英语论文网

ENT PROCESS
The ®eld of strategic management/business policy has been developing over thepast 25 years into a fairly distinct subdiscipline in management studies (Hoferand Schendel, 1978; Shrivastava, 1987a). However, SM is still evolving as a ®eldand consequently there is a certain degree of heterogeneity that exists as to thebeliefs of its members (i.e. de®nitions, taxonomies, schools of thought, etc.). Forexample, while Mintzberg (1994) is concerned that too little e€ort is being
directed towards ®nding and anointing strategies that are emerging within theorganization, he views strategic planning as a useful device for programmingintended strategies, seeing that they are communicated clearly and used as ameans of control. In spite of the situation just described, a reasonable degree ofconsensus does exist on a normative model of the strategic management process.
It is noteworthy that this prescriptive model of strategic management has beenfound to be an accurate representation of strategic planners' perceptions ofcontemporary practice (Gintner et al., 1985). The model is depicted in ®gure 1
and includes three primary components: strategy formulation, strategy implemen-
tation, and strategy evaluation (control) (David, 1995; Thompson and Strickland,
1995). Strategy formulation is concerned with determining the future direction of
the ®rm and has received considerable attention in the planning literature
(Bourgeois, 1980; Fahey and Christensen, 1986; Hofer and Schendel, 1978;
Miller and Friesen, 1978; Mintzberg, 1978). As the diagram illustrates, strategyformulation usually includes conducting some form of external audit or scan thatresults in the speci®cation of key external opportunities and threats and aninternal audit of the organization's most important strengths and weaknesses(SWOTs). Also included in this phase is the development of a mission and/orvision statement and the speci®cation of long-term objectives. Strategy selection
or choice follows the above steps and may be facilitated by using a TOWSmatrix (Weihrich, 1982) to systematically identify relationships between sets ofpreviously identi®ed SWOTs (e.g. strengths/opportunities, weaknesses/threats) tocreate numerous alternative strategies based on these combinations.Strategy implementation involves the modi®cation of organizational structuresand processes to ensure that planned results (i.e. strategies, long-term objectives)are obtained (Galbraith and Kazanjian, 1986; Lorange and Murphy, 1984; Nutt,1986). This phase includes processes such as the establishment of annual goalsand policies, the allocation of resources to obtain objectives, and adjusting moti-vation and reward systems to better match new strategic thrusts.Strategy evaluation is concerned primarily with traditional control processes,which involve the review and feedback of performance to determine if plans,
770 JOHN F. PREBLE
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997
Figure 1. A strategic management process model
Source: David, 1995
strategies and objectives are being achieved, with the resulting information being
used to solve problems or take corrective actions (Daft and Macintosh, 1984;
Schendel and Hofer, 1979; Steiner, 1979). Recently, theories of strategic control
have been advanced which emphasize a `feedforward' approach to controlling
strategies that is future-directed and anticipatory in evaluating plans, activities<