Strategy in the Organization - Essay Example

In the approach, the biological evolution’s law of the jungle is substituted by the market discipline. Another approach based on the business processes has emphasis on the stickiness and imperfection of human life. The strategy pragmatically accommodates strategies for the fallible processes, both for the markets and organizations. The final view is the systemic approach, which is in essence relativistic. The approach regards the means and ends of strategy as being inescapably connected with the powers and cultures of the social systems in the local setting where the strategy is implemented.

The four strategic approaches, according to Whittington (2000), have fundamental differences emerging along two distinct dimensions. The first dimension is based on the outcomes of the strategy while the second dimension is based on the processes by which the strategies are made. In a nutshell, the two dimensions examine the purpose of the strategy and the processes involved in the implementation of the strategy respectively. In the assumptions by evolutionary and classical approaches, the maximization of profits is viewed as the intended outcome of implementing a strategy.

On the other hand, the processual and systemic approaches project a more pluralistic approach, viewing other outcomes that are possible from a strategy as much as the profits. Regarding processes, differences arise in the pairings. On the same front are the processualist and evolutionary approaches which view strategy as coming from processes arising by chance, conservatism and confusion. Similarly, theorists of systemic and classical approaches have converging views that strategy can be deliberate despite their differences over the outcomes from the two strategies.

Taking a closer look at each of the four strategic approaches, the classical approach contains the textbook answers. This means, it views strategy as a process that is rational. It should, therefore, involve deliberate calculations and analyses strategically intended to maximize on the long-term advantage. In the classical approach, deliberate effort is made in the gathering of information and in the application of the most suitable techniques. In this view, both the organization and its environment are made plastic and predictable, shaped by the organization’s top management using carefully formulated plans.

The classical approach relies on good planning in the mastering of the internal and external business environments. Success and failure in the long-run, is determined by the objective decision making and the rational analysis employed in the classical approach (Armstrong, 1991). On another strategic front, the evolutionary approach view the future-oriented planning adopted by the classical approach as irrelevant. According to the approach, the business environment is very unpredictable and implacable to anticipate anything effectively.

According to the approach, the hostile, dynamic and competitive nature of the markets means that it is not possible for organizations to plan for their long-term survival. In essence, only the firms that strategize to maximize on their profits will eventually survive the harsh environment. The businesses are likened to the species in biological evolution where the fittest organisms for survival are ruthlessly selected through competitive processes. The unfit organisms have little power to adopt to change quickly enough and therefore cascade towards extinction.