The Planned Strategy (Mintzberg & Waters "Of strategies, deliberate and emergent" part2.)

Today I have been... Reading about "The Planned" strategy, the Entrepreneurial strategy, and the ideological strategy.

Why?

Part of the article.

So What?

With planned strategy (p 19), you basically have the perfectly deliberate strategy. There is a suggestion in the article that planned strategies may exist where there has only been an assumption that environments will remain stable.

They argue that strategies are copied or elaborated (from "standard industry recipies") rather than conceived.

With entrepreneurial strategy (p19) , one individual imposes their own vision and the rest of the organisation independently acts on the vision. It tends to occur in young/small organisations, but can occur in larger organisations, usually in turbulent times where everyone is willing to follow the direction of a leader who has vision and will.

It's not usually a deliberate strategy, however. Intentions do exist, but the strategy may never have been articulated or stated. The entrepreneur may not want to do so. But it can be thought of as deliberate as long as the organisation responds to the personal will of the visionary.

The key difference between planned and entrepreneurial strategies is that with an entrepreneurial strategy the vision can change "en route". The formulater is the implementer. Separating implementation from formulation adds a bureaucratic layer which impedes willingness to change the strategy.

The ideological strategy (p21) is similar to the entrepeneurial strategy, but instead of being driven by an individual's vision, it is driven by a collective vision (an ideology). 

realised strategy = intended strategy-unrealised strategy+emergent strategy

So ideological strategy is usually intended. And the intent is organisational as the vision is embraced by everyone and not just an entrepreneur. But the likelihood of realisation is reduced somewhat, as a collective vision is by its nature more immutable than an individual vision. Ideology is also often rooted in history. So ideological strategy is resistant to change, and is therefore more deliberate than entrepreneurial strategy.

cont...