L'évaluation de l’impact de la planification stratégique rationnelle sur la performance des entreprises a occupé une place importante dans la recherche en management stratégique au cours de trois dernières décennies. Bien qu’une littérature abondante suggère aujourd’hui une relation positive entre la planification stratégique rationnelle et la performance, un certain nombre de travaux –théoriques comme empiriques– accréditent la thèse inverse. Cet article essaye de contribuer à ce débat important aussi bien au plan théorique qu’opérationnel en accordant une importance particulière à l’opérationnalisation des notions de planification stratégique rationnelle et de performance. Une étude empirique quantitative conduite auprès d’entreprises européennes, nord-américaines et asiatiques révèle l’existence d’une association positive entre la planification stratégique rationnelle et la performance.
Assessing the impact of rational strategic planning on firm performance has been central in strategic management research during the last three decades. This paper revisits this important issue by giving special attention to the operationalization of the concepts of rational strategic planning and performance, and including firm size as a contingency factor. A quantitative empirical study conducted on European, American and Asian firms reveals a positive association between strategic planning and performance regardless of firm size.
Adaptation is a crucial challenge for organizations, and an important theme in the strategy and organization theory literature. Lately, more has been written about adaptive or flexible strategic planning processes by which adaptation is achieved. In this paper we focus on a basic element of the adaptation process, i.e. flexibility within the strategic planning process. Many authors have depicted strategic planning as being excessively formal and rigid, arguing some flexibility is essential in strategic planning process. This article attempts to contribute to this debate at both theoretical and operational levels by taking into account a commonly evoked contingency factor (environmental dynamism) and by putting a particular emphasis on the operationalization of firm performance. An international quantitative empirical study conducted among firms from all around the world (Europe, North America, and Asia) reveals a positive association between strategic planning process flexibility and firm performance regardless of the level of environmental dynamism.
