April 10, 2017
Article
Harvard Business Review (website)

The Different Approaches Firms Use to Set Strategy

By: Kimberly Teti, Mu-Jeung Yang, Nicholas Bloom, Jan Rivkin and Raffaella Sadun

Format:Electronic

Abstract

Many senior executives struggle to describe how they make strategic decisions. That’s a serious problem since the process for making strategic decisions can shape the strategy itself. To understand better how companies really make strategic choices, we interviewed 92 current CEOs, founders, and senior executives and asked each to answer detailed questions about his or her approach to strategic decision-making. Their replies revealed a typology of four approaches. Our results can’t say that any single approach to strategy is always best, but we do offer some evidence that one of the approaches is often flawed.

Keywords

Strategic Planning; Decision Making

Citation

Teti, Kimberly, Mu-Jeung Yang, Nicholas Bloom, Jan Rivkin, and Raffaella Sadun. "The Different Approaches Firms Use to Set Strategy." Harvard Business Review (website) (April 10, 2017).