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This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

The term “strategy” is a difficult concept to define in the language of management. How, for example, is “strategy” distinguishable from “planning”, “management”, or for that matter, “strategic planning”? No single clear definition of the term, as it applies to business theory, exists in current scholarship; different schools of thought define and use these terms slightly differently. This is a problem that Steven French, of Southern Cross University in Australia, addresses in his article “Critiquing the language of strategic management”.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

The purpose of the paper is to justify the research programme and describe the conclusions.

This paper is a summary of the aims and results of the research published in two special issues of Journal of Management Development. It argues that there are three fundamental issues that must be examined in order to resolve the conundrums of business strategy: the semantics; the structures; and the epistemology and ontology of the subject. To achieve this aim, four papers (Part 1) cover the literature that allows for a research aim to be developed. In the subsequent papers (Part 2), strategic thinking is reframed. An inductive frame is created to develop a model to help small business principals understand the need to think strategically about their business. The proposition that better strategy can be generated if answers are found to quality questions, rather than quality solutions found for poorly posed questions, is examined. A deductive frame of fundamental questions is created based on this concept and finally a reflective frame, which is “critically anti‐management”, provides the mechanism for the inductive and deductive frames to be applied to small business. The methodology is presented by French in “Action research for practising managers” in this issue and this paper is the summary of the research.

A research aim is developed: to examine critically the theory of business strategy and reframe strategic thinking in order to develop and test a viable small business strategic process. Thus, strategic thinking is (critically) reframed and emergence explored beyond the (modernist and postmodernist) “box” of traditional strategic management.

Small business principals have access to an integrated system of strategic frames that have been developed and tested using action research. Consequently the small business principal can be confident that the strategic process has both academic and practitioner credibility.

Parker suggests that little work has been done in the field of strategy in any non‐modernist paradigm. The author believes that this may be one of the early comprehensive studies in this field to utilise both critical theory, in the form of critical management studies, and to apply this epistemology to firms that are considered to be complex self‐adapting systems. The consequence is that there is now a theoretical answer to the problems of both Mintzberg, because there is now a mechanism for emergence, and of Hamel, because there is no longer a gap in the strategy discipline, we have a mechanism for strategy creation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the strategy literature in order to identify scholars who have developed specific models of strategy.

An extensive review of the literature was undertaken.

The paper reveals Modernist ideas of several scholars who have developed methods or concepts for delineating the ideas of strategy. A body of economic theory is mentioned but is beyond the scope of this paper.

The paper suggests that a move away from the eighteenth century economic concepts must happen, especially the equilibrium assumption, if the strategy discipline is to be developed.

Very little work, especially in strategy has been done outside the Modernist paradigm. This paper explores the possibility of incorporating open system ideas into a strategic methodology.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a coherent model for small business principals to understand the strategic process and to be able to create and implement strategy for their own business.

Action research (AR) was undertaken to develop a system of questions, utilising the concepts developed in papers one to four of this series, especially the concepts that businesses are best understood as complex self‐adapting systems rather than cybernetic systems.

A model was developed and implemented in approximately 260 businesses. The model utilised the ideas of the strategy scholars but took a Socratic approach rather than a more traditional prescriptive approach. A total of 11 questions were posited to the business principals in a seminar series. The questions were designed to initiate a process of thinking about the business that was both deep and rich enough to allow the phenomena of emergence to occur.

Hamel has suggested that the strategy discipline should be embarrassed by the fact that a subject that is the cornerstone of an entire discipline has no theory of strategy creation. Mintzberg suggests that strategy emerges but provided no mechanism for this process. In this paper the development of a series of questions is described that will allow for the creation of an environment for emergent strategic processes to occur and small business principals create their own strategies.

Small business principals can now create their own business strategies without the need to understand the wide and often conflicting theories of the strategic process that is found in the strategy literature.

This paper seeks to develop a coherent model for small business principals to understand their management behaviour, with the intent to move their focus from an operational to a strategic perspective.

Action research (AR) was undertaken to develop the model.

AR is utilised to develop a model that explains in conceptual terms how a business can be deconstructed such that the structure of any business can be explained. By deconstructing the business, small business principals are able to understand the nature of their managerial behaviour. This behaviour is almost entirely operational. They must also understand the nature of strategy and how they can think about their firms from a strategic perspective.

Small business principals are provided with the opportunity to recognise their reliance on operational solutions to their business problems and opportunities, and accept the proposition that they must also think strategically.

The paper discusses the AR development of a unique tool to support the needs of small business principals move from an operational to the strategic level of their business.

The paper seeks to develop a coherent model for the application of action research to problems in the field of management.

An extensive review of the literature was undertaken.

No model of the process of conducting an action research programme is extant in the literature. Several scholars have commented on this anomaly. Action research has many applications and the methodological choice should be determined by the research problem. This paper provides a working model for researchers in the field of management to apply to their research problem, given that they have a reasonable understanding of the problem and can develop their research question by conducting a literature review.

Researchers in the field of management can rely on the academic validity of following this model.

The ideas of several respected researchers in the field of action research have been combined to provide a coherent approach to the conduct of an action research programme.

To implement the concepts developed in this action research (AR) programme in a single company and monitor the results.

In this paper the ideas canvassed in earlier papers regarding the inductive frame and the deductive frame are applied to a single firm and the response is observed over a period of three years. The CMS concept of a change in management style – from a modernist, traditional hands‐on, hierarchical manager/subordinate style, to a more inclusive, self‐management style is introduced

The tangible benefits that have been observed in the subject company over a period of three years are described. The strategic thinking process led to a change in company culture, which has resulted in many benefits deriving from significant productivity gains. Financial performance and employee productivity have improved significantly. AR as a philosophy for change and CMS as an epistemological paradigm, which underlies the core philosophies for the business, are now part of the long‐term culture of the firm and it is expected that the AR process will continue indefinitely.

Significant improvements in productivity and profitability have been observed. Sickness and accident leave have also been reduced and a positive culture of self‐responsibility is apparent.

This small business has demonstrated many improvements and it is probable that other businesses would also enjoy the benefits of implementing this strategic process.

The purpose of this paper is to review the semantics of the language of management in order to seek clarification of the terminology and how it is used and misused in the strategy literature.

An extensive review of the literature was undertaken.

Managerial language has been used to obfuscate and politicise the managerial process, especially the strategic process. In order to develop the ideas of the strategy specialty the use and misuse of the words in the strategy lexicon must be understood. The problem that the lack of consistency creates is, that in trying to assess the strategic process in the literature and in practice, it is often impossible to know exactly what strategic methodology is being expressed.

Rather than concentrate on definitions of strategy it is necessary to seek to understand how the terminology is applied and then allocate the meaning of the terms to the school of strategic ideas that the writer/scholar espouses in each relevant paper that is published.

It is necessary to recognise how the words in the strategy literature have subtle, different meanings and the way to understand the usage is to apply the terminology to a school of thought.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that the epistemology of the strategic literature is dominated by a Modernist (scientific) and Cybernetic system approach and that other epistemological options especially critical management studies and complex self‐adapting systems, might provide greater insight for strategic thinking.

An extensive review of the literature was undertaken.

The current dominant way of thinking about management is based on closed system notions of causality in which good enough long‐term prediction is possible. The process PLOC depends totally on this foundation. If a system's long‐term behaviour is unpredictable, then using the PLOC model is questionable. In the current turbulent business environment long‐term prediction may not be possible.

The life expectancy of a firm is only 40 years. Using closed system concepts to drive businesses to the equilibrium of a business plan may be killing the business, because a complex self‐adapting system in equilibrium is dead.

Very little work, especially in strategy has been done outside the Modernist paradigm. This paper explores the possibility of incorporating open system ideas into a strategic methodology.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a coherent model of several schools of strategic ideas while utilising and building on the models extant in the literature, but also considering a change of epistemological and systemic paradigms.

An extensive review of the literature was undertaken.

The result of the analysis of the literature is that a seven‐school model is postulated. The seven schools being grouped within three categories. The first category is labelled the Classical Schools and includes the Design School, the Planning School and the Positioning School. The second category is labelled the Neo‐classical Schools and includes the Contingency School and the Resource School. The third category is labelled the Post‐Classical Schools and includes the Learning School and the Emergence School.

The concept of strategic emergence, a characteristic of a complex self‐adapting system, is developed.

Very little work, especially in strategy has been done outside the Modernist paradigm. This paper explores the possibility of incorporating open system ideas into a strategic methodology.