Requisite Variety of Strategic Management Modes: A Cultural Study of Strategic Actions in a Deterministic Environment

This article presents the results of a qualitative study that examines the modes by which strategy emanates in a nonprofit human services organization, externally controlled by its funding sources. The strategy-making process is broached by proposing a taxonomy of strategic modes arranged into the Hrebiniak and Joyce (1985) framework. In light of Ashby's law of requisite variety (1968), this study contends that the subject organization's context of environmental determinism should lead to a culturally based configuration of traditional, spontaneous, and dialectical modes. The results support the proposition for requisite variety. This research presents valuable implications for the study and practice of strategic management-especially regarding strategic learning and change within externally controlled nonprofit organizations.