Door: Roel Wagter
In mijn rol als copromotor en gastdocent aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen begeleid ik via de Faculteit der Natuurwetenschappen, Wiskunde en Informatica jaarlijks een aantal studenten. Na mijn college over ‘sturen op samenhang’ ontvangen de betreffende studenten de opdracht om naar keuze een jaarverslag van een onderneming te downloaden en de samenhang op zingevingsniveau van deze onderneming te onderzoeken en te waarderen. Voor alle duidelijkheid, het betreft hier tussentijdse studieresultaten in de vorm van een op te leveren paper. De komende tijd zal ik, overigens met toestemming van de betreffende studenten en de universiteit, een aantal van deze papers publiceren. Dit doe ik in de hoop opdat velen deze exercitie zullen navolgen. Immers een goed niveau van samenhang is randvoorwaardelijk voor een hoog reactievermogen, hoge aanpasbaarheid en het bereiken van de beoogde performance. En het sturen op samenhang begint met het sturen op samenhang op zingevingsniveau. Te weten de samenhang tussen de missie, visie, kernwaarden, doelen en strategie. Voor een ieder die meer wil weten over ‘sturen op samenhang’ zie ons laatstelijk gepubliceerde boek.
De onderzoeksopdracht
De onderzoeksopdracht zoals omschreven in de inleiding heeft bij student Jill Muris er toe geleid de samenhang op zingevingsniveau van de McDonald’s Corporation te onderzoeken. In deze blog geef ik onderstaand alleen het abstract en de intro van haar paper weer en verwijs graag naar de versie van het volledige paper.
Abstract en intro van: The Coherence of the McDonald’s Corporation on the Level of Purpose, A scoped coherence governance assessment, Jill Muris (2020)
Abstract
In this paper, we perform an analysis using the Enterprise Coherence Framework (ECF) onthe level of purpose on the McDonald’s Corporation. The level of purpose constitutes of five cohesive elements: mission, vision, core values, goals and strategy. We fill in the ECF using the annual report from 2019 distributed by the corporation, including a retrospect and look into the future on their policy adjustments in response to the current pandemic. Afterwards a comparison will be made between the attained ECF and implications in the field of Information Sciences. With this comparison and the help of sub-questions we aim to answer our main research question: ‘Which implications has the McDonald’s Corporation, more specifically its purpose, in the field of Information Sciences?’ To achieve this a literature study will be conducted on the topics of enterprises and Information Sciences.
Introduction
According to the philosophy of Enterprise Coherence Governance (ECG), a positive correlation exists between the level of coherence and the level of performance within an enterprise. In the field of ECG, enterprise coherence is seen as the extent to which all relevant aspects of an enterprise are connected, in such a way that these connections facilitate an enterprise obtaining/meeting its desired results. Coherence is dynamic and greatly affected by decisions(Wagter, 2020). As a result, organisations profit by managing their coherence. Each issue needs to be solved with a custom-made solution. Since coherence is dynamic, it is of essence to govern it permanently to maintain a stable level. To be able to sustainably govern their coherence, enterprises need to make the process of governing the coherence an integral part of their issuessolving tactics. The thought behind this is that the coherence of an enterprise is starting to be affected when the search for a solution to an enterprise issue starts. Coherence needs to be explicit to be able to control it. An enterprise coherence framework (ECF) is developed to help make the coherence explicit. This framework consists of two levels, each with five elements. The first level is the level of purpose, in which the mission, vision, core values, goals and strategy of the enterprise are highlighted. In the second layer, the level of design, the focus is on perspectives, core concepts, guiding statements, core models and relevant relationships. The coherence can be measured within and between the two levels.
In this term paper, we will take a close look at the McDonald’s Corporation at the level of purpose. We make use of the 2019 annual report (McDonald’s Corporation, 2020) and the corporation’s website. We derive the cohesiveness between the elements of the level of purpose, resulting in the exposition of the corporation’s coherence. With our analysis we try to answer the following research question: “How cohesive are the elements of the McDonald’s Corporation at the level of purpose?”.
This paper starts its analysis by performing a literature study on the topic of enterprise coherence. The basic concepts will be explained in more detail. Moreover, in this section we introduce the research methods and the research questions, which guide our search for answers. In the following section, we apply our obtained knowledge to the specific case of McDonald’s Corporation. We do an assessment on the level of purpose, and subsequently we interpret and discuss our findings. In the last section of this paper we draw conclusions based on our earlier findings. In addition, we will discuss the lessons learned and based on the implications we will derive recommendations for the McDonald’s Corporation and make suggestions for future research.