Strategic corporate governance stakeholder complexities in strategic decision implementation (sdi): The shipbuilding industry in Abu Dhabi

This paper explores the complexity of SDI and the conflicting roles of government as the main client, partner and stakeholder in the naval shipbuilding industry in two main shipyards in United Arab Emirates’ capital, Abu Dhabi. This industry was recently established in this highly Westernized part of the Middle East, and constructs naval vessels under the auspices of Abu Dhabi government. The industry envisaged developing private clients in the future, but before achieving this, some issues identified in this study need to be resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the industry and the clients. The literature indicates that strategic decisions taken by one partner in the enterprise can lead to problems that are difficult to resolve. Hence, to gain an in-depth understanding of the complexities, an explorative qualitative research with a case-study approach was carried out over a period of two years in order to track progress in this industry. It was found that government collaboration can lead to many challenges in strategy implementation within the industry itself due to a lack of communication and coordination between the two. The main managerial actors were interviewed to obtain a sense of their involvement and their individual perception of control in the implementation process to the outcomes of which they were wedded, and the extent to which they felt they were successful. To provide specific focus, this article focuses exclusively on the impact of government salaries and policies on shipbuilding strategy and implementation within two shipyards. Strategy appears easier to formulate than to implement. It was found that there were contradictions in strategies as devised by the industry and the policies which the government wished it to implement. The article makes recommendations about three prime ways in which the industry and its main sponsors, now and in the future, may more harmoniously collaborate to attain mutual success. Reciprocal communication lies at the core of the solution. The article is limited by its constraint of using only two cases, and the findings are indicative of a greater need to examine similar policy, formulation, and implementation issues in Abu Dhabi specifically, and between industry/client generally wherever such a situation may occur.