Strategic Management Practices and Processes
Summary
Strategic management practices and processes encompass the routines, tools and interpersonal activities through which organisations formulate, implement and adapt their strategic agendas. Contemporary scholarship has shifted from viewing strategy as a purely formal, top-down planning exercise to recognising it as a dynamic, iterative and socially embedded practice. Key dimensions include environmental scanning to detect opportunities and threats; stakeholder engagement to align diverse interests; strategic sensemaking to interpret complex, ambiguous information; and the use of structured forums—such as workshops, digital platforms or cross-functional teams—to facilitate dialogue and decision-making. The advent of digital technologies has further transformed these practices by enabling real-time data analysis, distributed collaboration and enhanced transparency. Attention to sociomaterial aspects—how narratives, tools and spaces co-produce strategy—has deepened our understanding of how strategy emerges in everyday organisational life. These developments carry global significance, as they bolster organisational agility, improve decision quality and support transformative change in both public and private sectors.
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Strategic Management Practices and Processes publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in strategic management practices and processes across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Open strategy: A mode of strategising characterised by transparency, inclusion of diverse actors and collaborative decision-making.
Stakeholder engagement: The practices used to involve individuals or groups with an interest or stake in an organisation’s strategic decisions.
Strategic sensemaking: The cognitive and social processes through which actors interpret information and construct shared understanding during strategic decision-making.
Digital transformation: The integration of digital technologies into strategic processes to enable real-time data analysis, collaboration and innovation.
References
- Open strategizing for developing smart city food system: Stakeholder inclusion in practice. Technology in Society (2024).
- Open strategy and digital transformation: A framework and future research agenda. International Journal of Management Reviews (2024).
- Emotion in strategic management: A review and future research agenda. Long Range Planning (2022).
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