BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

STRATEGIC PLANNING IN ORGANIZATIONS 4)5)

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R. ACKOFF writes: "Strategic planning (selection of ends) tends to flow from the topdown, and tactical planning (selection of means) tends to flow from the bottom up"

"… it seems to me that strategy can be characterized, if not defined, as follows:

"1. An organization's strategy consists of those decisions that are made by its highest level of management and that affect the organization as a whole

"…decisions not made at the top or that do not affect the whole organization are tactical. It follows, then, that a decision that is strategic from an organizational component's point of view will be tactical from the organization's point of view. Therefore "strategy" and "tactics" are relative concepts depending on the organizational level at which the defining is done.

"2. Strategic decisions set objectives for the organization as a whole, relatively long-range objectives, and formulate policies and principles intended to govern selection of means by which the objectives specified are to be pursued

and…

"The focus of tactical decisions is efficiency"…while "the focus of strategic decisions is growth"(1990, p. 523)

It seems that also in some cases the fight for long term (and even short-term!) survival is a matter of strategy

"3. Strategic decisions focus on prior (anticipatory) and posterior (after-thefact) responses to such potential and actual changes in an organization's environment as can affect its performance significantly

and…

"Finally, I think it essential that strategic decisions be so formulated that their implementation and expected effects can be monitored

"This required that their expected effects be stated in observable terms and that they be accompanied by a specification of the times by which the effects are expected"(p.524)

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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