Corporate Culture and the Strategic Grid: Preparing for the Implementation of a Strategic Plan

1. INTRODUCTION Strategic plan implementation is a critical process facing senior management now and into the foreseeable future. While literature abounds on how to go about strategic planning, there is comparatively little written about how to implement a strategic plan once it is developed. One explanation for this phenomenon is that successful implementation is inextricably linked to the culture of the organisation. Corporate culture can be hard to define, measure, or manage. As a result both researchers and practitioners have tended to shy away from placing emphasis on culture considerations when implementing a strategic plan. This paper, however, develops a practical framework for managers to use when preparing for a strategic plan implementation. The domain described here is information systems, but the framework has implications for all types of implementations. Strategic planning for information systems (IS) is receiving considerable emphasis in many organisations. In addition, IS is increasingly perceived as having the capability to change or alter core organisational directions, to reorient corporate strategy, and to even redefine industry structure (Raghunathan and Raghunathan, 1990). With this new strategic thrust of IS comes a heightened need for planning and co