ABSTRACT

This chapter deals with the variations in the style by which these components of the strategy process may be put into practice. Planning style, in its own turn, must then be related to issues of organization structure and management style. The chapter gives a brief overview of these 'strategy-structure' relationships. Planning down corresponds to the description by Mintzberg and Waters and Mintzberg of a rationalistic form of strategy formulation. Planning up does characteristic of 'federal' structures comprise autonomous or semi-autonomous divisions or subsidiary companies in which the corporate centre does not conceptualize its strategic role as being directly responsible for determining the mission, objective, or strategies of its operational activities. The establishment of objectives and the formulation of strategies results in the case from interactions between the parties to the negotiation. The strategic control approach to planning style aims to balance a degree of unit or divisional autonomy with the requirements of head office control and co-ordination.