A study of strategy implementation as expressed through Sun Tzu's principles of war

Business managers are facing the dynamic environment nowadays, and encountering more and more difficulties in decision-making. In order to formulate suitable strategies, they must consider all aspects of dynamic environments and situations which they meet. Sun Tzu's The Art of War is probably the oldest military book in Chinese and the principles which Sun Tzu advocated are still valuable in many business operations. When business managers can apply Sun Tzu's principles into consideration in strategic decision-making, they will create more and more strategies and methods in solving the countless problems. This investigation will be focused on the top 200 largest corporations in Taiwan and the purposes of this study are as follows: (1) To evaluate which principles of Sun Tzu's The Art of War could be applied in the real business enterprises when business managers formulate their competitive strategies, (2) To evaluate whether different kinds of firms adopt different Sun Tzu's principles, (3) To investigate how the levels of adoptions on Sun Tzu's principles of situation appraisal, strategy implementation, and strategic control impact on a firm's acquiring its key success factors and achieving its business performances. Results of this study are as follows. 1. Sun Tzu's principles of war can be used in strategic management and business operations. It has been shown that there are significant interrelationships between Sun Tzu's principles of situation appraisal, strategy implementation, and strategic control. 2. If firms' adoptions of Sun Tzu's principles of situation appraisal, strategy implementation and strategic control are higher, it will be easier for them to acquire their key success factors, and their business performances will be great. 3. Firm in high-tech industries most adopt Sun Tzu's principles of situation appraisal, strategy implementation, and strategic control in business operation, and they easily acquire their key success factors. Therefore, their business performances are usually better. 4. The higher firms adopt Sun Tzu' principles of internal environment appraisal in situation appraisal, adaptability in strategy implementation, security in strategic control, the easer do they get the marketing ability as their key success factors. Also their business performances will be better. · ½ ¡ CÁ ö µ M¡ u® ] ¤ l § Lª k¡ v¬ O¤ ¤ ° ê ³ Ì ¥ j¦ Ñ ª º § Lª k¨å Ä y¡ A¦ ý ¨ ä ¤ ¤ © Ò ´ £ ¨ ì ª º ¦ h ¶ µ-ì « h¤´µ M¯ à ³ Q …