Rejuvenating strategic management: the Strategic Option Grid

Abstract Has strategic management forsaken the practical concerns of managers? Much of what is on offer is intellectually self‐indulgent and managerially sterile. This paper argues that much of the strategy literature is remote from its actual market, the everyday needs of senior managers. Furthermore, strategic management appears to have politically plateaued in its appeal to these managers who, in the process‐related literature, are deemed to be ‘lost‐souls’, forever destined to be the victims of ‘logical’ incrementalism (Quinn, 1980), ‘muddling through’ (Braybrooke and Lindblom, 1963) and ‘emergent strategies’ (Mintzberg, 1978, 1994). Whilst some prefer to dwell on the rise, and perhaps more importantly the fall, of strategic management (or at least of strategic planning), there may well be clues to how strategic management might rejuvenate itself and become far more creative. This paper asks for those in the academic community to continue to remain innovative in ideas and approaches that might be of practical interest to managers and yet still be conceptually and empirically robust. The central core of this argument is the demonstration that a simple ‘line of enquiry’ (in detective terms) is able to provide real assistance to managers. This, it is hoped, can be done at the same time as helping us to observe and understand better new forms of strategic behaviour, rather than just dissecting the old. In essence a single framework is advanced, namely the ‘Strategic Option Grid’, which seeks to help promote clarity, imagination and insight into the process of strategic decision‐making. This paper opens the way for a future and exciting empirical research agenda through conceptual development. In terms of management education on strategy, the Strategic Option Grid approach offers considerable potential for both the teaching and learning of strategy more effectively. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.