Strategic Management Typology

The five types of strategic management enumerated from most

simplistic to most complex are linear, adaptive, interpretive,
expressive, and transcendent. These five types of strategic
management represent a continuum of organizational focus and
action. Organizations can respond to environmental factors,
anticipate environmental changes, and in some cases even begin to
change or reshape the external organizational environment itself.
The type of strategic management used by an organization will
determine the effectiveness of the organization.

Theoretical Foundation

Chaffee (1984) identified and described three types of strategic

management – linear, adaptive, and interpretive. Cope (1987)
later introduced the expressive type of strategic management as a
combination of the adaptive and interpretive. Clough
(2001) combined the work of Chaffe, Cope, and other authors to
formulate a continuum of four strategic management types. Clough
(2013) further refined the strategic management continuum by
adding the transcendent type of strategic management based on
field experiences with numerous organizations.

Linear Strategic Management

Linear is the simplest form of strategic management, where an

organization is engaged in basic rational decision-making
processes. The organization identifies a series of possible
outcomes based on the internal and external environments and
chooses courses of action best suited for the organization.
Organizations engaged in linear strategic management react to
changes in the internal and external environments. These
reactions do not result in substantive changes to the products or
services offered by the organization. For example, an
organization might experience a decline in revenues and implement
a new sales initiative. The new sales strategy does not change
the product or address the relevance of the product in the
environment.