Keywords: strategic risk; Risk factors; Formation mechanism
I. Introduction
With the social progress and economic prosperity, the business environment faced by enterprises has become more complicated and turbulent, and the influencing factors of enterprise strategic choice have become more diversified and uncertain. Strategic risk has become an unavoidable practical problem for enterprises and must be managed. Whoever can better solve the problem of strategic risk management will gain a new competitive advantage. Foreign research on strategic risk system began in the late 1970s and developed in the 1990s. So far, there is no unified understanding of the concept of strategic risk. Christopher believes that enterprise strategic risk is the risk of enterprise strategy level and the risk of the whole enterprise, and regards strategic risk management as a means for enterprises to establish competitive advantage. James m? Collins defines strategic risk as the degree to which an enterprise ranks lower in the industry. The research on strategic risk in domestic academic circles is in the initial stage, mainly the introduction of foreign strategic risk theory and the research on the specific strategic behavior risk of enterprises. Throughout the relevant literature at home and abroad, there is no unified understanding of enterprise strategic risk, and there is no in-depth study on its formation mechanism. The formation mechanism of strategic risk is the basis and important premise of strategic risk identification and strategic risk management control. Based on the general characteristics of risk and the essence of enterprise strategy, this paper discusses the elements of strategic risk and its formation mechanism.
Second, the elements of strategic risk
The constituent elements of strategic risk are the necessary conditions for the occurrence of risk, the prerequisite elements in the risk mechanism model, and the basic problems of enterprise strategic risk management. Baird divides strategic risk into two levels according to the hierarchical characteristics of internal and external systems of enterprises: industry risk and enterprise risk. Budd put forward that strategic risk comes from entrepreneurial risk, operational risk and competitive risk. Yang Huajiang discusses the influencing factors of strategic risk of group companies from four aspects: company environment, resources, ability and strategic theme. This paper analyzes the elements of strategic risk from the perspective of strategic theory and system. Strategic risk is accompanied by the whole process of enterprise strategy and enterprise development, not just in the process of strategy formulation. Therefore, the factors of strategic risk can be divided into internal and external aspects. The risk factors from the external environment of enterprises can be summarized as strategic environment. For the analysis of internal factors of enterprises, the factors affecting strategy are analyzed. The resources and capabilities of enterprises are the main factors that determine the strategy and the source of competitive advantage. Therefore, it can be considered that the strategic resources and competitiveness of enterprises are important risk factors of enterprises. In addition, the strategic positioning of enterprises is the key factor in the implementation of their strategies. The strategic formulation and implementation of enterprises are closely related to the leaders of enterprises. Therefore, strategic environment, strategic positioning, enterprise resources and competitiveness, and enterprise leaders constitute the forming factors of enterprise strategic risk. The core of the five factors is strategic positioning, and the relationship is shown in figure 1.
1. Enterprise strategic environment. Enterprise strategic environment refers to external environmental factors that may have a significant impact on enterprise strategy. Environment is an adaptive factor, and the change of environment not only needs adaptation, but also causes changes in key resources and competitiveness. Enterprise strategic environment includes political and economic environment, technical environment, industry market environment and so on. The influence of changes in the political and economic environment on the development strategy and overall goals of enterprises may adjust the strategic development direction, strategic policy and strategic focus of enterprises. The degree of development and change of related technical environment will directly affect the realization and performance of enterprise strategic objectives, and affect the competitive advantage, development model and strategic focus of enterprises. The overall development trend of the industry, the changing trend of the industry structure and the development direction of the competition structure, as well as the changes in the profitability of the whole industry and the intensity of market competition will all have an impact on strategic positioning, strategic focus, performance and competitive advantage. In addition, the strategy of competitors and the adjustment of strategy will also have an impact on the strategy of enterprises. The change of environmental factors will restrict the behavior of enterprises and affect the opportunities and threats of enterprises.
2. Strategic resources of enterprises. The strategic resources of an enterprise generally include management resources, technical resources, market resources, asset resources and human resources. As an element of supporting strategy, the strategic resources of an enterprise are the combination of tangible assets and intangible assets. The operation mode, patent intellectual property rights and organizational structure of an enterprise are all indispensable resources for its effective operation. Management resources refer to management resources that help organizations to implement and standardize enterprises to achieve their defined strategic goals. The shortage of management resources may lead to inconsistent strategy implementation and poor information, thus affecting the quality of enterprise decision-making and resource allocation and bringing risks to strategy implementation. Market resources are the most important resources to ensure the realization of enterprise value chain transmission. The weakening of market resources will lead to the decline of enterprise product competitiveness, sales performance and backward market development, and lose the product advantage of enterprise sustainable development, thus forming enterprise strategic risks. Technical resources are the basis of maintaining the technological and competitive advantages of enterprises. Whether technical resources can support the requirements of enterprise strategy and market demand and establish competitive advantage is an important aspect that needs to be considered in enterprise strategic risk. The influence of capital and assets on enterprise strategy is mainly manifested in the support degree of capital resources to enterprise strategic objectives and the strategic risks that the shortage of capital resources may bring to the development of enterprise strategic objectives.
3. The competitiveness of enterprises. The competitive ability of an enterprise includes management control ability, technological innovation ability, marketing ability and strategic management ability. There is a corresponding relationship between strategic resources and strategic capabilities of enterprises. The strategic resources of enterprises will form the competitive ability of enterprises under certain mechanisms. The competitive ability of enterprises produces competitive advantages in the process of interaction with the market. If the management control ability and management level of an enterprise can't meet the requirements of the enterprise, it will become a weak link and generate risks. The ability of technological innovation and new product development determines the leading position of enterprises in the market. If the R&D ability can't surpass the competitors, it will lead to the decline of product sales and market share, the loss of core competitive resources of enterprises and the formation of strategic risks of enterprises.
4. Business leaders. Business leaders mainly refer to entrepreneurs, senior managers and core managers. The leader's ability must match the strategy in order to achieve the established goal of the strategy. The factors that affect the leader's ability include knowledge structure, experience, experience, learning ability, innovation ability, enterprising spirit, decision-making style and risk preference. Leaders' ability is manifested in grasping the strategic situation, formulating the correct company development strategy, controlling the overall situation, sizing up the situation, effectively utilizing and allocating resources, promoting the realization of strategic objectives of enterprises, and managing strategic risks in the process of competition and development. Leaders' ideas can't keep up with the times, and the backwardness of knowledge structure will affect the formulation and development of enterprise strategy. The leader's experience, learning ability, keen insight into the environment and market, and judgment on the development trend of enterprise operation and internal management control will have a great impact on the enterprise. The risk preference of enterprise leaders will make enterprises choose different strategic behaviors, strategic goals and strategic expectations. Different benefits of enterprises will lead to different strategic risks.
5. Strategic positioning. Strategic positioning is an important factor in generating risks. The strategy of an enterprise is the mission, development direction, strategic goal, strategic policy and strategic guiding ideology of the enterprise formed through strategic research. The strategy is supported by the enterprise's special resources, core competitive advantages, enterprise's ability and its development at various stages. The risk of strategic positioning is whether the development direction of the strategy is correct, and whether the guiding principles and guiding ideology of the strategy conform to the resources and capabilities of the enterprise and the development law of the industry.
Third, strategic risk formation mechanism analysis
How does the enterprise strategic risk factor evolve into strategic risk? From a systematic point of view, the factors that cause the strategic risk of enterprises are multi-angle and multi-faceted, and all kinds of factors of strategic risk restrict and interact with each other to form a complex system. As a complete system, an enterprise can obtain a sustainable competitive advantage only by maintaining good operation. Once there is a problem in the operation of the system, the enterprise will lose its competitive advantage and its performance will decline, making it difficult to achieve the goal of the system. Therefore, the formation mechanism of strategic risk is the imbalance of various factors between systems, which ultimately affects the realization of system goals. This imbalance can be analyzed from two aspects. On the one hand, it refers to the imbalance between systems, such as environmental changes, when other factors remain unchanged and a strategic risk factor changes. Environment is a very important factor for the strategy of an enterprise, which is often beyond the control of the enterprise. If the enterprise does not adapt to the environment, it will cause strategic risks, lead to business failure and even threaten the survival of the enterprise. On the other hand, it refers to the imbalance caused by the dynamic changes of various factors in the operation of the whole enterprise system. In the actual operation of the system, various factors will change, and the dynamic mismatch and disharmony between them will directly affect the realization of the system objectives and lead to strategic risks. This dynamic imbalance is the lack of adaptability to the strategic environment, the lack of support for strategic resources and capabilities, and the lack of ability matching for business leaders. The system model framework of strategic risk formation mechanism is shown in Figure 2.
It can be seen from the model that when the strategic risk factors change, this change will lead to the dynamic matching and coordination between the factors being broken. As a system, an enterprise has certain self-repair ability and adaptability, and it can adjust some changes of some elements to avoid the imbalance of the system. In other words, there are certain conditions for the emergence of strategic risks. Only when the adaptability, support and matching of the five risk factors reflected by the system can not achieve dynamic balance and coordination through self-adjustment and repair of enterprises will strategic risks arise.
Four. conclusion
From the perspective of strategic management, this paper analyzes the strategic risk factors that may be caused by the changes of strategic environment, enterprise resources, competitiveness and strategic theme positioning in the process of enterprise strategy implementation, constructs the mechanism model of strategic risk formation, and points out that the dynamic imbalance and mismatch of various factors in the process of system operation are the causes of strategic risk.
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