ABSTRACT
This and the preceding chapter’s attempt to conceptually outline the main planks of strategic thought and planning may be seen by some, particularly “practitioners”, to be too theoretical and detached, even perhaps impractical. However, as Mintzberg et al. (1995: xi) point out, theories and conceptual guidelines are useful since “it is easier to remember a simple framework about a phenomenon than it is to consider every detail you have ever observed”. These authors claim that theoreticians and practitioners differ in their outlook on strategy formulation and planning because the latter typically believe they understand the world the way “it is” rather than the way it “should be”, and because in some cases prescriptive theories can become the problem rather than the solution. Even when a strategic prescription “seems” effective in a given context, they argue, it requires a full appraisal of the new context to which it is to be applied and how it may function before it can be deemed effective.
