INTENDED VS EMERGENT STRATEGIES

Intended Vs Emergent Strategies

Intended Vs Emergent Strategies

Introduction

Every organization has to compete for leadership and aspires to leave competition way behind in the highly competitive environment of modern day marketplace. The complex and highly interrelated series of actions and reactions which an organization undertakes are mainly aimed at making the best use of available opportunities and nullifying the lurking threats so that corporate objectives and goals are achieved to the maximum extent possible. The entire gamut of these actions, steps, decisions to act, react, or not to take any action at all, or be proactive before competitors can take the first mover advantage, form what is known as corporate strategy. (Ansoff, 1965)

Intended Strategy

Intended strategy is nothing but a plan or an intended course of action thought to be most suitable for achieving predetermined corporate goals. Sometimes, if the situation so desires, a ploy or a manoeuvre, tricky, cheeky or otherwise, to surmount an immediate obstacle or to browbeat a serious competitor; is also called a strategy. The basic concept of strategy is that it is pre-planned in nature and is given a proper shape after a lot of brainstorming. Strategy also determines the basic consistency in behaviour and approach of a particular firm towards the economy in general and the market in which it operates in particular. Strategy also formalises the positioning of the firm in the market.

Content of a strategy is basically an exposition of the current position of the company and the desired status the management would like to attain at the end of the plan period. It is nothing but a detailed brief of where it is now and the broad steps to be taken to reach where it intends to. The context part of a strategy deals in detail with the internal and expected external environment of an organisation and in effect undertakes an extensive SWOT analysis to ensure that the organisation can reach the set targets with least effort.

The process part of a strategy actually lays down the timing of different actions and clearly defines who would take part in the actions directly and who would remain in indirect support thus ensuring unity of action and streamlining of efforts to prevent efforts getting wasted by working at cross purposes or overlapping and repetitive actions. But, this analysis of strategy into various components only goes on to further emphasise the basic nature of intended strategy - it is pre-planned and depends entirely on the quality of forecasts available with the management. (McGee, John; Thomas, Howard and Wilson, David, 2005)

Emergent Strategy

An emergent strategy is a pattern of action that develops over time in an organization in the absence of a specific mission and goals, or despite a mission and goals.

Emergent strategy is sometimes called realized strategy. An emergent strategy or realized strategy differs from an intended strategy.

Mintzberg argues that strategy emerges over time as intentions collide with and accommodate a changing reality.

Emergent strategy is a set of actions, or behavior, consistent over time, "a ...