“The interpretation and translation of business strategies to different levels of the organisation” Featuring Volvo Buses

Abstract: This is a paper aimed partly at investigating how business strategies are formed, but mostly how they are used in the every-day context in an organisation. The main focus is the perception of strategies, and how it can vary throughout the organisation and depending on the leaders that are passing it on. Looking at previous research there is a lot written about strategy implementation, often either about the practical aspects; efficiency, time management, agendas, or about the more sociological aspects; leadership, communication, and cooperation. We conducted a study at Volvo Buses in Borås where we interviewed employees from top management, middle management, and operative levels. What we found was that there was great discrepancy between how the strategies where perceived different hierarchical levels of the organisation. There were also different views on to what extent different strategies affected the daily work. We also found that there is great pressure on middle managers both in delivering on budget and time targets, and on handling leadership issues toward their staff. Our conclusions are that there are issues related to translating strategies throughout the organisation and that a lot of them are related to human nature and human relationships. We also note that the outcome of a strategy implementation process to a large extent has to do with the efforts of the middle managers. Lastly, we give a few recommendations to Volvo Buses and propose subjects for further research.