Strategy Implementation Challenges in Albanian Organizations

Abstract

In Albania 2011, have been active 78.4 thousand enterprises. These enterprises have 280.8 thousand employed, where 47 percent of them worked in 1,684 enterprises with 20 and more persons employed. These enterprises represent also 61 percent of the total turnover and 75 percent of the total investments. These enterprises dominate in industry and construction sectors. Enterprises with 1-4 employed represent 91 percent of the total enterprises. They represent 14 percent of total turnover.

Small enterprises are dominant in service producers. SMEs that emerged from the systemic change rarely have business and reputational credentials stemming from continuous activity for years that allowed them to build a distinguished culture in the complex process of organizational learning. Regardless from their limited resources and competing against experienced giants in hard crisis times they forge their philosophy of survival and success. How durable is this growth? Is it sufficient to construct business models, strategies and operations only around tangible resources and results? Maybe in view of the obsolete strategies of mature companies new entrepreneurship patterns developed in hard times in Albania will become an engine of growth?

The major question is: how such relatively new phenomena in business as SD and CSR inspire managers facing crisis impacts on sales, costs, productivity of resources, profitability and confronting rivalry from market global giants? Do they make a difference? The discussion is mainly on the way of running business. The question, who can afford SD/CSR, appears with lower stress on values. Albania has reengineered its economy and institutions observing the social and environmental impacts of that framework change. However the scientific research activity in the area of strategy and CSR is rather restricted to focus groups, there is a large progress in running all sorts of surveys allowing for comparisons if they are professionally designed and repeatedly announced.

More and more companies are inviting to their websites, although the quality of information heavily differs and reporting sustainability issues is not yet the standard activity within corporate governance model. This paper is aimed at analysis of the dominant logic behind the company strategy implementation process under the impact of turbulent environment and limited resources available at crucial moments. It is assumed, basing on the secondary research in Albania in the field of strategy, operations, sustainable development and CSR, that in recent years more numerous Albanian companies incorporate the SD and CSR issues in a very pragmatic business oriented way. So, business rules go first, other rules next, but the process of learning, especially of innovative best practices, inspires the growing number of others by the force of positive example.

Keywords: Strategy, sustainable, development, corporate, social responsibility.