strategic management ‘is a mixed, impure, interactive process, fraught with
difficulties, both intellectually and politically’.
Strategic goals
Strategic goals define where the organization wants to be. They may be spec-
ified in terms of actions, quantified in terms of growth, or expressed in
general terms as aspirations rather than specifics.
Strategic plans
Strategic plans are formal expressions of how an organization intends to
attain its strategic goals. Boxall and Purcell (2003) make the point that ‘We
should not make the mistake of equating the strategies of a firm with formal
strategic plans... It is better if we understand the strategies of firms as sets of
strategic choices, some of which may stem from planning exercises and set
piece debates in senior management, and some of which emerge in a stream
of action.’
THE FORMULATION OF STRATEGY
The formulation of corporate strategy is best described as a process for
developing a sense of direction and ensuring strategic fit. It has often been
described as a logical, step-by-step affair, the outcome of which is a formal
written statement that provides a definitive guide to the organization’s
intentions. Many people still believe and act as if this were the case, but it is a
misrepresentation of reality. This is not to dismiss completely the ideal of
adopting a systematic approach as described below – it has its uses as a
means of providing an analytical framework for strategic decision making
and a reference point for monitoring the implementation of strategy. But in
practice, and for reasons also explained below, the formulation of strategy
can never be as rational and linear a process as some writers describe it or as
some managers attempt to make it.
Approaches to strategy formulation
Whittington (1993) has identified four approaches to the formulation of
strategy:
- Classical– strategy formulation as a rational process of deliberate calcu-
lation. The process of strategy formulation is seen as being separate from
the process of implementation.
28 l The conceptual framework of strategic HRM