The relationship between strategic process dimensions and organisational output performance: A South African investigation in relation to global best practices

Abstract

Strategic management is concerned with the foundations of sustainable superior output performance. In this regard two divergent, but complementary research traditions exist; one is rooted in micro-economics and is commonly referred to as the ‘hard’ aspects of strategy, whilst the other focuses on social-people aspects, commonly known as the ‘soft’ aspects of strategy. In emerging countries in Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa the soft aspects have been emphasised in research with very little attention afforded to the hard process-behaviour of strategy. This paper contributes to an understanding and assessment of strategic process behaviour in South Africa. It firstly establishes a global best practices framework which provides for different contextual environments. This framework then serves as a benchmark for the empirical findings of a survey amongst South African manufacturing organisations. The research concludes that South African organisations achieving above-average output performance are those that closely reflect the profile of the global best practices framework. One core dimension of the strategic process, namely Implementation, was statistically found to be significantly related to above-average output performance. Aspects relating to innovative behaviour also displayed a statistical predictive ability towards above-average output performance. Finally, it is considered that the survey findings suggest an increasingly global context for South Africa and consequently the successful transfer (positive spillover) of strategic management knowledge from the developed to the developing world. Various research gap-areas were identified and need to be explored.