| Strategic Planning and its Contribution to the Organization: A Coalignment Perspective |
| | Milstein, Mark B. | U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | milsteim@icarus.bschool.unc.edu | (919)-962-9687 |
| | Segars, Albert H. | U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | segarsa@icarus.bschool.unc.edu | (919)-962-8467 |
| | Improving the process of strategic planning has been identified by top corporate executives as a critical management issue of the 1990's. Recent research suggests that planning activities within organizations are complex and may be more adequately explained through behaviors, agenda, and/or context. The findings of this study suggest that organizational approaches to strategic planning can be operationalized along distinct dimensions of comprehensiveness (extent of solution search), formalization (rules and procedures to guide activities), focus (creativity or control), flow (top-down, bottom-up), participation (number and variety of planners), and consistency (frequency of planning). Using structural equation modeling, the study also tests the efficacy of the rational adaptive or "learning" model of process design. The findings suggest that strategic planning processes that exhibit both characteristics of rationality (high comprehensiveness, high formalization, control focus, top-down flow) and adaptation (high participation, high consistency) are positively associated with the contribution of planning to organizational effectiveness. |
| | Keywords: Strategic Planning; Planning Effectiveness; Structural Equation Modeling |
| Imperfect Learning: What Does an Organization Learn From its Mistake? |
| | Shimizu, Katsuhiko | Texas A&M U. | kshimizu@cgsb.tamu.edu | (409)-845-8753 |
| | Current changing competitive environments increase the importance of knowledge and learning within an organization. Although voluminous, extant literature focuses mostly on capabilities or how to learn, how to acquire and share information within an organization. In contrast, this paper discusses content of learning, that is, what an organization may learn from its experience. This paper argues that organizational learning from experience, in particular from mistakes, is not a simple causality discovery process but a causality replacement process. From its mistake, an organization will be able to receive only one unambiguous message: something was wrong with either management, strategy, structure, or implementation. Because of the impediments embedded in organizational learning, that is, ambiguous causality, different views within an organization, self-reinforcement, poor organizational memory, and myopia, learning from mistakes is inherently imperfect. Further, given the importance for an organization to maintain its legitimacy to its stakeholders, an organization may be more concerned with justifying or alienating the mistake. Thus an organization may simply attribute the mistake to visible top management (e.g., CEO) rather than carefully examine the causal relationships among factors. Admitting that organizational learning from mistakes is almost always imperfect, this paper concludes that the learning from mistakes is still an important unique resource for an organization, if utilized by an unequivocal ex ante hypotheses. |
| | Keywords: Organizational learning; mistake |
| The Interaction of Strategic Planning and Organizational Learning and its Impact on Performance |
| | Flores, Luis G. | Northern Illinois U. | lfores@niu.edu | (630) 961-8314 |
| | Catalanello, Ralph F. | Northern Illinois U. | cat2@lv.rmci.net | (702) 804-8069 |
| | Saxena, Narsingh N. | Northern Illinois U. | narsinghs@yahoo.com | (847) 303-6744 |
| | This study explores the interaction between strategic planning and organizational learning. It investigates whether planning processes in an organization improve the level of organizational learning and whether enhanced learning capabilities are associated with higher levels of organizational performance. It also examines how the relationship between planning, learning and performance is influenced by the type of environment the organization is operating in and by the organization's miles and Snow strategic type. Strong association was found between strategic planning sophistication and the ability of the organization to achieve higher levels of learning. Also, learning was found to be strongly associated with performance, partially moderated by environmental hostility and organization size. The results suggest that strategic planning is a powerful vehicle to enhance the organization's learning capabilities resulting in improved performance. |
| | Keywords: Strategic Planning; Learning; Performance |
| Implementing Strategic Change: The Use of Strategic Projects |
| | Kernochan, Richard A. | Aslan Ltd. | rkernochan@sprintmail.com | (310)-452-5863 |
| | Despite calls for investigation (e.g., Hambrick & Canella, 1989), there has been little research on strategy implementation and even less investigation of managerial implementation strategies. Such strategies are patterns of managerial actions directed at realizing strategic change within an organization. Pellegrinelli & Bowman (1994) have proposed that one possible strategy is a project-based implementation strategy. However, their description is theoretical. This research was designed to investigate how managers used such "strategic" projects in practice to realize strategic change.
The research focused on three strategic projects within a single organization. An analysis of interview, archival and observational data revealed a vertical gap in strategic perspectives. Top management was attempting to implement strategic change using a fundamentally new strategic perspective; other organizational members understood the old. Bridging this gap was critical to successful implementation.
Management used the project-based implementation strategy to facilitate this end. The strategic project process bridged the gap by enabling direct interaction across multiple hierarchical levels. Viewed over time, this interaction was developmental and characterized by multiple, iterative cycles. Each iteration progressively refined implementation solutions and educated the participants until shared solutions emerged. Such solutions incorporated both top management's new strategic perspective and the lower levels' organizational and operational knowledge. For management, the project process served to refine management's strategic perspective in light of new knowledge about the organization and its capabilities. For other project members, the process educated them in the new perspective and developed the new knowledge and skills needed to enact the new strategic perspective.
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| | Keywords: implementation; strategy; projects |
| Market Evaluation of Strategic Planning Processes Within Organizations: The Stock Market's Verdict to the Planning Debate |
| | Desai, Ashay B. | U. of Wisconsin, Oshkosh | desai@uwosh.edu | (920)-424-7269 |
| | Gilmore, Barry J. | U. of Memphis | jgilmore@mocha.memphis.edu | (901)-678-3568 |
| | This paper addresses two issues: (i) does the stock market react to corporate announcements in
a way that is aligned with the value-maximization hypothesis, and (ii) is strategic planning
rewarded by the stock market? Using event-study methodology, we examine stock-market
responses to 30 announcements by companies highlighting their strategic planning. |
| | Keywords: Planning; Stock market; Event study |