| Based on a review of current literature, research questionnaires, executive interviews, and personal experience as a corporate CEO, the writer suggests that many businesses lack a common understanding of strategy. Executives who participated in Formative Evaluation Research for the dissertation acknowledged this strategic understanding gap. Most participants commented that their strategic knowledge was acquired more from the workplace than from formal education. The Strategy Formulation and Assimilation (SFA) Process is intended to provide business leaders and educators with a simple and logical process for understanding, formulating, and implementing strategy by involving an organization's members.; The SFA process' basic premise is that all members of a business organization possess some information about the organization, its competitors, and its customers that is largely unwritten and exists as personal knowledge or opinion. The SFA process provides an objective framework for capturing, analyzing and utilizing the subjective knowledge possessed by an organization's members. The framework consists of a series of strategic charts and matrix exhibits upon which the group members' subjective knowledge is plotted using quantitative measuring scales. A group's participants then validate or disprove unsupported information with obtainable objective data. The study indicates that the plotted results of group information appear to be valid and valuable for understanding the business environment, the competition, and for determining an organization's unchallengable strategic strengths.; There is practical and formative evidence that the SFA process enables participants to raise their understanding of strategy. The SFA process is presented and explanations are provided that describe, and demonstrate, how the process works. The process is "user-friendly," and combines proven seminal strategic practices with contemporary concepts. One contemporary element is the establishment of standard "strategic terms" intended to facilitate the understanding and communication of strategy. Fieldwork indicates the process' matrix exhibits and analytical charts enhance participant's comprehension of, and ability to apply strategy. Executives involved in the Formative Evaluation provided both quantitative and qualitative assessments regarding the utility, practicality, and reward benefits of the SFA process. Research results suggest the SFA process enhances situational knowledge, internal collaboration, and economic performance. One of the SFA process' greatest perceived benefits was identified as the process being a catalyst for positive organizational culture development. |
