Contemporary strategic business planning: a view of strategy formation processes in organizations

Strategy practice has traditionally involved highly structured processes and tools of analysis (Heracleous, 1998; Wilson, 1998; Mintzberg 1994; Porter, 1980). Although planning methods assist in surfacing the 'wicked' nature of strategic issues and testing of assumptions in strategy making, (Moss Kanter, 2002; Christensen, 1997; Mason and Mitroff, 1981), theorists and practitioners in the past decade have identified a shift to more emergent characteristics in the strategy making process (Liedtka 1998a, 1998b; Heracleous, 1998; Christensen, 1997).