Strategic Management

Emergent and deliberate strategies.

Introduction

A strategy is an action plan where long term activities are chosen so as to achieve the purpose set out in the mission statement and ultimately moving towards realizing the vision (Kaplan, 2017). Formulation of a strategy requires a comprehensive understanding of the organization’s resources, environment and stakeholders. Organizations may use either the top down or bottom approaches to strategy formulation (Rothaermel, 2018).

 

As a director of a company I craft strategies every day and use the strategies to achieve the company’s objectives, achieve an advantage through configuration of resources within a changing environment, to meet the needs of the market and to fulfill my expectations as the shareholder of the company. I don’t craft only one strategy but a lot more so that there can be a choice of activities and the chosen activities should fit one another. They mustn’t conflict.
Two years back my approach to strategies was deliberate. This means the strategy formulation and formalization was top-down and only involved myself as the director or the top management of the company. The reason for following this approach is because I had a lot of incompetent staff who were still learning the job so it was not sensible to consult such people on strategy formulation. My focus with the deliberate strategy is on direction and control to get things done (Mintzberg & Waters, 1985).
These days I am using both deliberate and emergent approach to strategy. The emergent approach means I am using the bottom-up approach. There is involvement of all workers in the formulation of the strategy. The emphasis is on collective actions and convergent behaviors, focusing on learning, (Mintzberg & Waters,1985). I have learnt that both approaches are important and as such they have to be taken into account by strategists. However integrating the two process requires planning and decentralization,( Andersen, 2004). This is a limitation to me as I do not always have time to plan.
My company can be taken as a small organization therefore I craft a strategy and goes straight for implementation by the supervisors. This is of course not the case in big organizations because a strategy is exercised in three different levels which are corporate, business and functional levels.
 

Conclusion

 

A strategy can be thought of as the direction and scope of an organization over the long term, which achieves an advantage in a changing environment through its configuration of resources and competencies intending to fulfill stakeholder expectations (Foss,1996) A strategy help to achieve superior performance over competitors(Rothaermal,2018, p.11). As individuals or as organizations we formulate strategies all the time so as to achieve our purpose or realize our vision. In organizations the business strategies are either emergent or deliberate. Both approaches are important and need to be considered by strategists. In my organization I use both. Some strategies are deliberate especially when dealing with incompetent staff who need to be dictated everything but at other times the strategy formulation would require participation of everyone in the organization.
 

REFERENCES
 

Andersen, T.J. (2004). Integrating Decentralized Strategy Making and Strategic Planning Processes in Dynamic Environments. Journal of Management Studies. 41(8), 1271-1299.
Foss, N. J. (1996). Research in strategy, economics, and Michael Porter. Journal of Management Studies, 33(1), 1-24.
Mintzberg, H., and J. A. Waters. (1985). Of Strategies, Deliberate and Emergent. Strategic Management Journal 6 (3), 257–72.
Rothaermel, F. T. (2018). Strategic management: concepts (Vol. 2). Dubuque, IA: McGraw-Hill Education.

 

Abia Sibanda

Professional Accountant (SA); MCompt

Practice Number: 55050

 

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