ABSTRACT
The field of strategic management is rich with theoretical contributions which, unfortunately, are often difficult to categorise. One reason for this difficulty is the duality between theory and practice and the need to meet the often conflicting expectations of stakeholders who are interested in these subjects (Pettigrew et al., 2002). Second, the field’s current stage of development exists in a constantly changing context; contemporary strategic management is only 40 years old, during which time its practitioners have focused on laying down disciplinary foundations and building a reasonably consistent intellectual language in an attempt to establish some basic patterns in what is and is not known about strategic issues (Pettigrew et al., 2002). We can count several models and tools developed by business schools, universities and consulting companies, each of which captures only few strategic issues at a time because competition in business environments has multiple, interrelated facets (Mintzberg et al., 1998). Thus we believe it is only possible to talk about different approaches when interpreting the strategic choices of a company in terms of its own history.
