Question

Discuss the development of strategic management as a field of study and research. What is the content and focus of this field?

Answer 1

Strategic management can be seen as a comparatively new discipline that has come to a state of maturity in the past 50 years. This area o study has slowly being consolidated over the past 50 years at the same time, it has expanded the different types of ranges of topics that are to be analyzed and research methodologies to be used. There has been the development of the various theories and methods that are developed to address the various research topics in order to detail the various factors which can be used by the organizations as the mean of competitive advantage and success.

The origin of strategic management can be seen belonging to the 1960s when a publication of an article was made by Chandler, Ansoff, and Andrews. Ever since there has been a tremendous expansion of this field and over the period of time, the field has become more mature and consolidated within the periphery of management.

There has been a number of factors that were involved in the growth of strategic management. First of all, there was a significant increase in the different types of topics to be addressed by this discipline. The analysis of best practices in the 1960s has laid the path to the evaluation of these different topics related to the cooperation among these businesses, internationalization, strategies and relative competence for the different elements and factors, strategic leadership and the association of the strategy and corporate social responsibility

Secondly, this field has witnessed a lot of increase in the number of research methods that were used with having greater sophistication. Quantitative methods using econometric techniques and, multilevel analysis, hybrid methodologies substitute the detailed and in-depth case studies.

Thirdly, the increased maturity of this field can be witnessed with the increasing agreements on the basic terminology that are used for instance the concept of strategy, the definition of the topics

Focus= The main focus of the strategic management is on the development of the combined planning methods that are connected to the strategic and operational planning with the different management systems to address the requirements of the various stakeholders and customers and clients in such a manner that it can help in dealing with the complexity