Richard Whittington's Theory Of Strategy

What is Strategy – and does it matter?” Obviously, this is a question that many people should ask about organization strategy. To begin from the start, the background behind all strategies is that companies want to make interest and profits and they do so by growing bigger. This need of growth, however happen in many different ways which lead that there is no wrong or right way to do it , every organization try its own strategy and work hard to apply it to achieve their goals and objectives.”
“Richard Whittington, taking his own viewpoint, has reviewed several theories about strategy from the past five decades and categorized them into four groups by placing certain approaches into certain decades starting in the early 1960’s. He placed the

Similar to Darwin’s (1859) theories of the survival of the fittest they consider strategy’s role of strategy in the response to the environment for survival and to maximise profit. While markets are considered too unpredictable for large investments in strategic plans, the ‘Evolutionists’ “believe that high profitability and efficiency are essential for the survival of the firm” (Analoui & Karami, 2003, p. 50) and try to keep the costs low, increase efficiency and keep their options open. Competition will then select the fittest for survival while the others, if not changing quickly enough will powerlessly face extinction; successful strategies emerge in the process of natural selection and organisation fit into their economic environment. The proponents of the evolutionary approach advocate the idea that an organisation’s success is more dependent on the environment than on its managers. Evolutionists argue that differentiation, as defined by Michael Porter (1985, p. 119) as providing something unique that is valuable to buyers beyond simply offering a low price, is key

Instead of attempting to make changes they accept and work with the world as it is. While classical strategists follow rational analyses Processualists tend to follow rules and routines already existing in the organisation and individuals in the organisation bring forward own objectives and their cognitive biases trying to embrace these in order to decide on the goals that they all agree on. In the processual approach strategy rather emphasises on internal development than external, building on the company’s core competences. This is, as Jay Barney (1991) explained it, about using the valuable and non-imitable resources in the best way to outperform the competitors. The most valuable resource a firm can possess is knowledge as this is hard to trade on the market and hard to manage. Knowledge is gained by experience or by learning, making it personal and hard for competitors to