Teodora Georvieva - F82034

Valeri Ratchev
April 20, y

Critically compare any two definitions of strategy that you could

find in the recommended sources or official documents.

For the purposes of this essay I have decided to take an alternative approach and comment on
two academics which have made a great impact on the topic and their views are always
discussed when it comes to strategy.

There are two people, and only two, whose ideas are taught to every MBA in the world:
Michael Porter and Henry Mintzberg.  These are two academics who have had real impact for
a long time.  Part of their success, beyond having big relevant ideas, is due to their clear and
concise writing skills.

Both have been very influential in the study of strategy, an area of considerable interest to
many readers.  The contrast to their two views is taken as Porter’s taking a more deliberate
strategy approach while Mintzberg’s emphasize emergent strategy. As we know the world is
rapidly changing and it is useful to think about which approach is most useful today?

Emergent strategy is the view 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 realized pattern [that] was not expressly intended” in the original planning of
strategy. Emergent strategy implies that an organization is learning what works in practice.
Given today’s world, I think emergent strategy is on the upswing.  Here’s why.

At times, it seems the world‘s gone nuts.  Let me count the ways: Japan, the PIGS,  9/11,
Hurricane Katrina, SARS,  the financial collapse of 2008 and 2009, the BP oil spill, and many
more examples.  As one writer put it in Sunday New York Times, “For a moment, all the
swans seemed black.”  It seems that strategy has shifted in the last decade to where the
planning school no longer has the street cred it once had. It is precisely because we cannot, try
as we may, control the variables that factor into business decisions that Mintzberg’s emergent
strategy is so useful.

Porter’s ideas are still relevant, they are still taught, so I still believe in them and when I've
seen talks with corporate CEOs they still use them as part of their strategy planning thinking. 
But they are getting a bit long in the tooth for today’s different world. Henry’s emergent
strategy ideas simply seem to be more relevant to the world we live in today – they reflect the
fact that our plans will fail. This is not to say that planning isn’t useful, but other than some
long term technology plans, the day of the 5 year and even 2 year plans has faded and
emergent strategy is the reality in most industries that we work with.  You must be much
more fleet of foot, strategic flexibility is what we are looking for in most industries. The
boundaries are more fluid now. For many, albeit not all, knowing what industry you are in is
not as clear cut as it once was. This makes industry analysis less easy.  The value chain is now
shared across firm boundaries and at times, in part, in common with competitors.

Though I think that Henry’s ideas have pulled ahead of Michael’s, I very much keep on an
eye on Porter’s thinking.  He was interviewed for a weekly videocast for the Globe and Mail,
Canada’s National Newspaper, because his new ideas are very much current.  Interestingly
both Porter and Mintzberg started to put a great deal of their attention on Health Care about 8-
10 years ago.  They approach the topic differently. Porter is in the U.S. and Mintzberg in
Canada, which have quite different health care systems, yet when this was realized by the
interviewer it was clear signal to him that this was an area that he should pay attention to. The
other thing Porter has been working on, Corporate Social Responsibility, suggests a fairly
fundamental change in how corporate American runs itself. Meanwhile, Henry is working on
Rebalancing Society…radical renewal beyond Smith and Marx.

So when it comes to Strategy I think Henry’s ideas are au courant. Yet when I consider their
most recent respective work I see that they are looking at two not dissimilar topics, albeit in
different ways.  We are indeed fortunate that these two outstanding minds are still at it when
many others are retired. Still two, too very much keep an eye on!