Marketing

28

Long Range Planning, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 28 to 36, 1992
Printed in Great Britain

0

002+6301/92
$3.00 + .OO
1992 Pergamon
Press plc

Managing Strategic Change
Strategy, Culture and Action
Gerry Johnson

One of the major problems facing senior executives is that of
effecting significant strategic change in their organizations.
This paper develops a number of explanatory
frameworks
which address the links between the development
of strategy
in organizations,
dimensions of corporate culture and managerial action. In considering such linkages, and by illustrating
them with examples from work undertaken in companies, the
paper also seeks to advance our understanding of the problems
and means of managing strategic change.

A good deal has been written in the last decade
about the links between organizational
strategy and
culture, the problems
of strategic inertia in firms,
and the need for managers to manage the cultural
context of the organization
so as to achieve strategic
change and an adaptive organization
to sustain the
change for long term success. Howcvcr
much of
what has been written,
whilst striking chords of
reality for managers is frustrating
because it lacks
precision in explaining links between organizational
culture, strategy and managerial
behaviour.
This
paper seeks to help remedy this situation. It does so
by clarifying the links between the development
of
strategy in organizations
and organizational
culture,
so as to provide
quite precise frameworks
and
explanations
by which managers can discern reasons
for strategic inertia and barriers to strategic change.
It goes on to consider the implications
for managerial action in the process of managing
strategic
change. In so doing the paper builds on developing
concepts and research, and also the application
of
tools of analysis and intcrvcntion
that have been
employed within companies.

Explaining Strategy Development
Organizations...