Critiquing the language of strategic management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the semantics of the language of management in order to seek clarification of the terminology and how it is used and misused in the strategy literature.Design/methodology/approach – An extensive review of the literature was undertaken.Findings – Managerial language has been used to obfuscate and politicise the managerial process, especially the strategic process. In order to develop the ideas of the strategy specialty the use and misuse of the words in the strategy lexicon must be understood. The problem that the lack of consistency creates is, that in trying to assess the strategic process in the literature and in practice, it is often impossible to know exactly what strategic methodology is being expressed.Practical implications – Rather than concentrate on definitions of strategy it is necessary to seek to understand how the terminology is applied and then allocate the meaning of the terms to the school of strategic ideas that the writer/scholar espouses...

[1]  Shaker A. Zahra,et al.  Strategic Management: Formulation and Implementation , 1996 .

[2]  Harold Koontz,et al.  Principles of Management: An Analysis of Managerial Functions , 1972 .

[3]  T. Proctor,et al.  Strategic Planning in Practice , 1994 .

[4]  G. Hamel.  Strategy Innovation and the Quest for Value , 1998 .

[5]  G. Hamel,et al.  Strategy as revolution. , 1996, Harvard business review.

[6]  Philip M. Marcus,et al.  The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business , 1979 .

[7]  P. Drucker,et al.  管理的实践=The practice of management , 1954 .

[8]  Brian K. Boyd,et al.  A measurement model of strategic planning , 1998 .

[9]  Bruce Raymond,et al.  Developing Small Business Effectiveness in the Context of Congruence , 1994 .

[10]  Lyndall F. Urwick.  The pattern of management , 1956 .

[11]  Henry Mintzberg,et al.  Strategy safari : a guided tour through the wilds of strategic management , 1998 .

[12]  S. French,et al.  Cogito ergo sum: exploring epistemological options for strategic management , 2009 .

[13]  William D. Giles,et al.  Making strategy work , 1991 .

[14]  J. L. Bower,et al.  Business policy: text and cases , 1973 .

[15]  Alfred Dupont Chandler,et al.  战略与结构 : 美国工商企业成长的若干篇章=strategy and structure : chapters in the history of the American industrial enterprise , 1962 .

[16]  S. French,et al.  Re‐thinking the foundations of the strategic business process , 2009 .

[17]  Henry Mintzberg,et al.  Of strategies, deliberate and emergent , 1985, Strategic Management Journal.

[18]  Richard F. Neuschel,et al.  Management by system , 1960 .

[19]  Peter F. Drucker,et al.  Long-Range Planning---Challenge to Management Science , 1959 .

[20]  Robert Jacobson,et al.  The “Austrian” School of Strategy , 1992 .

[21]  James D. Thompson.  Organizations in Action: Social Science Bases of Administrative Theory , 1967 .

[22]  G. Steiner,et al.  Strategic Planning: What Every Manager Must Know , 2008 .

[23]  A. J. Strickland,et al.  Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases , 1984 .

[24]  Henry Mintzberg,et al.  VISIONARY LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT , 1989 .

[25]  N. Carter.  General and Industrial Management , 1986 .

[26]  William Herman Newman,et al.  Administrative action : the techniques of organization and management , 1952 .

[27]  Martin Parker.  Against Management: Organization in the Age of Managerialism , 2002 .

[28]  N. Foss,et al.  Research in the Strategic Theory of the Firm: ‘Isolationism’ and ‘Integrationism’ , 1999 .

[29]  A. Kouzmin,et al.  De-Institutionalizing “Group Think”: From State Welfarism and Towards Cyber-Netizinship in the “Smart” State , 1999 .

[30]  Henri Fayol.  Administration industrielle et générale , 1999 .

[31]  Brian K. Boyd,et al.  RESEARCH NOTES AND COMMUNICATIONS A MEASUREMENT MODEL OF STRATEGIC PLANNING , 1998 .

[32]  Gareth R. Jones,et al.  Strategic Management Theory: An Integrated Approach , 2003 .

[33]  John C. Camillus,et al.  Reinventing Strategic Planning , 1996 .

[34]  P. M. Ginter,et al.  PLANNERS' PERCEPTIONS OF THE STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT PROCESS[1] , 1985 .

[35]  Grant T. Hammond,et al.  The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security , 2001 .

[36]  G. Steiner,et al.  Top Management Planning , 1969 .

[37]  J. Mason.  Developing strategic thinking , 1986 .

[38]  Charles J. Fombrun,et al.  Constructing competitive advantage: The role of firm-constituent interactions , 1999 .

[39]  D. Teece,et al.  DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT , 1997 .

[40]  Kazem Chaharbaghi,et al.  Strategy development: past, present and future , 1995 .

[41]  James Brian Quinn,et al.  The Strategy Process , 1988 .

[42]  Steven E. Phelan,et al.  ARRIVING AT A STRATEGIC THEORY OF THE FIRM , 2000 .

[43]  Richard Whittington,et al.  What Is Strategy and Does It Matter , 1998 .

[44]  J. Simpson,et al.  The Oxford English Dictionary , 1884 .

[45]  Ellen Earle Chaffee,et al.  Three Models of Strategy1 , 1985 .

[46]  Marjorie A. Lyles.  A RESEARCH AGENDA FOR STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT IN THE 1990s , 1990 .

[47]  Henry Mintzberg.  The rise and fall of strategic planning , 1993 .

[48]  Kenneth R. MacCrimmon,et al.  Do firm strategies exist , 1993 .

[49]  Yolanda Ferreira Balcão.  Principles of management: an analysis of managerial functions , 1961 .