Perspectives in Strategic Management

A Critique of Strategy Safari: The Complete Guide

Through the Wilds of Strategic Management
Vaibhav Shekhar*

Researchers in strategic management have tried to categorize various streams of thought in this field into
few groups for better assimilation. Strategy Safari: The Complete Guide Through the Wilds of
Strategic Management, by Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel is one of the outstanding books in this
area which coalesces strategic thinking from 1960s into ten broad schools of thought. The purpose of
this article is to critically analyze this book and to delve deeper so as to gain further insights in different
streams of business strategy. Further, the article also compares different streams of thought presented by
different authors along with the thought process presented in the book.

Introduction
Researchers in strategic management have tried to categorize various streams of thought
in this field into groups for better assimilation (Porter, 1980; Christensen et al., 1982;
Schwenk, 1988; and Mintzberg, 1994). Strategy Safari: The Complete Guide Through the Wilds
of Strategic Management, by Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel (1998) is an outstanding
work in this area which coalesces strategic thinking from 1960s into 10 broad schools of
thought. Henry Mintzberg is considered as one of the premier management thinkers.
He is the Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University and professor
of organization at institut européen d'administration des affaires (INSEAD) in France. He is
the author of several seminal books, like, Mintzberg on Management and The Rise and Fall
of Strategic Planning. Bruce Ahlstrand is a Professor of Management at the Trent University
in Ontario, Canada. He is the author of The Quest for Productivity and co-author of Human
Resource Management in the Multi-Divisional Company. Joseph Lampel is the founding
member of the Institute for Research on Emergent Policy Processes, and a senior Research
Fellow of the International Project in Management of Engineering and Construction.
He is also a Professor of Strategy at City University Business School, London.
The purpose of writing this book was two-fold: to provide a broad view of the process
of strategy formation as the authors narrowly focussed themselves on a single perspective
and to facilitate a guide which will help both the scholars as well as the practitioners,
in understanding distinct points of view in the area of strategy formation. This book is
well conceived and attempts to arrive at consolidated picture comprising all the aspects
of strategy formation. According to them, a strategy is a plan, a pattern, a position, a
perspective and a ploy. In this book, the authors have also justified the significance of
strategic planning for any organization. According to them, setting up of direction, focussing

* Research Scholar, IIMT, Hyderabad, India. E-mail: vaibhav.shekar@yahoo.com

Perspectives
© 2009 IUP. in
AllStrategic Management
Rights Reserved. 43
A Critique of Strategy Safari: The Complete Guide Through the Wilds of Strategic Management
of effort, defining the organization and providing consistency are the main contributions
that strategic planning makes for an organization.
In this book, the authors have looked at the process of strategy formation from 10
different angles (each termed as a school of thought). Each angle has a unique perspective
that focuses on one major aspect. In addition, the book has been categorized into three
parts. The first three schools are considered as ‘prescriptive’ schools that discuss how a
strategy needs to be formulated, next six schools (4-9) are concerned with a specific aspect
of strategy formation rather than prescribing an ideal strategic behavior, whereas, the
configuration school alone constitutes the third group that integrates the various
elements of strategy formation. The authors have first discussed the various elements in
each of the above schools and then critiqued them by bringing out their pros and cons.
The objective of this paper is to critically analyze the 10 schools of thought as espoused
in this classic book and compare it with similar books in the domain of strategic literature.

The Design School

Strategy formation, is all about establishing a fit between strength and weakness of an
organization and the opportunities available in its external environment. Christensen et al.
(1982) are among the major proponents of this school. This school proposes a model of
strategy formation that seeks to attain a fit between an organization’s internal capabilities
and possibilities external to the organization, i.e., the need to bring together the
organization’s internal state with its external expectations. The above model places primary
emphasis on the appraisals of the external and internal situations, the former uncovering
the threats and opportunities in the environment while the later revealing strengths and
weaknesses of the organization. The external environment, includes technological,
economic, social and political aspects of a company’s environment and issues of forecasting
and scanning. This school also considers the role played by managerial values and social
responsibility as important in the process of strategy making. Rumelt (1997), one of the
proponents of this school, proposed a framework to evaluate strategy making. According to
his framework, a strategy formulated should be consistent in terms of its goals and policies
and must be adaptive to the changes in the organization’s environment, must provide and
maintain competitive advantage in selected areas of activity and should be feasible. He also
suggested a series of steps using which an organization can evaluate various alternatives
available to it and hence, can select one which fits its internal strength and weakness with
the opportunities in the environment.

Critique
According to the proponents of this school, strategies should be deliberate, responsible
for consciousness and control within an organization, simple and informal, explicit and
unique and fully formulated and ready to be implemented. However, in the dynamic
external environment, which is composed of competitors, government control, suppliers,
customers, etc., as well as internal environment of an organization, following the above

44 The IUP Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. VI, No. 2, 2009

mentioned premises of design school may not augur well for an organization. In today’s
hypercompetitive and dynamic external environment, an organization has to adapt to
changes quickly enough to sustain a competitive edge over its competitors. This is in line
with the observations made by Ansoff (1991). He found Mintzberg’s exposition on design
school wanting on both methodology and applicability in current practices. In such a
scenario by following the premises of design school, an organization may fall into the trap
of inflexibility and non-adaptability and hence may go out of business. Digital Equipment
Corporation (DEC) is an example which, in spite of its earlier success, sold majority of
its business because of its inconsistent structure and delay in introducing new products.
It was due to this inadaptable nature that the company could not adapt quickly to the fast
changing external environment characterized by a rapid change in technology and
customer needs.

The Planning School

According to this school, strategy is a plan or something equivalent—a direction, a guide
or a course of action into the future. The planning school accepts most of the premises
in the design school, however, the execution of strategy became formalized, almost
mechanical in nature, like an elaborated sequence of steps. According to this school,
strategy results from a controlled, conscious process of formal planning, decomposed into
distinct steps, each delineated by checklist and supported by techniques. The Chief
Executive holds the responsibility for the formulation of the overall process whereas, the
execution rests with the staff planners and strategy resulting from this process has to be
made explicit so that it can be implemented through detailed attention to objectives,
budgets, programs and operating plans of various kinds.

Critique
The formal nature of strategy formulation, control in the hands of a single individual and
separation between formulization and implementation of strategy may result in strategy
being inflexible, predeterminated and detached. The control in the hand of a single
individual (CEO) and separation between formulation and implementation may result in
conflict of interest between the CEO and the stakeholders (mainly implementers that are
employees of the organization). Moreover, formalization of strategy may result in failure to
predict changes in an organization’s environment leading to failure to predict possible
discontinuities that may ultimately lead to what authors have rightly named as, “The Grand
Fallacy of Strategic Planning”. General Electric (GE) was one of the most famous companies
for strategic planning before 1980s. Its annual planning began on January 3 and ended on
December 6 of each year. The top management used to formulate strategy and goals in
general managers meetings that were held between January 3-5 every year. GE’s strategic
planning also included continual review of planning after specified intervals, for example,
review of corporate resources used to take place on June 25. However, this strategic planning
model was dismantled by Jack Welch in early 1980s after he became the Chairman and CEO.

Perspectives in Strategic Management 45

A Critique of Strategy Safari: The Complete Guide Through the Wilds of Strategic Management
The Positioning School
This school added content to the premises proposed by the earlier school by emphasizing
the strategy and not the process by which it is formulated. This school focussed on
calculation specific selection of generic strategic position rather than on the development
of integrated and unusual strategic perspective. It posits that only a few strategies can act
as a position (one that can be defended against existing and/or future competition) for an
organization in the economic market place in any given industry. It is these strategies that
enable a firm to earn higher profits in the industry and provide it with a reservoir of
resources that can expand and enlarge as well as consolidate its position. This premise
resulted in this school ending with limited number of strategies or categories (known as
generic strategies) like product differentiation, cost leadership and focus. However, Porter
has been criticized for focussing only on traditionally big houses where effect of
competition is the least. In addition, it gave little emphasis on political effects (both
internal as well as external) on the strategy formation in an organization.

Critique
The positioning school has been criticized on several fronts like its heavy inclination
towards economic and quantifiable approach as opposed to social and political or even any
non-quantifiable approach. This is evident from the emphasis of the majority of strategies
on costs, for example, Boston Consultancy Group (BCG) matrix proposed strategies based
on relative market share and industry growth. It was heavily criticized for its bias towards
big business houses like Ford Motor Corporation, GE, etc., which ensured relative stability
in the environment and its focus towards limited number of generic strategies that
discourage formation of new strategies. Moreover, limiting the number of options available
to the organizations in the form of three generic strategies goes against the concept of
strategy being flexible and unique to an organization as proposed by the design school. This
concept has been criticized by various researchers like Baden and Stopford (1992) and Miller
(1992). These authors questioned the narrow focus of Porter’s concept of generic strategies.
They cited examples of Caterpillar, Benetton and Toyota that became successful without
following Porter’s notion of generic strategies. The success of these companies is not
attributed to following generic strategies, but to following both cost leadership and
differentiation strategies. The success of these firms suggests non-exclusive nature of Porter’s
strategy. In addition, too much emphasis on quantitative methods results in ignorance of
qualitative aspects like power, employee motivation and organizational culture.

The Entrepreneurial School

The entrepreneurial school focuses on the leader and his vision. Exclusivity on a single
leader is questionable, as visions can be set by a single or multiple founders of a company.
The central construct of this school is vision: a mental representation of strategy, created
or at least expressed in the head of the leader. This vision serves as an inspiration and
gives a sense of what needs to be done—a guiding idea. Vision is more like an image rather

46 The IUP Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. VI, No. 2, 2009

than a plan that leaves it flexible for the leaders so that they can adapt to their
experiences. This makes this school deliberate and emergent, deliberate in its broad lines
and sense of direction and emergent in details so that these can be adapted en route.
Proponents of this school saw personalized leadership based on strategic vision as the key
to an organization’s success. Strategy exists in the mind of the leader and he single-
mindedly promotes it and has complete control over its implementation so that changes
can be brought in when necessary.

Critique
This school has highlighted some of the critical aspects of strategy formation, most
notably the proactive nature and role of personality, leadership and strategic vision.
However, some deficiencies include dependence on single individual and narrow focus of
strategic management, as power is vested with a single individual who might be enmeshed
in operating details and may lose focus of ground realities. In addition, a leader may play
different kinds of roles in an organization. He may be participative, democratic, autocratic,
goal-oriented and situational. This school fails to discuss the above mentioned aspects of
leadership and the types of role a leader must play under any given situation. Moreover,
the authors should also discuss how the separation between formulation and
implementation of strategy need to be dealt with in order to negate the disadvantages
attached to this school of thought. Another critique of this school is that what some
(top management which frames the vision) regard as a ‘vision’ can be seen as a pathology
by others. Further, the vision formulation happens in the start-up firms. Large firms rarely
re-evaluate or reframe their vision (McLarney and Shelley, 1991). Steve Jobs was the
co-founder, chairman and former CEO of Apple. He was a true visionary who created the
first truly personal computer, the Apple, in his garage. From calculating federal taxes to
executing individual business operations, Jobs lead a hardware revolution by reducing the
size of computers to small boxes and introducing them to the masses. He was often
criticized for his aggressive and demanding managerial style that led to his ouster from
Apple in 1985. Jobs’ sacking is attributed to a boardroom coup after his power struggle
with Sculley.

The Cognitive School

This school probes into the mind of the strategist in order to understand strategic
vision and how strategy is formed. According to this school, strategists are self-
taught. They develop their knowledge, structure and thinking processes mainly
through their experience. It is their experience that shapes their knowledge, their
actions and their further experiences. This school has been viewed in two ways: an
‘objective’ way, which focuses on processing and structuring of the knowledge as an
effort to produce some kind of motion picture of the world and a ‘subjective’ way
which focus on interpretation of the events and behavior of the people around
(customers).
Perspectives in Strategic Management 47
A Critique of Strategy Safari: The Complete Guide Through the Wilds of Strategic Management
Critique
This school has added a creative aspect to the process of strategy formation. It deals with
how cognitive processes emerge in the form of concepts that shape how people deal with
inputs from the environment. While Mintzberg and his colleagues framed the cognitive
basis for strategic management, they missed out on the approach or systematic cognitive
process to strategy formulation. In addition, cognitive school of thought does not consider
collective way of strategy formulation and implementation. This results in this school
being subjective in nature and hence, leads to distortion of information during
transmission through various hierarchical levels of an organization. The formulators of
the strategy, i.e., the top management, seldom visit ground level where the real action
takes place. They rely heavily on information provided to them by managers at various
levels. In such a scenario, the information they receive becomes biased and affects strategy
formulation of an organization. However, interpretation of the same piece of information
by different minds may simply look the same from different angles that may facilitate
different alternatives for the top management and integration of complex information
(Schwenk, 1988).

The Learning School

This school considers strategy as an emerging process wherein people, sometimes
individuals and sometimes groups come to learn about the situation as well as their
organization’s capability of dealing with various kinds of situations. This school
describes the process of strategy formation as a learning that takes place over a period
of time. Strategy formation, according to this school, proceeds in an emergent fashion
through behavior that stimulates thinking retrospectively, where the role of a leader is
not to preconceive deliberate strategies, but to manage the process of strategic learning.

Critique
Rapid changes in the environment require strategies and tactics to be flexible. Every
strategy has some inherent weakness due to the conditions under which it is formulated.
The changes in the above conditions are inevitable. Another important critique of the
learning school is a concept called ‘learning myopia’ characterized by the tendency to
overlook failures, distant futures and distant places (Levinthal and March, 1993).
The Nokia vs. Motorola case is an example in this regard, wherein, the emergence of
digital technology caught Motorola sleeping and Nokia took over as the leader.
The strategy of Motorola revolved around old technology as it refused to take seriously
the inroads of upstart digital competitors. This school offers a counterbalancing force
to rational deliberateness, however, it is not free from criticism. Some researchers have
described learning as purposeless and anti-strategic that may result in tactical
manoeuvering, rather than strategic thinking. According to some, overemphasis on
learning may undermine a coherent and perfectly viable strategy. Some researchers
believe that learning may result in a formation that may no longer be wanted and some

48 The IUP Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. VI, No. 2, 2009

were of the view that focus of an organization should not only be on learning, but also
on exploitation of learning in order to get on with regular work. Irrespective of various
criticisms, this school is applicable in an organization that works in a highly complex
environment and where knowledge required for strategy formation is widely diffused.

The Power School

Here the word power refers to political power or the political relations surrounding an
organization. The authors have distinguished between two branches of power, i.e., micro
power and macro power. Micro power deals with the politics within an organization.
It involves persuasion, bargaining and confrontation between the employees. Macro power,
on the other hand, is the power exercised by an organization over other parties like
alliance partners, suppliers, buyers, etc. This is done in order to negotiate the terms and
conditions in its favor. The power school views strategy formation as a product of not a
single architect but of a homogenous strategy team. It also suggests that strategy emerges
from such a process that will not necessarily be opined, rather reflect the interest of the
most powerful group in the organization.

Critique
Power is an important element in the formation of strategy. There are many organizations
where many actors have the power and inclination towards enhancing their own interests
that might lead to conflicts within an organization, thereby resulting in strategic failure.
In addition, by focussing too much on power, other important elements like leadership,
culture, etc., gets sidelined in this school. This school also fails to address the effects of
collusion (of both individuals and groups) within an organization that exist within every
organization due to enduring differences in beliefs, values and interests. However, this
school has broadened the view on strategy formation by introducing terms such as politics,
collusion, coalition, etc., and also highlights the importance of politics in promoting
strategic change.

The Cultural School

Culture has been defined as the shared value that is reflected in traditions and habits as
well as, more tangible manifestations—story, symbols, products, etc. According to this
school, strategy formation is a process of social interaction, based on beliefs and
understandings shared by the members of an organization. In an organization, beliefs are
acquired by individuals through a process of acculturation or socialization, which is tacit
and non-verbal, although sometimes reinforced by more formal indoctrination. As a
result, strategy becomes prescriptive rooted in collective intentions (not necessarily
explicit) and is reflected in the patterns by which deeply embedded resources or
capabilities are protected and used for gaining a competitive advantage. Finally, it resists
change in ideology and at best permits shift in an organization’s overall strategic
perspective.

Perspectives in Strategic Management 49

A Critique of Strategy Safari: The Complete Guide Through the Wilds of Strategic Management
Critique
As mentioned, this school resists change in an organization’s ideology, hence, resistance
to change can be cited as one of the major criticisms of this school. In addition, due to
its prescriptive nature, this school fails to incorporate the concept of strategy as a
learning process. This limits an organization’s capability of dealing with various kinds
of situations. However, by discussing the constructs such as strategic drift,
experimentation, reformulation and stabilization, this school has tried to address the
issue of radical change in an organization that may guide an organization towards
tackling the resistance. The authors seem correct in describing the culture as a resource
of an organization that can provide a sustainable competitive advantage due to its
imitability and causal ambiguous nature. This is evident from the example of success
achieved by Japanese companies over their counterparts in the US and Europe.

The Environmental School

This school brings out the overall view of strategy into balance by positioning
environment as one of the central factors in the process alongside leadership and
organization. It describes different dimensions of the environment facing strategists
and also discusses their effect on strategy formation. This school emerged from the
contingency theory that described the relationship between particular dimensions
of the environment and specific attributed (structure) to the organization. This
school hypothesized environment as a set of external forces that are central to the
strategy making process, to which an organization must respond or else will be
‘selected out’.

Critique
To remain existent, this school hypothesizes a continuous change in the environment
to which every organization responds accordingly. However, in reality, if the
environment of an organization is stable all the time, then it is not completely dynamic,
for example, banking industry in India is regulated by norms laid down by RBI. Moreover,
changes normally take place either in a certain aspect of the environment, like
technology or after periodic intervals. The lack of ‘strategic choice’, as suggested by this
school, can be countered with the argument that many organizations survive in the same
environment using different strategies. This school also lays emphasis on the role of
leadership and organization’s structure in the process of strategy formation. There is no
doubt that the role of leaders becomes important in a situation marked by a sudden shift,
as it is their vision that binds the organization and enables it to move forward.
An example in this regard is the stand taken by Ratan Tata regarding the Singur
controversy wherein, in order to protect his employees in the turbulent environment, he
shifted the Tata Nano project elsewhere.

The Configuration School

This school attempts to integrate learning from all previous schools. It has two sides viz.,
‘configuration’ and ‘transformation’. The configuration side describes the states of an

50 The IUP Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. VI, No. 2, 2009

organization and its surrounding context, whereas, transformation describes the
strategy making process. This is known as a configuration school mainly due to two
reasons: (i) it describes how different dimensions of an organization cluster together
under particular conditions to define states, models or ideal types; and (ii) how these
different states get sequenced over time to define states, periods and organizational
life cycle.

Critique
This school makes an attempt to combine the premises of all the schools and presents an
overall picture of strategy formation. This school has been criticized for its simplicity in
terms of understanding and practice. It can be stated that proponents of this school have
made many assumptions in order to explain complex phenomena that raises questions
about its relevance in practical situations.

The Book in Totality

Towards the end of this book, the authors have attempted to look at the wider picture
comprising all 10 schools (Table 1) of strategy formation unlike earlier. They have
compared each school with animals, e.g., design school with a spider, squirrel with the
planning school, etc. The authors have discussed various issues that cropped up during the
discussion of the schools, like the issue of generic strategy in a positioning school.
To conclude, the authors have tried to understand various perspectives of strategy
formation and view strategy formation as a single integrated process in order to see the
whole picture. The book provides a more balanced view of strategy formation providing
sufficient space to both prescriptive as well as descriptive views. Moreover, it helps a
scholar to look at the field of strategic management from various angles instead of just one
or two perspectives. This provides a better understanding of the subject. Though various
issues emerged during the discussion of schools, no concrete solutions have been suggested
by the authors.

Conclusion
Other books in this area include The Rise and fall of Strategic Planning, by Mintzberg and
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don’t by Jim Collins.
The former criticized the role of strategic planners in the process of strategy formation.
According to the book, planners need not be strategic planners, but should facilitate
strategy formulators by providing their analysis of numerical data required for strategy
formation. Jim Collins explored the transformation of companies from mediocrity to
excellence and principles associated with this occurrence. According to their book,
phenomena such as technology, mergers and acquisitions, etc., have no role to play in the
above transformation. Greatness of company, is a function of conscious choice and not of
circumstances (a critic of learning school). Moreover, the book also emphasizes the role
that leaders (CEOs) and culture play in facilitating this transformation. This is in
agreement with the entrepreneurial and cultural school of thought.

Perspectives in Strategic Management 51

A Critique of Strategy Safari: The Complete Guide Through the Wilds of Strategic Management
52
Table 1: The Ten Schools of Thought

Concept of Major
Sl. School of Critique
Strategy Major Premises Constructs
No. Thought
Formation
1. The Design Strategy 1. Fit between internal capabilities Unique strategy for every organization sounds
School formation as and external possibilities. logical because every organization has its own
process of 2. Strategy formulation as a deliberate, strengths and weakness. However, frequent
conception informal and explicit effort which changes in structure every time an organization
SWOT Analysis
is unique for every organization. changes its strategy may not auger well for an
organization like in the case of DEC.
3. Strategy precedes structure in every
organization.
2. The Planning Strategy 1. Strategy formulated by specialists. Scenario Planning Strategy based merely on tangibles like hard
School formation as a 2. Strategy formulation as a formal and Strategic numbers and ignoring qualitative aspects like,
formal process process. Control leadership, culture, employee motivation, etc.,
may not reveal the true picture.
3. Separation between strategy formu-
lation and strategy implementation
3. The Positioning Strategy 1. Strategy: A combination of offence Generic Strategies A limited number of options in terms of generic
School formation as and defense. strategies available for an organization go against
an analytical 2. Organizational structure and strategy the premise of a design school. Moreover, it does
process is heavily influenced by industry not explain why different organizations in the same
structure. industry are successful with different structures.
4. The Strategy forma- 1. Strategy formation is dependent on Role of Personality, Leads to dependence on single individual and
Entrepreneurial tion as a the vision of the leader of an Leadership and separates strategy formulation from strategy
School visionary process organization. Strategic Vision implementation.

5. The Cognitive Strategy 1. Strategy formation is a cognitive Cognition as Here, strategy formation depends upon how
School formation as process which deals with how the Confusion, as selected individuals visualize and interpret a given
a mental mind works and processes informa Mapping and as situation that leads to distortion of information.
process tion in any given situation. Information
Processing

The IUP Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. VI, No. 2, 2009

(Cont.)
 Table 1: The Ten Schools of Thought

Concept of Major
Sl. School of Critique
Strategy Major Premises Constructs
No. Thought
Formation
2. Strategists are self-taught. They Cognition Maps,
develop their self-knowledge and Frames and
structure their thought processes Schemata
based on their past experiences.
6. The Learning Strategy 1. Strategy in an organization is not Disjointed Incremen- By defining strategy as an emergent process, the

Perspectives in Strategic Management

School formation as formulation, instead it emerges out talism, Logical proponents undermine the role played by
an emergent over a period of time as a pattern Incrementalism, leadership like, Jobs, who achieved success
process based on trial and error. Evolutionary Theory through their visions.
amd Chaos Theory
7. The Power Strategy 1. Strategy formation is a result of Politics, Power, Sometimes too much power in the hands of a
School formation as struggle between various powerful Negotiation, particular individual or a group may lead to
a process of groups working within an Collusion, Stake- conflict of interest as the dominant individual/
negotiation organization. holder Analysis group may formulate a strategy that may be
aimed at defeating their rivals and satisfying their
own benefit, rather than that of the organization.
8. Strategy 1. Strategy formation as a process of Corporate Culture, Focussing only on culture and not on other
The Culture
formation as social interaction between the Values, Beliefs, Radical factors of internal and external environment like
School
a collective members of an organization. Change, Strategic Drift, competition, industry structure and consumers
process Experimentation and may lead to strategic failure, e.g., Motorola.
Reformulation.

A Critique of Strategy Safari: The Complete Guide Through the Wilds of Strategic Management
9. The Strategy 1. Strategy of an organization involves Adaptation, Strategic formation as a reactive approach may keep
Environmental formation as adapting to the changes taking place Contingency Theory the organization always on the defensive and hence
School a reactive in the external environment. and Organization as it may not be in a position to respond appropri-
process an Ecosystem ately to the sudden change in the environment.
10. The Strategy 1. Strategy consists of sequence of Organizational Life The assumptions may not be relevant in
Configuration formation as a alternate transformations and Cycle, Models and practical situations.
School process of configurations. Ideal Types

53
transformation
 This book presents a comprehensive picture of strategic formation; however, too
much emphasis has been put on the ‘what’ element. The authors could have discussed
about the ‘why’ and ‘how’ elements of strategy formation. In addition, the issue of
strategy implementation should have been discussed in detail. Majority of examples used
by various proponents of the schools involve big business houses and belong to
developed western countries. Therefore, this book can be extended towards understanding
the above schools from the context of small companies and companies belonging to the
developing parts of the world like, India. Finally, we see emphasis given to customers,
that are the basis for any company’s success or failure. Hence, this study can be further
extended towards understanding how each of the above perspectives creates customer
value. 

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Business Policy: Text & Cases, 5th Edition, Homewood, IL.

4. Collins J (2001), Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others
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5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation

6. http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Motorola-Analoguedigital-Failure/79322

7. http://www.theapplemuseum.com/index.php?id=49

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54 The IUP Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. VI, No. 2, 2009

11. Mintzberg H (1994), The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, Free Press and Prentice
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12. Mintzberg H, Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampe (1998), Strategy Safari: The Complete
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Reference # 33J-2009-06-04-01

Perspectives in Strategic Management 55

A Critique of Strategy Safari: The Complete Guide Through the Wilds of Strategic Management
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