The process and implementation of strategic change

The focus solely on outcomes, therefore, would seem untenable in the study of strategic change. Yet this is belied by the weight of literature which adopts the goal-directed model of a preconceived vision. Some of the processes which shape and fashion the direction and nature of change have been outlined in this chapter. The focus has been up-on the institutionalized weight of vested interests, the importance of context and the hidden rules of the game which lend an air of rationality to decision-making. (Gender and financial systems were selected for special attention, given their relative neglect in much of the literature). However, the chapter also began by emphasizing the analytical complexities in assuming too neat a distinction between process and outcome. Nowhere is the blurring between the two more pronounced than in the studies which have sprung from the cultural and structural approaches to organizations. Yet the notion of planned change should not simply be dismissed on the ground of its apparent academic paucity. It has immense potency drawn from practice.