A crucial limitation of research on strategic planning is that it has always viewed
strategic planning as a single process in a corporation. In practice, strategic
planning in complex multi-business corporations has evolved into a network of
multi-level and multi-unit strategic planning processes. This makes it challenging
for managers and strategists to undertake the activities needed to run those strategic
planning systems effectively. The interactions between strategy practitioners as
they enact those planning processes play a crucial role in determining effectiveness
of the planning process as a whole.
Therefore, this thesis is based on a conceptual framework that represents strategic
planning as a network of collaboration amongst quasi-independent processes taking
place across multiple levels and units. This thesis adopts an embedded design
within two in-depth case studies and one pilot case study to examine the
strategising activities, practices and interaction dynamics of strategic planning
within the M-form based firms. The result articulates the dynamics of strategy
practitioners’ interactions in a series of four generic interaction patterns: (1) the
Bilateral Scheme, (2) the Cohesive Facilitation Scheme, (3) the Ambassadorial
Coordination Scheme, and (4) the Supervisory Driven Scheme. The result also sheds
light on the extended roles of strategic planning within a multi-level and multi-unit
environment, and on how different actors contribute to the vertical and horizontal
aspects of strategic planning.
The findings of this research have implications for both theory and practice. This
thesis mainly contributes to strategy as practice perspective, strategic planning
literature, organisational theory, situated learning literature, sensemaking
perspective on practice, power theory, and agency theory. Theoretically, this study
introduces a new method for examining the practice of strategic planning based on
studying strategic planning links between practitioners representing horizontally as
well as vertically differentiated units. In doing so, I have represented strategic
planning as a multi-unit as well as a multi-level process, and hence have been able
to show how it operates as a network of collaborative relationships and activities.
This extends the view of strategic planning prevailing in the literature, which
portrays a largely hierarchical, vertically-based structure.
Practically, the results provide managers and practitioners with an illustration of
how different practitioner roles and managerial levels contribute in distinctive ways
to strategic planning from both horizontal and vertical perspectives. It is apparent
from my investigation of the case study firms that their planning and decentralised
decision-making mechanisms are linked together heterarchically as well as
hierarchically.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:canterbury.ac.nz/oai:ir.canterbury.ac.nz:10092/6576 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Thnarudee, Chatchai |
| Publisher | University of Canterbury. Management |
| Source Sets | University of Canterbury |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic thesis or dissertation, Text |
| Rights | Copyright Chatchai Thnarudee, http://library.canterbury.ac.nz/thesis/etheses_copyright.shtml |
| Relation | NZCU |
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