The value of formal planning for strategic decisions: review of empirical research

J. Armstrong

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: A review of research from organizational behavior supported the guidelines by corporate planners: that is, use an explicit approach for setting objectives, generating strategies, evaluating strategies, monitoring results, and obtaining commitment. To determine whether these findings could be applied to strategic decision making in organizations, a review was made of all published field research on the evaluation of formal planning. Formal planning was superior in 10 of the 15 comparisons drawn from 12 studies, while informal planning was superior in only two comparisons. Although this research did not provide sufficient information on the use of various aspects of the planning process, mild support was provided for having participation by stakeholders. Formal planning tended to be more useful where large changes were involved, but, beyond that, little information was available to suggest when formal planning is most valuable. Future research should assess the formal planning process, the situation in which it is used, and its effects on the total system.

Keywords: strategy; formal planning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1982
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (53)

Published in Strategic Management Journal 3 (1982): pp. 197-211

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/81683/1/MPRA_paper_81683.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The value of formal planning for strategic decisions: Review of empirical research (1982)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:81683

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().