Schools of Strategy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Schools of Strategy - Essay Example Also this school makes chief executive officer as the main formulator of the strategy. The planning school of strategy identifies strategy making as a formal process. It calls for a mechanical and systematic process of strategy formulation with no or little creativity. The cognitive school sees strategy making as a mental process and takes input from different concepts of psychology. This school is largely conceptual in nature. The learning school stresses on learning from past experience and therefore sees strategy making as an emergent process. The power school of strategy argues that negotiating between different power holders within the organization is an important part of strategy formulation. The environmental school sees strategy making as a reactive process that is dependent on the external environment. The cultural school of strategy calls for group work in formulation of strategy. The configuration school of strategy sees strategy making as a process of transformation. The different schools of strategy can be grouped into three larger groups (Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, & Lampel, 2002). First group is prescriptive in nature and consist of design, planning, and positioning school. This group tells how a strategy should ideally be made. Second group tells how the strategy is made and compromises of entrepreneurial, cognitive, learning, power, cultural, and environmental schools. The last group consists of the configuration school that is both prescriptive and descriptive in nature. Design School of Strategy The design school of strategy argues in favor of consciously controlled thought when it comes to strategy making in order to establish a fit between external opportunities and internal competence (Mintzberg, 2006).... This paper stresses that the position school also puts the job of strategy formulation in the hands of expert. Both the schools do not talk about team work and sharing of information when it comes to development of strategy. Centralized approach in strategy making was the mindset for a long time in management. Knowledge sharing was not considered vital until modern modes of communication were developed. This is why both the positioning school and design school view strategy making coming from a centralized source. Design school assumes that environment is stable and predictable, and there is no uncertainty while the positioning school accepts that market place might change due to competitors and change in demand. But both the schools focus on the economic environment. This report makes a conclusion that the design school and the positioning school are two of the schools of strategy presented in the book. The design school became popular in later part of 1950s and focuses on creative strategy formulation by the leader with the aim of creating a fit between the outside environment and the competence of the firm. The positioning school was founded by Michael Porter and it focuses on strategy formulation as an analytical process. This school argues that finding the right industry for the firm is essential and offer model for choosing an industry. Then this school suggests that firm positions itself in the industry and then chooses a strategy relative to the position of the firm.