Luis Ernesto Quezada and, Pedro Ivan Palominos, Rosa E. Galleguillos and Alexis H. Olmedo
– The purpose of this paper is to present a method for identifying causal relationships in a strategy map.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a method for identifying causal relationships in a strategy map.
Design/methodology/approach
A strategy map is a visual representation of the strategy of a company, which includes the strategic objectives of a company and the cause-effect relationships between them. Its network structure facilitates its representation as an analytic network process (ANP) model. The proposed method starts with a network with all possible relationships and then it deletes those relationships, which are not important. To do this, it uses the techniques of the ANP approach.
Findings
It was found that ANP is a good tool for modelling a strategy map and for identifying the important relationships of a strategy map. A study case of a manufacturing is shown to illustrate how the proposed method can be used in practice.
Practical implications
Normally, the cause-effect relationships between strategic objectives are generated in a subjective way. Even this way of working is widely accepted in practice, some studied have shown that the declared relationships are not necessarily valid. The proposed method provides a quantitative tool to establish the relationships between strategic objectives, which are obtained using a method (ANP) that has a strong conceptual base. This is an indication that the strategy map obtained represents in a better way the strategy of the company.
Originality/value
ANP is a methodology which is used to estimate the priority of nodes with in a network. In this work ANP is used to estimate the priority of the arcs of the network. The results of application in a company represent a good indication that the method may be implemented in other manufacturing companies.