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Henry Mintzberg On Strategic Management PDF
Henry Mintzberg On Strategic Management PDF
Henry Mintzberg On Strategic Management PDF
This paper discusses via critical analysis the ideas of Henry Mintzberg, the Canadian
the study and use of strategy in the domain of business and management.
These debates provide an insight into Mintzberg’s perspectives and by evaluating his
wider contributions; his viewpoints can be weighed for the extent of effective real-
world application in the context of the business industry, past, present and future.
OVERVIEW
The topic of strategy originated in the military context in the form of plans and tactics
for nations to win battles and wars using soldiers and weapons as key resources.
Applicable in the general and game contexts, the development of global economics
has seen this concept evolve into the form of ‘business policy’ in the 1960s and
thereafter, termed as ‘strategy’ to the present day. It was consequently inevitable that
the subject of strategy and its management were to be born of several fathers.
Strategy
Within the context of this paper, it is necessary to adopt a basic premise of strategy
and its scope: Strategy is what an organization does, or plans to do, with its
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resources in order to achieve and sustain a competitive position in the market that
will enable the fulfilment of the organization’s vision (or mission) and objectives.
Strategic Management
actions to be implemented and sustained for its relevance and competitive advantage
to enable continuous gain has always been the crux of the strategic management
debates between theorists, industrial economists and practitioners. The practical and
modus operandi in strategy has shaped and defined the landscape of business
stages:
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Figure 1: An Overview of Strategic Management, comprising Strategy Formulation
and Strategy Implementation
overviews how key theorists, including Henry Mintzberg, approached and advocated
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Theoretical Developments
Figure 2, attributes each school of thought with regards to the approach to strategy,
the guiding principles, the influences and the analytical tools devised and advocated
While Alfred Chandler, the historian and scholar, was raving about the importance of
strategic success within the General Motors and Du Pont industries, Igor Ansoff, the
academic, coined ‘Corporate Strategy’ (Ansoff, 1965). In effect was born, the
Mintzberg, however, was focused on the reality of the managers’ daily grind
(Mintzberg, 1973), a field study which set him apart as a pragmatic academic
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amongst the prescriptive theorists on managerial success. He then turned his
It was no surprise then that he would soon be hailed as a formidable thought leader
after Cyert and March (1963), the Carnegie school’s founding advocates of the
of many processes to be learnt from and negotiated due to the limitations of the
environment and the bounded rationality of human beings (Cyert and March, 1963),
resulting in the divergence of strategies, those deliberately planned and those that
emerge out of patterns of behaviour and events (Mintzberg and Waters, 1985).
effect of the need to cope with the imperfections of the real world where limitations
exist
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in the capacities of managerial leaders to process every information received
strategy formulation phase in Figure 1 into the following tasks for strategy design and
making:
in Figure 4 below.
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In its self-explanatory format, it condenses the primary concerns of each school and
yet, prompts for awareness that each school can be seen as a subset, an extension
and/or a variation of the previous, as indicated by the header row. Strategic theories of
the 1960s have not expired, but only exist in close proximity to the latter models. The
discussion to follow unpacks the areas of differences between these schools and
The Growth Share Matrix was introduced by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a
current and desired market positioning, growth and share, as they perceived profit-
accentuated by the traditionalists’ lack of acknowledgement and regard for the other
effects of good strategy; such as company morale, focused direction and effort
specialization that will go towards defining the organization’s standing in the industry
and as a result, shape its success (Mintzberg, 1987). The Dutch business culturalists,
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Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars (1993), went on to substantiate Mintzberg’s claim
by proving in their study that the profit-only strategy was a more American (Western)
attitude and not reflected with equal importance in the Asian business world.
business fit for the current market conditions. They do not acknowledge that strategic
decisions have any effect on a company’s success, which they believe, is achieved
only by those that are equipped enough to survive the market conditions; ‘evolution is
determine the products’ endurance in the market and in Sony’s production line
(Whittington, 2001).
While the Evolutionary school was pounded by the Planning school for the lack of
notions, Mintzberg had already established his 5-Ps strategy model (1987) in
business is more viable and therefore the objectives set are more tenable towards a
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In support of his model, Mintzberg later wrote a McKinsey-award winning article of
much the same way that a potter (his wife, as accredited in his article) shapes her
clay using ‘tacit’ (Mintzberg, 1987:66) or implicit knowledge from experience of the
medium and the feedback sensations received through her tactile experience.
Ikujiro Nonaka, renowned for his in-depth studies on knowledge creation and
Toyama, & Konno, 2000) that can be enabled by the vision, strategy, structure,
system and staff of an organization (Nonaka, 1991). His viewpoint stresses strategy
competitive advantage.
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Strategy Formulation: Strategic Leadership & Decision making
The military proximity (Sun Tzu, 1963) has shaped the post-war Classical school of
strategy, with the persuasive, charismatic and visionary leader (Bas, 1990), who instils
strategists as the only saviour to carry an organization’s vision to execution. But the
Systemic theorists are suspicious of the visionary leader whose self-interests can be
dictated by his professional bias (in a functional area such as finance, marketing or
operations, etc.) or his social and cultural make-up of built-in values. The case of a
German leader comes to mind in this context. Miles and Snow (1978) stress that the
can lead to a biased strategy leaning towards the perspective and norms of the
leaders (Westley and Mintzberg, 2001) in exceptions such as Apple’s Steve Jobs and
General Electric’s Jack Welch. Yet, he questions the relevance of the military
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(Mintzberg, 1990) style of control and direction in strategic management because he
sees strategy as a consequential effect of the trials and errors from the activities and
effect, for Mintzberg (1994), just planning a strategy alone makes not a strategist.
However, he also cautions against ‘the creative strategists … they drive everybody
nuts.’ (Mintzberg, 2000:37), proving that he is fully in touch with the real world and is
the organization. Mintzberg highlights the outdated nature of applying the detached
disseminated to the lower levels for implementation. Referring to this as the Fallacy
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Nonaka (1991) purports the same logic when he discusses the ‘middle-up-down
management’ in relation to the value of tacit and explicit knowledge shared within an
organization for the benefit of the strategy, product or knowledge oriented. ‘Good
strategies grow out of ideas that have been kicking around the company, and
initiatives that have been taken by all sorts of people in the company.’(Mintzberg,
2000:35)
In the case of United Parcel Service (UPS), although the founder instilled a military
style management, the newly appointed CEOs had worked their way up through the
company, knowing its functions bottom up and the strategy groups were formed of
key staff from various divisions of UPS. The bottom up, top down approach to
As articulated in Figure 1, the core of strategy design and formulation lies in the review
and analysis of external and internal factors. It determines and directs the strategy
route to be undertaken based on the choices that become available as a result of this
acknowledge the various tools and techniques proliferated within the planning school
counter-response.
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Figure 9: Choices for Strategic Design and Decisions - An Interpretation of
Whittington’s Perspectives
Proponents of the planning school use quantitative modelling methods and tools to
Matrix (Ansoff, 1957), the BCG Growth Share Matrix by the Boston Consulting Group
(BCG) are examples of rational tools exalted by these followers. Pictured below,
analytical tools such as PEST Analysis (Aguilar, 1967), SWOT Analysis and Porter’s
Fives Forces Model (Porter, 1980) were deemed by Classicalists as vital frameworks
Figure 10: Ansoff’s Matrix (Ansoff, 1957) Figure 11: PEST Analysis (Aguilar, 1967)
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Figure 12: SWOT Analysis (Humphrey,
Figure 13: BCG Growth Share Matrix
1960-1970)
(Boston Consulting Group, 1970)
the Five Forces Model (1980) - the five competitive market forces at play
the Value Chain proposition – functional areas where business can add and create
value
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More tools and techniques have since emerged to validate and justify analytical
choices and the resulting decisions. Mintzberg’s critique of the rational models and
subsequently catalytic to his own theses in response. He critiques them for promoting
the ‘fallacy of prediction’ (Mintzberg, 1994), for disregarding the dynamic nature of the
market. While the Five Forces model provides a significant snapshot at a point in time,
it is misleading to apply it as a predictive tool and assume that the industry landscape
Mintzberg (Mintzberg et al, 2009) also challenged the single-minded focus of the
planning approach to consider only the quantitative and financial elements in the
context of economics. There is little consideration of the other factors which do play a
part in strategy design. Political, social, cultural and other qualitative factors, as in the
PEST analysis, are not taken into account by these methods of assessment.
As a result, the ensuing choices and decisions available for strategy making are in fact
less than optimal and more susceptible to failure upon execution. By the logic of
bounded-rationality (Cyert and March, 1963), the information used in the formal
analyses is ‘inherently limited’ (Whittington, 2001:72) and thus, warranting the risk of
impaired decisions being made from biased judgement which results from the use of
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Mintzberg is suspicious (Mintzberg et al, 2009) of Porter’s models being applicable
only in markets that have matured and industries that have reached stability, as noted
questionable if these planning models will be useful when applied to dynamic markets
that are in constant flux. For Mintzberg, this ‘fallacy of formalization’ (Mintzberg,
1994:111) precludes identifying unique market situations for the firm, multi-directional
information exchange within the firm and the possibility of designing a unique strategy
becomes clear as to where and how Mintzberg differs in his approach and methods
in contrast to the likes of Porter. His in-depth study and analysis of strategy
1990). He expands on this school’s seven basic principles of strategy design and
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progresses to critically analyse its shortcomings in the real world. This work by
investigations into the Harvard school beginnings and the idealistic world of strategic
He critics the purely academic, detached assessment style used to predict strengths
something conceived and not learnt by experience. With unreliable and too
generalistic results, he highlights the tendency for biased hopes from a strategy
planned and designed using theoretical and predicted value of a competence, whether
While Chandler (1962) stressed that structure follows strategy, Mintzberg’s emphasis
advocates the importance of taking into account the organization’s competences, its
structure and how the CEO or strategist needs to formulate strategy using an
This leads to another concern of Mintzberg; the condoned detachment within the
(1979) he points out the minds versus hands and thought versus actions processes.
For Mintzberg, strategy formation is a learning process with implicit and explicit
articulation and must be flexible enough to support the organization during all periods:
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uncertainty and periods of formulation and reformulation while increasing coherence
In this discussion thus far about Mintzberg’s approach to strategy formation, it is only
controlled part of the strategy formulation, he advocates that the designed strategy
must be open to inputs from within the organization so that it can evolve and be
emergent in some aspects. Emergent ‘strategy stems from doing something, and
finding out what works’ (Foster, 1989:74). In effect, there should be little distinction
implementation.
One can see why Peters and Watermans (1982) characterized the learning process
as ‘Ready, fire, aim’, implying the readjustment that will be useful and necessary
based on the outcome of an action, as opposed to the ‘Ready, aim, aim’ process of
the planning school and the ‘Fire, fire, fire’ process of the visionary leader, suggesting
Group (BCG) for the British government; it further removed the manufacturers from
the field and detached them from the realities of the industry. In stark contrast was
Honda and how it learnt and adapted its way into the US motorcycle industry
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He considers diversification a form of strategy in action just as scenario planning is
United Parcel Service (UPS) implemented this method as well as Shell to survive and
divert the potential downturn in their survival. The blurred distinction in planning for
CONCLUSION
strategy debates, he has reduced the strategy approaches to planning, visionary and
learning; hence, simplifying the prescriptive theories for real-world applicability with
While he disputes the various misgivings of the planning approach, he is open to the
visionary leader approach because of the potential learning that can be adopted by
the leader. His proposition of the learning approach calls for the use of information,
quantitative and qualitative, from all parts of an organization’s hierarchy and for the
Interpreting Mintzberg and Waters (1985), the following figure summarizes his
viewpoint and recommendation; to adopt and to adapt strategy, its formulation and
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implementation according to what suits and is the best for the organization, which in
essence requires learning and customization to be built-in elements and less rigidity
By mere synthesis of the classical school and its present day evolution, Mintzberg
has been able to propagate a far extending wave to instigate an intuitive yet
interactive strategy process within organizations. Consulting firms are using him as a
reference point. By far, Mintzberg’s main contribution to the field of strategy and
strategic management is his injection of practical thought and a dose of reality for the
business strategist.
Just as the potter has an on-going, two way conversation with her clay when crafting
by recognizing and imparting that a business strategy can only be crafted in a similar
iterative manner if it were to be successful and sustainable in the real world with
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References
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Aguilar, F. (1967) Scanning the Business Environment. New York: Macmillan Co.
Althusser, L. (1971) Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. London: New Left
Books
Ansoff, I., (1957) Strategies for Diversification, Harvard Business Review, 35(5):113-
124
Garvin,D.A. and Levesque, L.C. (2010) ‘Strategic planning at United Parcel Service’
from De Wit, Bob and Meyer, R. Strategy: Process, Content, Context:702-718.
Andover: Cengage Learning
Kets de Vries, M.F.R. (1988) The dark side of CEO succession, Harvard Business
Review, 66(1):56-60
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Mintzberg,H. (1973/1983) The Nature of Managerial Work - roles and characteristics
of managerial work, based on my doctoral thesis study of five managers. New York:
Harper and Row,(1973) Englewood Cliffs, N. J: Prentice-Hall (1983)
75
Mintzberg,H. (1994) ‘The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning’, Harvard Business
Review, January-February: 108-114
Mintzberg, H. (2000) ‘View from the top: Henry Mintzberg on strategy and
management’, Academy of Management Executive, 14(3): 31-42
Mintzberg, H., Alstrand, B. and Lampel, J. (2009) Strategy Safari. London: Prentice
Hall
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Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. (1995) Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation.
England: Oxford University Press
Nonaka, I., R. Toyama, R., Konno, N. (2000) SECI, Ba and Leadership: a Unified
Model of Dynamic Knowledge Creation, Long Range Planning, 33(1): 5-34
Pascale, R.T. (1984) Perspectives on Strategy: The Real Story Behind Honda's
Success, California Management Review, XXVI(3)
Sun Tzu (1963) The Art of War. New York: Oxford Press
Westley F. and Mintzberg, H. (2001) Decision-Making: It’s not what You Think, Sloan
Management Review
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Table of Figures
PERSPECTIVES ...................................................................................................... 7
FIGURE 13: BCG GROWTH SHARE MATRIX (BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP, 1970) .......... 14
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