The schools of thought on strategy formulation

The schools of thought on strategy formulation, were created by the academic Henry Mintzberg, in his book Strategy Safari; A Guided Tour through the Wilds of Strategic Management. Mintzberg proposes a Strategy Formulation process with ten school of thoughts. he believed that any type of business needs to be driven by a strategy.
Strategy Formulation Process
Strategy formulation is part of a strategic management process. Strategic management focuses in creating future-oriented strategies that allow an organization to achieve its objectives, considering its capabilities, constraints, and the environment in which it operates. A strategy has to be S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time based) is a way to make sure the organization's vision is made concrete If an organization wants to succeed, it has to accomplish the following phases.
1. Definition of the organization,
2. Definition of the strategic mission,
3. Definition of the strategic objectives,
4. Definition of the competitive strategy,
5. Implementation of the strategies
6. Evaluation progressThe former contains the design, the planning and the positioning schools. The latter, the entreprenurial, cognitive, learning, power, cultural, environmental, and the configuration school. This means developing a SWOT analysis, where the results can be used to analyse strategic options which both exploit the internal opportunities. Here the innovation and the colaborative learning are encouraged.
* The positioning school
* The cognitive school
This approach sees strategy formation as a mental process, using cognitive psychology to get into the strategist’s mind. According to Mintzberg, the Cognitive School’s approach is less than perfect. “This school is characterised more by its potential than by its contribution…The central idea is valid - that the strategy formation process is also fundamentally one of cognition…but strategic management, in practice, if not in theory, has yet to gain sufficiently from cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology has yet to address adequately the questions of prime interest to strategic management, especially how concepts form in the mind of the strategist.” with the organisation coming to realise over time what does and doesn’t work for them. What they learn is then fed back into their overall strategy<ref name=":1" />.
* The power school
Is focused on self-interest, here the strategy formation is shaped by power and politics, whether as a process inside the organization or as the behavior of the organization itself in its external environment. The strategies are emergent and partial <ref name=":5" />. Enterprises achieve their goals by persuation, lobbying and bargaining.
* The cultural school
this approach sees strategy formation as a collective process, involving co-operation between various groups and departments within an organisation. The resulting strategy can be seen as a reflection of the organisation’s corporate culture<ref name=":1" />
* The environmental school
This believes that the strategies and the companies have a life cycle and it rotates continually. So it seems important to understand the demand and supply of the products that are being used under the policies of the organization or a company and there is a viable strategy to exist is needed. The individuals acquire the organizations beliefs by a process of socialization reinforce by the formal training session <ref name=":3" />
* The configuration school<ref name=":1" />
The transformation process viewed as the strategy for the company in order to undertake such revolutionary alteration. The strategy is one of the most important aspects of the enterprise. Most of the enterprises state it as stable like adopting a particular structure for a number of strategies. The stability time durations are like a life cycle in the organization or company <ref name=":3" />

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