically, a firm would not solely depend on demand and supply attractiveness to make a decision as whether or not to engage in the political market.
Negative Impacts of Firm’s Protection, Regulation and Deregulation by the Government
This article has an adequate evidence to bring out desired facts as well as give a support to the thesis statement. Background research on the study topic and thorough employment of research material for secondary data such as relevant books, journals, scholarly articles are evident. There are a lot of in-text references that are later reflected in the bibliography indicating that a lot of research was done on the same (Thorstad & Wolff). Perusing through various articles on the subject matter to come up with such an excellent article is commendable. Just to be sincere, a lot of research was conducted to bring out facts about the topic. Most importantly, the so acquired data was adequately used all over the article as relevant examples, demonstrations, and illustrations have been made. Data analysis through tables and graphs showing how variables affect each other in political market is enough evidence of adequate research on the topic.
The research in this article has come up with some findings. First, just like the economic market, the political market can be viewed as a platform where both demanders and suppliers of public policy actively interact. According to the analysis made in this article, it is evident that explanations as to why and when firms decide to engage themselves in the political market can be derived (Lee, 2016). This information can be used to predict as to whether firms are likely or unlikely to get into the political market according to the prevailing conditions. This article again found that success in the political market is dependent on the attractiveness of the market. This attractiveness that determines firm success importantly explains why firms tend to engage themselves in political strategies.
In this article again, it has been found that when the demand side is attractive while at that time the supply side is not, most of the firms will tend to let other firms get into the market. These firms come later after watching and analyzing the engagement consequences and the possible merits (Goodwin & Wright, 2014). However, in situations where both the demand and the supply side are not attractive, firms will wait to see whether things would change before engaging themselves in the political market.
This article has also laid other attributes leading to or undermining political market attractiveness such as nonelection issues, rivalry among demanders, matters to do with real costs and diffused benefits. Additional attributes are defense or challenge of the existing problems or the status quo, advocating new issue as well as issues to do with concentrated benefits and diffused costs.
Findings of the Study
This article has enormous implications on the management practice. It acts as an eye opener to the management of any firm by instilling knowledge necessary for decision making, i.e., when and why to engage or not engage in the political market. Again, this article equips firm’s management with knowledge of engagement timing and also information on the available benefits of either immediate or delayed entrance in the market (Goetsch, 2017). It also briefs the management on how to lob for and influence public policy in favor of the economic market.
Conclusion
A lot much has been handled in this article. Limelight has shone to the world of political market, and a subject that for quite some time has beeen slapped with a high level of ignorance has at last been handled positively inspiring both scholars and firm managers. A lot of research has been conducted to bring out the desired points. The information used in this article has been attributed to different personalities, and this improves the credibility of the report. As a result, this has been one of the most effective pieces in the field of critical thinking and managerial decision making. However much efforts have been taken to garner evidence to support the thesis statement, the article registers some squinting facts and loopholes that need to be closed to make the piece more effective and credible. The report is not complete and therefore prompts more research to answer some questions left out unanswered.
References
Fan, T., & Golder, P. (2017). Innovation and New Products Research: A State-of-the-Art Review, Models for Managerial Decision Making, and Future Research Directions. In Handbook of Marketing Decision Models, 27-34.
Gehrke, I., & Ball, D. (2015). Managerial decision-making in hospitals with real options analysis. 13(4), 673-691. Information Systems and e-Business Management, 47-52.
Goetsch, D. (2017). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, 33-45.
Goodwin, P., & Wright, G. (2014). Decision Analysis for Management Judgment. John Wiley and sons, 43-47.
Klein, B. (2016). Developing an Applied, Integrated MBA Managerial Decision Making Course. Journal of the Midwest Association for Information Systems, 72-79.
Kobayashi, M. (2017). The relationship between critical-thinking and decision-making in exercise and lifestyle in adolescents: Minoru Kobayashi. The European Journal of Public Heal, 45-50.
Laudon, K., & Laudon, J. (2017). Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm Plus MyMISLab with Pearson eText–Access Card Package. Prentice Hall Press, 45-50.
Lee, D. (2016). An integrated review of the correlation between critical thinking ability and clinical decision?making in nursing. Journal of clinical nursing, 77-80.
LoBiondo-Wood, G., & Haber, J. (2017). Nursing Research-E-Book: Methods and Critical Appraisal for Evidence-Based Practice. Elsevier Health Sciences, 40-50.
Morton, P., Fontaine, D., Hudak, C., & Gallo, B. (2017). Critical care nursing: a holistic approach. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 65, 89, 100.
Soltes, E. (2017). Teaching Versus Living: Managerial Decision Making in the Gray. Journal of Management Education, 67-72.
Thorstad, R., & Wolff, P. (n.d.). A significant data analysis of the relationship between future thinking and decision-making. Known proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Wylie, C., & Neeley, K. (2015). Learning Out Loud (LOL): How Comics Can Develop the Communication and Critical Thinking Abilities of Engineering Students. In Proceedings of Decision making. , 60-66.