Corporate Strategy and Governance Lessons from Thomas Cook's Downfall

BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

1. To analyse meaning of Corporate Strategy and Governance.

2. To understand the impact of corporate strategy within Business.

3. To analyse different ways by which corporate governance of Thomas Cook's failure can be revised for embracing business performance.

RESEARCH QUESTION

• What is the meaning  of Corporate Strategy and Governance ?
• What is the impact of corporate strategy within Business ?
• What are the ways by which corporate governance of Thomas Cook's failure can be revised to embrace business performance?

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The main objective for doing this research is to know why corporate governance is necessary within business. Thomas cook is an integrated travel and tourism-related financial service company (Rummler and Brache, 2012). This British organisation collapsed after 178 years of operating business. The shareholders of this firm allowed it to pay an amount of more than $20 million to directors between 2014 and 2018 (Thomas Cook collapse, 2019). The CEO naming Peter Fankhauser was given $8 million. The value of this firm collapsed by 95% at that time. The executive pay bill defines a small proportion of the total value of the company, and savings were not there. Thomas cook was operating in a highly competitive market and there are high profit margins due to increase in competitors threat and traditional high street operators. This firm was not providing equal pay to its employees and this created problem in maintaining healthy relationship between management and employees. This company was not able to make money and it was working at a break even point where this company is making no profit, no loss. Both employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction were not present.

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Report is enclosed with three different objectives and these are mentioned underneath:

According to the views of Yin and Zhang (2012), corporate strategy and governance is known as a number of internal rules and policies that are helpful for an organisation  in directing itself for enhancing business performance. It is responsibility of  corporate governance to make effective business decisions that can help in increasing profits and money earned by the company.

According to the viewpoint of Wu and Lu (2012), it is analysed that Thomas Cook is a great example that reflects that it is so important to have good corporate governance as it will help in making strong decisions in favour of the company. This will help in development of effective strategies and plans that will lead to business success. On the other hand, if there is no good corporate governance, then business will collapse. 

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research methodology is defined as different methods by which a researcher tries to investigate research. This is a way by which aims and objectives of the research are analysed (Saeidi et. al., 2015). There are basically two ways by which research is conducted and these are qualitative and quantitative. In the present research, investigator is using both qualitative and quantitative method for analysing the aims of this research.

Research Onion

This is considered a model that is essentially made up of three basic philosophies: axiology, epistemology, and ontology.

Research Design

In the current investigation, combination is concerned with various methods that allow researchers to easily gather relevant data for the project they want. In the present research, investigator is using a descriptive design type of investigation over a given topic (Schaltegger and Wagner, 2017)

Data collection

Primary and secondary are two different kinds of data collection, which are given below:

1. Primary method: This is known as data collection, in which first-hand information is analysed.  Some of the methods that can be used are observations, questionnaires, interviews, and many others.
2. Secondary method: This kind of data is collected by using already existing information  by using  different sources such as articles, newspapers, online sources, etc

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