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...contemporary suggests should be. These concerns are evidenced to be well founded given insight from the preliminary findings of survey into strategic management practice in Australia. A state of "back to the future" seems to be influencing strategy practice. Recommendations are developed to improve strategy practice based on initial findings from the survey and insight from recent studies in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia.
Keywords: Evolution of strategy, strategy practice, survey, preliminary results, recommendations for future practice.
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Traditionally, the practice of strategy has focused on the application of rational, analytical strategy tools and techniques developed by leading academics such as Kenneth Andrews (1965), Igor Ansoff (1965), Michael Porter (1980) and industry consultants such as the Boston Consulting Group. However, reliance on these rational, prescriptive school (Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel, 1998; Mintzberg, 1990) approaches to strategy formulation and implementation have been demonstrated to be inadequate when organisations are confronted by an uncertain business environment (Hamel and Prahalad, 1994).
Significant contributions to the strategy literature by management consultants including Ohmae (1982) and Peters and Waterman (1982) moved on with the evolution of the strategy discipline to emphasise the value of vision and learning in thinking creatively about business strategy, and fostering the participation of internal and external stakeholders in improving organisation performance (Hill and Stephens, 2003; Mintzberg, 1994; Hart, 1992).
Despite the extent and depth of developments in the field of strategic management over the past 40 years, the writers of this paper are concerned that the actual practical application of the theory, especially creative strategic thinking is nowhere near as advanced as contemporary theory suggests it should, or indeed could be. Our concerns are drawn from our experience as academic and consulting specialists, operating on a daily basis within the sphere of strategic management. We developed the following research questions to explore our concerns:
Research Question (RQ)1: What are the current strategic management practices employed by executives in Australian corporations?
Research Question (RQ)2: How can the strategic management practices of Australian executives be improved?
The purpose of this paper is to investigate these questions and report our preliminary findings regarding the practice of strategic management in Australian organisations. We propose from the outset of this research that there is a need to encourage greater use of the understanding of contemporary strategy practice developed by academics, business executives, and consultants (ABCs).
Development of Contemporary Strategy Theory and Practice
Pascale (1999) in Sloan Management Review observed: "The decade after World War II gave birth to the 'strategy era' ... After the war, faculty of the Harvard Business School soon joined by swelling ranks of consultants began to take the discipline of strategy seriously." Gluck, Kaufman and Walleck (1980) and Bonn (1996) describe the evolution of strategy in four phases. Phase 1 in the 1950s is associated with "basic financial planning". Phase 2 in the 1960s "forecast-based planning", phase 3 in the 1970s strategic planning, phase 4 in the 1980s strategic management, and phase 5 in the 1990s strategic thinking (Heracleous, 1998). In reflecting on research and practice during this decade, we are forming the view that the 2000s will be known as the decade in which we went "back to the future" in strategy practice and we are not convinced this is a good thing for the strategy discipline, business or the governments that provide the environment for business.
The first phase in the evolution of the strategy discipline involved "basic financial planning" in the 1950s where the typical planning focus for the firm was the preparation of the financial budget with a time horizon of little more than 12 months. These organisations tended to exhibit strong strategies, however these strategies were rarely documented. The success of the organisation depended on the quality of the CEO and the top management team and their knowledge of products, markets, and rivals (Gluck et al, 1980). Drucker (1955) drew attention to this issue arguing that it is the role of top management to address the key questions with respect to strategy: "What is our business and what should it be?"
The second phase of "forecast-based planning" in the 1960s resulted in organisations embracing a longer time horizon, environmental analysis, multi-year forecasts, and a static resource allocation as the firm responded to the demands of growth (Gluck et al, 1980). This was a period of steady economic growth and stability in world markets providing an ideal environment for fostering a rational, analytical approach to strategy. Important contributions to the strategy literature in this period were made by Chandler (1962), Andrews (1965) and Ansoff (1965).
In particular Andrews (1965) and Ansoff (1965) were the first writers to address explicitly strategy content and process. Andrews (1965) introduced the concept of the SWOT analysis, seeking to match what the firm can do (internal strengths and weaknesses) with what the firm might...
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