Teorias em estratégia

Abstract

Strategic management has rapidly evolved in the last 40 years both as an academic discipline and as a domain of specialized professional activity. Accompanying such development many theories were created to explain the strategic behavior of firms. Resources, competencies and capabilities, industry analysis, leadership skills, organizational learning, game theory, institutional economics, and actor-network analysis are just some of the concepts that are currently used by academics and consultants specialized in strategic management to build a plethora of models and frameworks to inform strategic decision making. Furthermore, the strategic management field has been particularly permeable to theories drawing from disciplines outside the management field such as military history, complexity theory, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence and educational psychology. A first analysis shows that some of those strategic management theories are strongly aligned with economic assumptions of rational decision-making based on markets as self-regulated resource allocation systems, while some other theories are closer to a sociological perspective that values the social and cultural embedment of strategic decision-making and organizational behavior. However, these two orientations are not enough to understand the diversity of strategic management theories. Many scholars have tried to further organize and classify the many approaches to strategic management. Whittington (1993) suggested that strategy theory fits into a matrix composed of 2 key dimensions (processes and outcomes of strategy). Bettis and Prahalad (1995) have argued that different theoretical approaches may contribute to form a new strategic management paradigm. Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel (1998) consigned strategic management theories to 10 schools. Countless other attempts to categorize strategy theories exist, but naming them would take too much space. In this study we propose an alternative approach to theory classification in strategic management. We suggest that empirically investigating the assumptions managers have about strategy processes may help to reorganize and rebuild the frameworks we use to systematize and understand strategic management theories.

A estratégia empresarial é uma disciplina jovem. Comparado com os campos de estudo de economia e sociologia o campo de estratégia empresarial pode ser visto como um fenômeno de formação mais recente, embora extremamente dinâmico em sua capacidade de criar abordagens teóricas diferenciadas. Este trabalho discute a recente proliferação de teorias em estratégia empresarial, propondo um modelo de classificação destas teorias baseado na análise empírica do modelo de escolas de pensamento em estratégia empresarial desenvolvido por Mintzberg, Ahlstrand e Lampel em seu livro Safári de Estratégia (1998). As possíveis conseqüências relativas à interação entre teoria e prática são também discutidas apresentando o que definimos como a síndrome do ornitorrinco.