Literature Review

Literature review of strategy implementation and strategy process frameworks

Introduction

Great strategies are worth nothing if they cannot be implemented (Okumus and Roper 1999). It can be extended to say that better to implement effectively a second grade strategy than to ruin a first class strategy by ineffective implementation. Less than 50% of formulated strategies get implemented (Mintzberg 1994; Miller 2002; Hambrick and Canella 1989). Every failure of implementation is a failure of formulation.

The utility of any tool lies in its effective usage and so is the case with strategy. Strategy is the instrument through which a firm attempts to exploit opportunities available in the business environment. The performance of a firm is a function of how effective it is in converting a plan into action and executing it. Thus implementation is the key to performance, given an appropriate strategy.

In literature, implementation has been defined as “the process by which strategies and policies are put into action through the development of programs, budgets and procedures” (Wheelan and Hunger pp15). This involves the design or adjustment of the organisation through which the administration of the enterprise occurs. This includes changes to existing roles of people, their reporting relationships, their evaluation and control mechanisms and the actual flow of data and information through the communication channels which support the enterprise (Chandler 1962; Hrebiniak and Joyce 2005).

Evolution

The field of Strategic management has grown in the last thirty five years developing into a discipline in its own right. Borrowing extensively from Economics and Social sciences, it is still fragmented by the presence of number of distinct schools of thought, diversity in underlying theoretical dimensions and lack of disciplined methodology. The fragmentation is due to high degree of task uncertainty and lack of coordination in research —a result of lack of uniformity...