An Interpretive Perspective On The Role of Strategic Control In Triggering Strategic Change

Abstract

Rapidly changing environments press organizations to respond in an appropriateand timely fashion. Strategic control plays an important role in thisadaptation process through its identification and interpretation of "changetriggers" - critical events in the external environment that mandate anorganization's response. We argue that giving more prominent place to datainterpretation in the strategic control process facilitates the identification offactors that trigger change. We build a conceptual model around a three-stepprocess of scanning/monitoring, data interpretation, and response combinedwith three different levels of strategic control (strategic surveillance, premisemonitoring, and implementation control). The model assists managers by highlightingthe factors that can cause Type II errors (not changing when change isrequired) and provides researchers with directions for future inquiry.