Global Success and the Role of Strategic Steering and Management Accounting Systems
1. INTRODUCTION
Research approach
The objective of the present study is to evaluate corporate global success and some of its determinants as a single case study of Nokia Group. The rationale for the research approach of a single case is that Nokia represents an extreme and unique case of reaching global success in telecommunications industry (see Yin 1994: 39). Global success in the scale like Nokia occurs so rarely that we have been unable to establish any common patterns for success. Thus, any single case is worth documenting and analyzing. For global success cases see for example Benjamin (1993) for Honda, Shibata (1993) for Sony, and Pulkkinen (1997) for Nokia (see also Zhan 1998). In general terms global success is a determinant of large number of factors, such as environment, management, products, strategy system, and information systems. In this study we shall concentrate mainly on three such factors: environment, strategy system and management accounting systems. The case description and analysis is based on several sources, for example papers, articles, researches and books published of Nokia in English and in Finnish, Nokia's internet pages, and presentations of Nokia's strategic managers. No direct interviews of Nokia's management are used at the present stage of research.
We have organized the paper in nine smaller sections. First, the introduction describes the research approach and the background of Nokia's strategy. The second section introduces Nokia's business organization while the third section gives background figures about its financial success. We mainly define success in terms of growth and profitability but pay attention also to finance. Especia ...