Strategy as Interaction: The Dynamics between Strategy Execution Effectiveness and Organizational Interactions During Strategy Implementation

Abstract

Organizations have for long used strategy as a springboard for actualization of their intent. The body of knowledge around strategy formulation is well established, but there is less clarity as to how organizations are to implement strategy to close the execution gap between their intent and reality. This research seeks to understand how organizations engage in strategy execution so as to reduce the “execution gap”. We uncover patterns of strategic practices with a view to conceptualize how gap reduction happens and what mechanisms influence it. We identify a number of dynamic environmental forces and mutually recursive organizational factors that collectively influence organization’s engagement within the apex of strategy formulation and implementation. Many of our findings support earlier studies on the prominence of individual factors influencing organizational effectiveness in closing the execution gap. In addition we uncover four key dynamics associated with strategy execution: 1). The dynamics created by the interactions between the Organizational shifts and environmental shifts which we call the execution gap dynamic; 2). The dynamics created by the interactions between the strategy focusing and the gap reduction forces of the organization which we call the gap reduction dynamic; 3) The dynamics created by the interactions between the strategy configuration and the execution capability of the organization, which we refer to as the execution focusing dynamic. 4) And the dynamics created by the interactions between the organizational capability and organizational focus which we refer to as the organizational engagement dynamic. . These four dynamics are inter-connected, multi-dimensional and recursive.

Keywords: Strategy, Strategy Execution, Strategy Implementation, Strategy Execution Gap, Strategy Execution Management, Dynamic Capabilities, Ambidexterity, Organizational Capabilities, Contextual Volatility