Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Strategic management is both a complex and an important management function in any organization.It is complex because of the multiplicity and uncertainty of its inputs.It is important because it provides a basic understanding of how the organization will compete in its environment and because there is strong empirical evidence to suggest that the practice of strategic management can improve the long-term performance of an organization.The effectiveness of strategic management has however been severely criticised in recent years because of difficulties experienced in its practice.These difficulties arise out of the overwhelming number of options and variables that must be considered and they become more acute as environments grow more turbulent.Managers have turned to computer-based systems for support and although a considerable amount of research has been pursued, the systems arising out of this activity has been confined to a limited area of the problem.A system to support the total strategic management process has not yet been developed mainly due to the size and complexity of the application area.The research presented in this thesis is an attempt to provide such support through the use of a distributed knowledge-based system.The distributed approach allows the problem area to be compartmentalized into natural partitions and thus reduces the problem of size.The nature of knowledge-based systems, especially the use of heuristic methods and symbolic reasoning, enables it to be applied more effectively to the complexity than conventional procedural systems.The distributed approach also allows access to powerful methods such as the blackboard control system and the centralized multi-agent system which were both developed for use in the area of distributed artificial intelligence.The prototype distributed support system described in the thesis consists of a Control Module which also acts as a strategy formulation expert and individual modules for each of the functional areas of Marketing, Finance, Production and Organization.The control module uses a set of organizational and environmental factors to generate a strategic option which is translated into functional action plans by the individual modules.The thesis is essentially organized in two parts.The first part of the thesis is devoted to a detailed examination of the application area, its problems and the status of current research.The remainder of the thesis concerns the design, development and evaluation of the prototype system.expert guidance both in the research and its presentation.
Author: Vevekanand Ram
Language: English
Subfield: Artificial Intelligence
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1553356755