Business Strategy

EMERGENCE, 5(2), 5–28 Copyright © 2003, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Emergent Strategy Development for Organizations
Alexis Downs, Rita Durant, & Adrian N. Carr

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he professional field of strategic management distinguishes several different schools, among them the prescriptive and emergent approaches (Lynch, 2000). Although theorists distinguish different approaches (e.g., Idenburg, 1993; Mintzberg, 1987), in order to look more closely at emergence in strategic processes we highlight the distinctions between the rational planning and emergent schools, particularly in regard to issues of language and time. The rational planning school (e.g., Ansoff, 1979) defines an objective in advance, describes “where we are now,” and uses a prescriptive approach in which “the three core areas—strategic analysis, strategic development and strategy implementation—are linked together sequentially” (Lynch, 2000: 24). The emergent approach to strategy formulation has been characterized by trial, experimentation, and discussion; that is, by a series of experimental approaches rather than a final objective. Emergent strategy is undertaken by an organization that analyzes its environment constantly and implements its strategy simultaneously (Lynch, 2000: 26). We are interested in emergent strategy development, which has been less developed than other approaches, and is linked with Henry Mintzberg (1991), Shona Brown and Kathleen Eisenhardt (1998), and Ralph Stacey (1992, 1996). Emergent strategy, with its acknowledgment that uncertainty is here to stay, has the potential to address the current challenges of organizations. For example, entrepreneurial organizations increasingly rely on emergent strategy development rather than formal planning processes (Fletcher & Harris, 2002). Nevertheless, emergent 5

EMERGENCE strategic processes are often maligned as “irrational mechanisms, wishful thinking, ignorance, and conformism” (Idenburg, 1993: 136), claims that we dispute.... [continues]

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