Strategy enactment process in an organisational context : a case study of four organisatons in East London, Eastern Cape, South Africa.

Abstract

The word 'strategy' is still very critical and central in running the affairs of any business and organization. Strategy is highly rated and often seen as the bedrock for any success of an organization and business venture. Since its years of evolution, it has been dominated primarily by rational and analytical approaches up until the resurgence of an emergent approach as a new perspective in strategy enactment processes. Ever since then the discourse of strategic management processes has been predominantly underpinned by these two approaches. As a case study, four organizations that represent a wide spectrum in terms of type and therefore assumed to provide scope for discovering variations with regard to strategy processes were selected. These four organizations were selected to examine the approach/es used in strategic enactment and to evaluate the relationship between organizational success and its strategy enactment process. The focus in this study is biased to what strategy is perceived to be at organizational level and whether individuals within these organizations do subscribe to the same perception or on their own. Secondly, as strategy is perceived as the bedrock for an organization success, the study has attempted to look at possible links or relationships between the two - success and strategy. This has been done by looking at the alignment between organizational operations and the strategy. The results of the study show that: • The four organizations use the rational analytical approach to strategy enactment. • Individuals within these organizations subscribe to the holistic perspective of strategy enactment which integrates strategy formulation and strategy implementation dichotomy into a single gestalt of formulation-implementation at all levels of the organizations. • The success of the organization cannot only be attributed to strategic enactment and its application alone. Other factors as well act as enablers and / or provide opportunities for organizational success. • The approach used to design and implement strategy has a direct relationship with how the designers and implementers of strategy define and understand an organization to be. For instance the study shows that strategists who define and understand organizational strategy as an entity devoid of its social and cultural construct tend to use the rational and analytical approaches. However, those who see it as an entity that is shaped and influenced by socio-cultural factors are prone to the emergent approach.