Strategic Planning versus Strategic Intent in Korea

Strategic Planning versus Strategic Intent in Korea

Mintberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel explore the diversity of opinions and research into the areas of strategic planning and strategic intent in the text, "Strategy Safari" (1998) as facets of ten schools of strategic thought compared to the allegory of the blind men and the elephant. This implies that the question of agreeing or disagreeing with Mintzberg's assertion that formal planning hampers an organization's success provides no easy answer and entails study of the precepts of the design school and the planning school.

Each represents the historical progress taken in strategic management studies through corporate cultures research from the past to the present and especially with the assumption that the formalizing of plans, steps and techniques for implementation by CEOs and BODs can provide a scientific and explicit framework to effective decision-making or a translatable cookie-cutter approach useful across sectors. Mintzberg asserts that formal top down processes cannot succeed in markets for products or services which are free and open with few barriers to innovation, creativity and or new opportunities.

It is also conducive to recognize that the majority of strategists and planners of the historical period for which the design and planning schools are most famous were turned into the business fields following the victory of a military strategy and war time management system which heavily relied upon sustaining standardized production capacities and services for military engagements where possible and thus represented the necessary advances and advantages of allied forces strategic planning which included assembly and production facilities developed in lock-step with armourments requirements and training of personnel. It is easy then to see how well formalized strategic planning fell into a perception of managerial effectiveness having had deep roots in human management techniques of decades prior heavily reliant on scientific management schemes courtesy of Frederick Taylor.

It is also a paradox to consider the second question regarding the need or provenance of formalized planning as a prerequisite to strategic intent. The globalization of businesses, technology, service and production cycles has created more dynamic factors for which businesses must prove more quickly capable of making the right decisions. Such a differentiation in process reinforces the necessity to observe the various and often conflicting perspectives on strategic thinking which Mintzberg illustrates within diagrammatic representation as a form of "seeing" ahead and behind, downward and below, beside and beyond as well as through. The dynamism of such a model is an intriguing example of the need to strategize beyond formalized processes and even before them, through them, beside them, below them, ahead and behind them.

To assume that one may not learn how to strategize from such a perspective is problematic because such processes are themselves components of the learning process which does rely heavily upon the entrepreneurial perspective of A.H. Cole in "Business Enterprise in its Social Setting" (1959) where the roots of entrepreneurialism are described in the theories of Joseph Schumpeter and consider creative destruction as being the underlying engine of capitalism and its engineer cast as the entrepreneur not only who capitalizes upon plans and structure but also he who generates original ideas. All of the phases of strategic planning are thus not necessary to the operation of strategic intent as it has been the nature of the entrepreneur throughout history to wed good ideas with financial capital and markets which sustain profit and growth. It is the scale of growth perhaps which is determined more so by specific categories of business positioning.

However large corporate entities relying heavily upon formalized planning and or the decisions of leaders not necessarily operating with entrepreneurial effectiveness to generate creative solutions to current and future challenges suffer due to regulatory processes and human nature which tends to prefer routine rather than continuous change. Mintzberg illustrates that even in large corporations strategic planning may not even exist formally which appears especially useful for effectively managed family corporations. The reliance upon entrepreneurial ideas and what is termed strategic intent in those cases is essential, as in many Korean companies, dynamism and speedy growth of a global economy can often preclude the necessity or even desirability of maintaining formalized strategic planning as the responsiveness required to excel among competitors is too great to formalize any plans.

The weakness of this form of entrepreneurial and thus strategic intent is exemplified perhaps not in the educational sector but the current leadership crisis at Hyundai Motors.This would conclude that competitors in the Asian markets originating in Korea tightly define satisfying the needs of Korean customers and clients to globalize their skills to better compete with similar services provided locally by their largest trading partner in China.

However where active local management teams enable such quick decision-making individuals play a much larger role in the strategic intent process which again appears to imply a top heavy and thus formalized system itself which relies heavily upon the leader at the top rather than middle management innovators. The coming challenges for Korea will be the investment in intangible advances in communication between top management and middle or even academic researchers within the organization who might be able to suggest further offshore growth in profit earnings through third party collaborations in particular the area of business management with western partners in China or even foreign students recruitment.

This would imply an ability to change quickly in a dynamic educational services sector more reliant upon strategic intent than formalized planning. The scale of development of one or the other or both is determined by market forces again supported by elements of strategic intent or the success with which vision matches educational customer needs and services will determine growth in the Korean services industry in the next three to five years.