The Classical Perspective

In the classical perspective, it is possible for more than one person to be involved in strategic management, but the expectation in that perspective is that strategy will be unitary, driven by one viewpoint, shared and supported by all the individuals in the organisation. In practice, strategy is not unitary.

THE CLASSICAL PERSPECTIVE - KEY FEATURE

• Where are we now?
• Where do we want to be? (Outcome)
• How will we get there? (Process)
  

The Processual Perspective

The processual perspective of strategy sees it as the result of the processes of political activity among interested managers and stakeholders, to the extent that no one individual of group's preference can prevail. There may be strategic intentions, but the net result of successive alliances and compromises is that the actual strategic pathway is emergent. The key to this is 'pluralism'.

The model describes the following:

The vertical axis measures the degree to which strategy either produces profit-maximising outcomes or deviates to allow other possibilities to intrude.

The horizontal axis considers processes, reflecting how far strategies are the product of deliberate calculation or whether they emerge by accident, muddle or inertia.

Whittington defines the quadrants as follows:

CLASSICAL - the oldest and still the most influential relies on the rational planning methods dominant in the textbooks.

PROCESSUALISTS - emphasize the sticky imperfect nature of all human life, pragmatically accommodating strategy to the fallible processes of both organisations and markets.

Whittington's 'Classical' and 'Processual' school of thoughts

Whittington takes what he considers to be the key differentiating dimensions of strategy formulation, 'outcomes' and 'processes', and from them creates a grid containing four generic approaches to strategy. He analyses the underlying assumptions and main characteristics of each perspective, recognising the fact that there could be other possible hybrid approaches, and relating each approach to case studies of real organisations, discussing the implications for strategic management.

Strategy Management Processes.

The process of strategy management is conceived as a deliberate, predetermined, programmed movement between two well defined points, 'now' and 'the future'. Obviously, real strategic managers know that the environment does not remain static, and as such, the ideal of perfect analysis and faultless implementation cannot be attained.