Strategic Management

Abstract

What organisations do and how they do it are the results of decisions taken about goals and objectives and the means of achieving them. These major decisions affect the performance of an organisation and influence its success and survival. ‘How these major or strategic decisions are made and how they are implemented can be defined as the process of strategic management’ (Bowman, 1990, p. 1). Strategic management is basically concerned with two main types of activity. The first is the making of strategic choices — setting the directions in which the organisation is to move in the future. The second is strategic implementation — ensuring that the organisation has the right structures, processes and culture to carry out the policies determined by the strategic choices its governors have made. Both of these activities imply planning, together with an attempt to identify and achieve stated organisational goals and objectives within a given environment, over time.