De samenhang op zingevingsniveau van Advanced Micro Devices

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 Wesley Sip er toe geleid de samenhang op zingevingsniveau van Advanced Micro Devices te onderzoeken.

In deze blog geef ik onderstaand alleen het abstract en de intro van zijn paper weer en verwijs graag naar de versie van het volledige paper.

Abstract and Intro van:

Advanced Micro Devices; subtitle: Enterprise Coherence governance at the level of purpose. ( Wesley Sip, 2021)

Abstract:

Since Lisa Su’s appointment to CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, the American semiconductor company has experienced something that could arguably be described as a renaissance. In just a few years, AMD became the market leader in consumer processors and its stock rose 4300%. Enterprise coherence literature argues that organisations with solid enterprise coherence perform better overall. Could it be that AMD’s recent success is in part due to better enterprise coherence governance? By analysing AMD’s annual reports from 2013 and 2020 using Wagter (2013) and Bekel & Wagter’s (2020) frameworks this paper found that enterprise coherence elements were wholly absent from AMD’s 2013 annual report while being sufficiently present in the 2020 report.

Intro:

Since the release of the book ‘The essential advantage’ by Leinwand & Mainardi (2011) enterprise coherence has transformed into a subject every organisation should concern themselves with. Providing a plethora of evidence, Leinwand & Mainardi (2011) solidified the theory that there is a clear, almost linear relationship between enterprise coherence and an organisation’s performance and capability to achieve their goals.

Enterprise coherence is defined as the extent to which all relevant aspects of an enterprise are connected in a way that facilitates the enterprise’s capability to obtain desired results. (Wagter, 2013) In order to make enterprise coherence more tangible, Wagter (2013) defined several core factors that allow enterprise coherence to be expressed more explicitly. Wagter (2013) implemented these core factors in his enterprise coherence framework in which he states a series of cohesive elements and relationships which are defined in two levels: the level of purpose and the level of design. Using this enterprise coherence framework, it is possible to gain insight into what Wagter (2013) calls the ‘state of coherence’, which can be seen as a sort of measurement of an enterprise’ coherence.

Advanced micro devices (AMD) is an American international semiconductor company that designs chips for a wide range of consumers and businesses worldwide. Since AMD’s current CEO Lisa Su was appointed in October of 2014, AMD has been experiencing nothing short of a ‘renaissance’ or ‘golden age’. In the span of just a few years, Lisa Su transformed AMD from being known as the inferior, more budget friendly alternative to the previously dominant Intel corporation, to the uncontested leader in the market for consumer processors. Between Lisa Su’s appointment and the time of this writing, AMD’s share price increased about 4300%. (Yahoo finance, 2021)

According to theory, organisations with strong enterprise coherence perform better. Could it be that AMD’s rise to market dominance is (partially) the result of an improvement in enterprise coherence governance? In order to find out, this paper is going to compare AMD’s annual reports from 2013 and 2020 in an attempt to find out if there have been changes in enterprise coherence governance at the level of purpose at AMD before and after AMD’s rise to success. In light of this, the research question is as follows: What are the differences in AMD’s enterprise coherence at the level of purpose between 2013 and 2020?

The structure of the rest of this paper is as follows: first some relevant literature will be introduced and discussed. Secondly, AMD’s annual reports from both 2013 and 2020 will be analysed in an attempt to create AMD’s enterprise coherence frameworks on the level of purpose. Third, both enterprise coherence frameworks will be compared in order to spot differences. Lastly, a conclusion shall be drawn from previous analysis.