Rational Approach to Strategic Planning

The topic introduces the concepts of business level strategies or generic strategies with the inclusion of both rational and emergent planning approaches. The strategies and planning of strategies have evolved with time and with the complex nature of strategies, there are various ways by which strategies are managed and organisations are able to develop future plans for successful operating plans and business functioning in the long run (Wheelen et al. 2017). The rational approach to strategic planning involves consideration of Taylor’s Scientific Management and Fordism theories while the emergent approach to strategic planning involves the application of Mintzberg’s Fallacies and Pitfalls to determine the formulation of strategies and adaptability along with ability of organisations to achieve unplanned strategies that are emergent or rational in nature with an action pattern been followed.

According to Holmes  (2007), the strategic planning involves management and implementation of strategies for gaining sustained competitive advantage, view things from a broader perspective and also facilitate collaboration all throughout with the involvement of middle level managers in various functional areas required to formulate proper strategic plans with ease and effectiveness. It is important to plan strategically, which can help in analysing, creating, implementing and monitoring the strategies for the accomplishment of competitive advantage and at the same time, make decisions for the betterment of business and facilitate communication process between the managers all different levels of the organisation too (Holmes   2007). Thus, careful planning to the implementation of strategies is essential, which can help in defining the vision, mission and goals of the organisation, determine the most suitable strategies to be implemented, enhance the level of manager’s commitment to achieve the goals, manage better communication and allow the organisation to become more proactive, furthermore improve the business performance (Langley 1988).

The Taylor’s Scientific Management approach resembles the use of scientific approaches to managerial decision making involving the collection and analysis of data and ignoring the unscientific approach such as the thumb rule, hit or miss approach, trial and error approach. As stated by Su (2017), the scientific management approach enables what a manager of the organisation should want his men to work and how it could be done in the most effective and cheapest way. The Taylor’s scientific management also includes various principles for supporting the practices of scientific management to production and work benefited through the rational approach to strategic planning (Su 2007). The scientific management involves the science components, not the rule of thumb, harmony and not discord. It also supports cooperation and not individualism while the maximum production is being focused on rather than limited production capability. Holmes (2016), on the other hand, stated that the scientific management, according to Taylor also emphasizes on the development of every person’s ability and even dividing the responsibilities equally among the management and workers for maintaining a balance at work and ensure that the expected production is achieved on time. The mental revolution on the part of workers and management is managed through influencing of behaviours and mind sets of individuals, which has been done by providing them with necessary benefits and facilities required to keep them motivated and encouraged to work perfectly (Holmes 2016). Thus, it could be understood that a rational approach had been followed by focusing more on enhancing the capabilities and skills of workers and making them grow and develop with time, which has influenced the production capability and business performance efficiency too to handle issues and complexities.

Taylor’s Scientific Management

The scientific approaches are adopted, because it is one of the major principles of Taylorism and then the managerial decision is made by ignoring completely any unscientific approaches, The scientific management approaches are necessary for making appropriate assumptions and determine the scenarios, which is used to support the rationale approach and ensure successful business production and stable environment (Wolf and Floyd 2017). The harmony means coordinated action undertaken and sharing a common goal to act according to the general interest. Gaining maximum production is the objective of the Taylor’s Scientific Management, which emphasises of rational approach to develop workers and at the same time, foster propensity and growth of workers along with development of their skills and equally dividing the tasks and responsibilities among the management and workers of the organisation (Clegg, Carter and Kornberger 2004).   

Based on the rational planning concept, the Fordism is another philosophy related to the manufacturing and production processes within an organisation. It has been targeted at increasing the production by standardisation of output and utilising conveyor assembly lines along with breaking down the work into smaller components to accomplish those easily. While Taylor’s scientific management focuses on the use of machines and bringing out the best of workers through the development of their skills and knowledge, the Fordism concept entirely seeks to combine the essential aspects into a single unit and make sure to reduce the costs of operations rather than maximising the revenue generation for the companies. According to De Giorgi (2017), the Fordism was introduced according to the name of a well-known automobile pioneer named Henry Ford. With the lowering down of costs of operations, the production has increased in many cases, because of the extensive abilities and skills achieved by the companies to use the additional money, which has been saved, for some other purposes like warehousing activities, supply chain management approaches, etc. (De Giorgi 2017). Based on the Fordism, there is an interrelation between the organised labour and business where the workers need to adopt certain management approaches to gain some benefits such as an increase in wages and other benefits.

In the context of strategic planning, the rational approach puts more emphasis on the Fordism approach, which has been effective for process engineering. Here the systems are standardised and most of the standardised components are used for the purpose of manufacturing and production, thereby facilitating the standardisation process that needs interchangeability of parts through the exploitation of machine tools and other systems associated with the production process. Koch (2017) argued that the rational approach and model of strategic management, being the major responsibility of the upper level management, needs a proper strategic plan with the involvement of lower level managers and the steps are followed in a systematic manner with the decisions of managers (Koch 2017). It is because of their skill and abilities of the managers who make decisions by determining the ability of the organisation and then approaches are undertaken for improving the skills of workers, which has further led to the involvement of greater numbers of participants within the organisation’s workplace (Thursfield 2017).

Fordism

The rational approach, also known as the prescriptive approach to strategic planning focuses on the three major areas of strategic management and links those sequentially. It is needed to be analysed for developing a suitable strategy during the implementation while the emergent approach is based on the three major areas of strategic management that are interrelated and analysis is done on advance for the other two. Based on Hakkarainen and Talonen (2014), the experimental process is faced with various trials and errors that may not be accurate for determining the difference between the phases of development and implementation (Hakkarainen and Talonen 2014). The emergent approach to strategic planning, on the other hand, is a dynamic approach that is managed with the emergence of various scopes, opportunities and threats faced. The traditional approach to management of vision and formulating the vision strategies are also considered as part of the emergent approach to strategic planning where the management does not involve anyhow, though remains connected with the various levels and areas of the organisation. De Giorgi (2017) argued that to gain a competitive advantage in business and ensure customer satisfaction, the fitness criteria is bound to change with the response in the market conditions (De Giorgi 2017). This influences the manager of the organisation to exploit the opportunities and utilise the relevant information to get accustomed to the changing environment. The strategic planning and management involve roper analysis and interpretation of information and thus the emergent approach could also support analysis of both internal and external factors creating an impact on the organisation’s functioning (Bolisani and Bratianu 2017).

Strategic management is considered to be a concept which is used by the management of an organization for the purpose of conducting decision making and strategic planning activities. Strategic planning can also be defined as the iterative and complex process which is based on the implementation of different objectives. The members of the organization are thereby led with the help of proper strategic planning and management. This is also helpful for the high management levels in order to gather and analyse useful levels of information so that the organization is able to manage the trends of the industry (Zieba, Bolisani and Scarso 2016). The dynamic and rational approaches based on strategic management are different types of thoughts. A rational approach is considered to be prescriptive and well-planned in nature.

The rational approach to strategic management is thereby considered to be a major responsibility of the management of an organization. The upper management needs to make a decision based on the strategic plan and the lower managers need to implement the strategies which are suggested by them. The objectives and approaches are considered to be major elements of the strategy which has been suggested by the upper levels of management (Favoreu, Carassus and Maurel 2016).

The rational approach of strategic planning is mainly applicable to a stable operating environment of a modern organization. The goals which have been set by an organization are defined with the help of proper establishment of the general goals and further discovering the objectives for accomplishing the collective strategies. The explicit objectives are thereby considered to be an important aspect of the rational approach which is developed by an organization (Shujahat et al. 2017).

Emergent Approach to Strategic Planning

The strategic planning based process is related to the ways by which a vision is articulated in an effective manner. The strategic direction is defined in an effective manner with the help of proper strategic management. This is helpful in the proper identification of different benchmarks which lead to the achievement of strategies as well. The emergent strategy is considered to be a pattern based on action which is able to develop within an organization where there is an absence of specific mission statement (Geppert and Dörrenbächer 2014).

The emergent strategy can also be termed as a realized strategy which is implemented within the organization based on the specific requirements. The strategies are developed and they start emerging in the organization with time and the levels of requirement as well. Emergent strategies are based on the set of actions which are performed in order to achieve an objective. The emergent strategy is thereby able to help the organization so that it is able to gain a specific direction of operations in the industry (Scott 2015).

Strategic planning had been introduced in the business environment of different countries in the year 1950. Mintzberg has been able to analyse the different pitfalls which occur in the process of effective strategic planning. The two major pitfalls which have been analysed by Mintzberg in different papers mainly include, the absence of the support which is provided by top management and the climate which has been developed in the organization which is not suitable for planning. The most important parts and major reasons of the sins are the managers who are inattentive in nature and the organizations which are entirely dysfunctional (Neugebauer, Figge and Hahn 2016).

The pitfalls which have been analysed by Mintzberg are mainly based on different reasons which include, issues that are faced by the organizations due to the human resources or different administrative problems as well. The lack of proper support which can be provided by the top management is considered to be a major factor which is able to cause major pitfalls. The first major pitfall which is faced by modern organizations in the environment is termed as commitment pitfall. The commitment of the top management based on planning and the different engagement based activities of the organization is considered to be a major part of the commitment pitfall which has been described by Mintzberg (Bolisani, Scarso and Zieba 2015).

Another major pitfall which has been experienced by different organizations is named as the change pitfall. The climate which is developed within an organization with respect to the changes that can be implemented is termed as the change pitfall. The planning based process is required to promote the changes which take place in order to improve the operations. The politics pitfall is considered to be a major level of political activity which is performed by the organization and is able to mess up the planning which is implemented in an effective manner — the improvement of the politics based environment which is developed within the organization (Neugebauer, Figge and Hahn 2016).

Mintzberg’s Fallacies and Pitfalls

The fallacy of predetermination has also been analysed and discussed by Mintzberg in different research based operations. The engagement based activities which have been performed by the organization need to control the environment in an effective manner. The environment in an organization is able to play a major role in the ways by which the planning process is able to engage the employees who are considered to be a major part of the operations. The fallacy of formalization is based on the strategic planning based process which is implemented within the organization (Geppert and Dörrenbächer 2014). The work based processes thereby need to be understood by the management in order to provide effective messages to the organizations. The Grand Fallacy based on strategic planning is a combined process based on the three major fallacies which have been developed and explained by Mintzberg.

The analysis of different pitfalls and fallacies have been able to provide a detailed picture based on the ways by which strategic planning is able to affect the operations of modern organizations. The rational approach is considered to be ineffective for the co-existence of implementation and formulation. However, the discussion based on rational and emergent approach has been able to depict that the changes which take place in the business environment are able to affect the operations and strategic planning based process implemented by the organizations.

The rational approach to strategic planning has several strengths such as the ability to resolve complexities in certain situations though it is too much unrealistic, linear and rational, which follows a top down approach to strategy, When compared with the dynamic or emergent approach, the emergent approach offers a less structured view of strategies while the rationale approach provides a better view of strategies. The approach is further supported by Taylor’s scientific approach to management and Fordism that focused on improving the skills and abilities of workers and even aimed at reducing the operational costs to strengthen the production process furthermore. In spite of the strengths, there are few major weaknesses as well such as the lack of ability to predict or assume the future, finding it difficult to cope up with the changes in business environment, which also sometimes result in unable to meet the clients; expectations and demands (Hubbard, Rice and Galvin 2014). The rational approach is limited to planning only the definite objectives, which is another major weakness and it is very rarely beneficial for creating a positive impact on the long term growth and development of the organisation.

The emergent approach to strategic planning has various strengths or advantages such as it has focused more on determining what the customers actually want rather than what the business thinks about the needs of customers during the implementation of a perfect strategy. The emergent approach to strategic planning is best suited for developing the best strategies that might not be effective until now and had been unable to deliver the most suitable outcomes (Saebi and Foss 2015). The emergent approach to strategic planning has also created an impact on the business performance by facilitating innovation prospects and improved employee morale, work culture and promoted women employment to foster a great culture and good working conditions. The weaknesses, on the other hand, are the lack of predictability to deliver the best results, not pre-planned and the emergent approach is only effective during an ongoing organisational activity (De Wit and Meyer 2010). It is not suitable to act as an alternative to a traditional deliberate strategic approach and thus it is nowhere suitable for small and new businesses. Another major drawback of this approach is the misinterpretation of information due to lack of a proper structure, which hinders successful strategic planning sometimes and could cause damage to the structure of the organisation thereafter (Kunitz 2015).  

Strengths and Weaknesses of Rational and Emergent Planning

One such example could be the downfall of Kodak due to its existing organizational structure and the company was resistant to changes, which further created complexities such as inadaptable to the market conditions and even not considering the rational approaches to strategic panning properly, which should have innovated the business functioning. Another example could be of Alcan, which is a popular Canadian mining company and manufacturer of aluminium and iron ores (Papke-Shields and Boyer-Wright 2017). The company believed in changing with the market conditions and thus, the Mintzberg’s strategy helped in responding to the external stimulus to form a planned strategy. The suppliers of the organisation needed innovative ideas on supplier customer relationships, which might also encourage better partnership needed to support the sourcing of materials and enhance the production process (Langley 1988). The emergent strategy was supported by this theory, which further helped Alcan to innovate new ideas and establish good relationships with both suppliers and clients for strengthening business performance, attract more clients and generate higher revenue in business as well.

Conclusion

The work and practices of Taylor were detailed, which included various aspects such as evaluating the fair amount of task and equal distribution of tasks among the workers, recruitment and selection of workers in a scientific way, standardisation of raw materials and resources, maintaining differential wage payment system and finally maintaining good working conditions for ensuring smooth flow of work and consistent production at the company. The Fordism, on the other hand prioritised on reducing the operational costs, which supported the emergent approach to plan strategies and improve business functioning. Lastly, the rational and emergent approaches were differentiated and it also determined how it could allow the companies to innovate business ideas and smoothen business performance, furthermore help in gaining competitive advantage and increased revenue generation too. Thus, it could be concluded that to develop and formulate strategies, proper and detailed rational planning would be essential.

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