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Section of the book strategy for Business done by Dr. John Jackson, Training Director of OU, UK
Page1 B300 AOU Spring 2008 Part 2/S1/Chap2 prepared by Dr. Chadli Belarbi / Wednesday 7 May 2008
The other perspectives deviate from the purely rational, logical approach. This is an important distinction as bounded rationality (see the processual perspective) is still a rational intention see Miller et al, Reader One. In exploring Whittingtons chapter, you will see that this shows how the Processual perspectives developed within the turbulent 70s oil crises in the West, coal miners strikes in the UK and the general incursion of Japanese manufactured goods, such as cars and motorcycles. The processual perspective is about politics and negotiation it is about satisficing. The Evolutionary perspective developed during the market led 80s, which was about survival letting the environment do the selecting, not the managers (Whittington, Reader, p. 41). In the UK, de-regularisation, and privatisation were taking place, as well as withdrawal of subsidiaries for struggling industries, such as the car and steel industries. Similar initiatives were taking place in the USA. This was the time of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the USA, leading to the economic approaches called Thatcherism and Reaganomics. In the UK, it was the end of socialist government In the 90s, with the acceleration of globalisation, supported by the rapid development of electronics and telecommunications and the power of the computer, large organisations started to think global, act local. To be successful or to survive in the evolutionary, processual and systemic approaches, there is perhaps more importance attributed to the firm-specific, resource based view than the classical perspective. The Evolutionary and Processual perspectives seem to be more appropriate to industries which are in flux or are in the early growth stage see the Industry Life Cycle (Grant, Reader, pp. 109/110). These are considered to fall into the process aspect of strategy, i.e. they state HOW strategy is developed or emerges. The Systemic perspective has aspects of both classical and processual approaches and it also has a process characteristic, i.e. strategy is developed by concentrating on local needs and culture. In real life, organisations do NOT make decisions based on a particular strategic perspective based on Whittingtons categorisations. They do not sit around the Board Room saying they will use this particular strategic approach. When researching a particular organisations strategic approach, you may find they have a tendency towards a particular one depending on the industry they are within, e.g. stable, turbulent, highly competitive, etc. However, you may well find aspects of ALL four perspectives in their strategic formulation. John Jackson 17th January 2008
Page2 B300 AOU Spring 2008 Part 2/S1/Chap2 prepared by Dr. Chadli Belarbi / Wednesday 7 May 2008