Defining Strategy
18 important questions on Defining Strategy
What are the characteristics of the design school?
2. Strategy should be based on conscious thought and analysis that denies the possibility of spontaneous emerging strategies
3. Separation of thinkers and doers within an organisation, CEO is responsible
4. Strategy is an iterative process
5. Strong focus on context and content
6. Strategy that emerges is unique, not generic
What is the planning school?
What are the characteristics of the planning school?
2. Built around collection of models/techniques to guide strategy process and make it accessible
3. 'Numbers games' - budgets, programs and operating plans (discredited because does not improve a firm's performance)
4. Strong focus on process (of the 3 dimensions)
5. CEO responsible for overall process, strategic planners for content (engineering the design)
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What is the positioning school?
What is the structure-conduct-performance notion?
On what factors does the structure of an industry depend?
2. Government policy
3. Competition
What are the characteristics of the entrepreneurial school?
2. Focus on individuals with a business proposition and suggests explanations of how strategy unravels when talented and creative leaders come up with innovative ideas. e.g. Steve Jobs
3. Entrepeneurs
What is creative destruction?
What are the characteristics of the cognitive school?
2. Fills the gap that the entrepreneurial school leaves by using insights from cognitive psychology.
3. Points to the organisation of knowledge people do in their minds, and how the schemes in which we divide our info are misinterpreted forms of reality as they limit the info a person can take in and introduces bounded reality
What is bounded reality?
What are the characteristics of the learning school?
2. Assumes that the organisational environment is so complex and unpredictable that no perfect strategy can be created
3. Strategies emerge, evolve and die away as new info emerges
4. Incremental process = emerging strategy
What are the characteristics of the cultural school?
2. Strategy is shaped by organisational culture - collective interpretation of the world by the members of an organisation
3. Unites organisational members with common beliefs, traditions, etc.
4. Unconscious nature of beliefs and the way they are imposed on new organisational members
What are the characteristics of the environmental school?
2. Central premise: if a firm denies environmental forces, it will fail to survive
3. Population ecology approach
4. Firms occupy niches and are shaped and selected out by their environment
What is the population ecology approach?
On which 2 schools is the strategy formulation process mainly based?
What are the critiques on the planning school?
2. Many players involved, which leads to a higher chance of politics developing
3. Hardly addresses implementation, because of focus on process of formulation
What are the characteristics of the positioning school?
2. Strength of forces determines performance of businesses in that industry
3. Identification of positions within industries that shield you from these competitive forces
What are the similarities between the prescriptive schools?
2. Focus on measurement, calculation and accuracy
3. Associated with consulting firms
The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:
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