Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to address the following question: How do strategy implementation obstacles relate to each other and affect strategy implementation?Design/methodology/approachThe research methodology is qualitative and based on an extensive review of the literature and on an in-depth case study analysis.FindingsThis paper draws two main conclusions. The first is that the many obstacles that impact the strategy implementation process can interact and be strongly interrelated in dynamic and complex manners. The second is that obstacles can lead to and reinforce other obstacles, eventually forming long chains of blockages.Originality/valueStrategy implementation remains a difficult task with improbable success. This paper provides a contribution to an explanation on why so many strategy implementation efforts fail. It is one of the very few papers addressing the issue of the relationships between strategy implementation obstacles.

Highlights

  • One of the major unresolved management problems is the great percentage of strategy implementation efforts that fail, with most authors estimating a rate of failure between 30 and 70 percent (Cândido and Santos, 2011, 2015)

  • The analysis of the views expressed in the literature, together with the evidence gathered from the case study discussed below, suggest that obstacles to strategy implementation may accumulate, interact with each other, as well as be linked in cause and effect chains

  • In order to understand these findings and the reasons why these rates still persist, the researchers carried out a literature review and discussed a case study of the development of a strategic plan in the Faculty of Economics of one of Portugal’s newer universities

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Summary

Introduction

One of the major unresolved management problems is the great percentage of strategy implementation efforts that fail, with most authors estimating a rate of failure between 30 and 70 percent (Cândido and Santos, 2011, 2015). Remarkable progress has been made in the strategic management field, this problem persists, indicating that it is imperative to look more closely at the reasons behind failure. Research in this area has turned, in recent years, to investigating the effect of internal organizational variables on strategy implementation. Researchers have investigated how an organization’s characteristics affect the process and outcomes of strategy implementation. There is a complementary perspective that might be adopted and which has largely been neglected This perspective is concerned with how organizations characteristics, and in particular, implementation obstacles, relate to each other and affect the strategy implementation process. When this perspective is taken, it is imperative for the researcher to try to find answers to the following questions: Do implementation obstacles accumulate during strategy implementation or do they relate to each other in more damaging ways? If they do relate, can the relationship be characterized as a cause and effect relationship?

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