Introduction to Strategic Management

Most of todays strategic management researches follow the paradigm of Schendel and Hofer, defined
in 1979. The paradigm described the process of strategic management as entrepreneurial work of the
organization, with organizational renewal and growth, andwith developing and utilizing the
strategyto guide the organizations operations (Sandberg, 1992). The concept of this paradigm assigns
strategy four distinct characteristics: 1) scope (market/products combination), 2) utilization of internal
resources for differentiation in the market and as a competitive weapon, 3) competitive advantage as
a combination of scope and competitive weapon, 4) synergy among activities, resources and scope
(Sandberg, 1992).
Such approach to strategic management allows forming a hierarchy of strategies within an organization,
under Schendel and Hofer declaration that structure and processes should be considered a component
of strategy (Schendel & Hofer, 1979, pp 17-18). Authors assigned six primary tasks to the process of
strategic management: develop goals, analyze environment, formulation, evaluation, implementation of
strategy and its control. Various schools review strategic management through organizations and
diversified processes. Strategic management can help organizations to work on disagreements in the
definition through assessing similar organizational variables and important elements.
Mintzberg described strategy formation as a process of thinking and 'intuitive vision, a learning stream,
where individual knowledge apply to social interface. He portrayed the process as cooperative and
conflict in nature with three focal phases: analysis, negotiation, and programming. All these phases are
impacted by specific environmental conditions.
Ten Schools of Strategic Management
Mintzbergs process of strategy formation is presented through 10 schools, introduced as different parts
of the same course. His approach in developing 10 schools of business strategy was initiated from the
resource-based theory, the perception that the company is a collection of capabilities.
Traditionally, strategies were assessed through Michael Porters five forces model, with respect to the
external environment and competitiveness. The model was criticized for disregarding to evaluate the
internal organizational environment. Contrary to the five forces model, the resource-based theory
evaluates the relationship between external market and internal organizational capabilities. This view
support the arguments that organizations competitive advantage depends on its ability to consolidate
and utilize internal resources. Mintzbergs approach to strategy formation derives from the schools of
strategic management theory.
According to Richard Bull (1999), Mintzberg developed ten strategy management schools, which he split
in three groups through literature review of over 400 sources and references. The first group is
Prescriptive Schools, determining how to formulate strategies. Design, Planning and Positioning Schools,
are devoted to this group. The second group is descriptive schools: Learning, Power, Cognitive,
Entrepreneurial, Cultural, and Environmental. This category is answering the question: how strategies

happen. The final group is represented by one school: Configuration School. This school gives credits to
all previous schools.
The Learning School
The most complex of the descriptive schools is the Learning School, and it would be interesting to review
it in detail. Chris Argyris, Donald Shon and others started to endorse the school, making it popular, in the
1970s. Learning school is one of the descriptive schools, initiated from incrementalism, a working
method, based on the chain of small, sometimes unplanned, projects. The method deploys a step-bystep approach, with many small changes over a period of time. Such changes serve to the purpose to
create one significant change. The School evaluates strategy as an emerging process where
stakeholders learn the situation and organizations capability in reaction to different aspects. Some
scholars say that the Learning School was formed in contrast to the Design School. Burgelman
contributed to the Learning School by evaluating top executives, managers and operating managers in
terms of their values.
The idea of learning may be simple itself, but it is not that simple to be implemented. The central point
of the school is that it values individual and collective knowledge, experience, and efforts to contribute
toward strategy formation. People learn about situations and organizations capability to manage them
by maintaining specific behavior. Such behavior can be transformed into strategy.
From the learning school perspective, strategy is a network of knowledge where people continue to
develop in respond to anomalities (Pelling, 2004, p 74). The school evaluates companies through its
network and the degree of control on ideology. Pelling states that the school replaces formal
formulation-implementation process with acting-learning process, but does not specify how it is
controlled. Pellings arguments were that the school focuses on the experience, but there is a clear
explanation on how to differentiate good practice from bad practice.
Learning school incorporates several streams of inquiry and logic vision (Quinn, 1980). Mintzberg
argues that such logical approach is unclear or ambiguous (Hurtado, 2007, p 223), because it is not
obvious whether a strategy is formed together with a strategic vision or whether such vision is
developed before strategy formulation, by the strategy developer and through consolidating previous
successful attempts to strategic change (p 223).
The process of learning can go trough many different ways. It can be done either through diversification,
as in case of Philip Morris, or through mistakes, as in case of Honda. The key concept about the learning
school is that, in complex and unpredictable environment, strategy must have a process of learning over
time. Leaders must have an opportunity to learn within an organization, and their role is to manage the
process of strategic learning. The learning can be processed through evaluating organizational behavior
that stimulates thinking.
The strategic management process is informal and acts out of individual decision. Anybody can promote
ideas or initiatives. In this perspective, leaders role is to respond to these initiatives, to manage the
process of strategic learning. The concept was developed by Lindblom through theoretical policy of

rationality (Quinn, 1978) and the notion of venturing emerging strategy together retrospective sense
making. In fact, Sandlberg named Lindbloms The Science of Muddling Through (1959) and Quinns
Strategies for Change (1980) as the most influential works in the formation of learning school.
Learning school elaborates on Quinns definition of underlying logic, who consolidated all previous
successful strategic models or actions in a visible and articulated manner, in a way that was understood
or made sense to him. Quinn developed a mechanism that would lead to successful emergent strategy.
Bureglmans research partially contributed to this process of development.
The school authentically challenges prescriptive schools. It shares the ideas of emergent strategy and
Weicks notion of retrospective sense making (Mintzberg, 1999, p 25), the concept that strategy is
formed together with learning, through behavior of retrospective thinking. For learning school, strategy
is the emerging process of learning about the context and organizations capability. The process involves
both individuals and group of people.
Mintzberg confirms that provocative publication of Charles Lindbloms (1959) initiated the school.
Lindbloms standpoint was that organizational processes cannot be always net, clear, and manageable,
and; therefore, organizations need to produce the ability and behavior that allows them to work in a
complex and messy environment. Mintzbergs viewpoint was that usually people tend to believe that
learning process should end before actions, however it is not always works and for this author shares
Weicks vision that learning is not possible without acting (Mintzberg, 1999, p 198). Thus the school
approach on strategy formation is through learning and practice.
For instance, organization can learn through evaluating the pattern of its own behavior or by entering
new markets and see what is organizational strengths and weaknesses under particular terms and
conditions. As part of such learning process, Mintzberg developed an expanded vision of the umbrella
strategy, applicable to overall perspective and to its particular areas.
The school is viewing strategy as an emergent process (Mintzberg, 1998). It argues that the world is
too complex to provide the terms that allow developing strategies at once. As plans or visions,
strategies should be developed in steps, letting organizations adapt or learn. First, people have to learn
about situations and organizations capability, and then they can deal with situations. Such strategy
values individual contribution to the process of strategy formation. The school promotes little actions
and decisions from different people. This can be quite risky because the strategy can be influenced by
those, who have the ability to do it or who are close to the actions.
Similarly to design school, the learning school needs the information to evaluate external environment
and internal capabilities. The difference is that how the both schools use this information. In preceding
schools the information have been used by a limited group of people, in the learning school all
employees are contributing to strategy formation.
Steven Frenchs research critically examines the theory of business strategy through testing a small
business strategic process. For the learning school French created the hypotheses: strategy is
developed by a process of organizational learning (French, 2009, p 215) and the cybernetic paradigm

is stretched to accommodate non-linear ideas of learning, innovation, and emergence (p 215). French
believes that the learning school changes from a modernist/postmodernist classical linear paradigm to
one that is complex and self-adapting (p 215). Frenchs arguments are that the system is dynamic and
tends to transform non-linear phenomena in a cybernetic context and postmodernideas (p 215) into
postmodernism. Thus, strategic learning is not fit to the cybernetic organizations. French refers to
Eijnatten and Putnik (2004), who evaluate the issue through developing the ideas of organizational
learning (p 215) and shift them from a traditional linear paradigm to a complex, dynamic, non-linear
environment (p 215). This creates an entity that can be viewed as a final state of a learning
organization, if the organization is self-organized and transformative under hyper-turbulent conditions
(p 215). Such self-organized structure with its behavioral rules can change the paradigm from
modern/postmodern to critical. However, French reports that such vision is not accepted by the learning
school.
The critique of learning school highlights the fact that for rapid changes in an environment, the strategy
has to be flexible and methodological. Another critique is the concept of learning myopia, the
propensity to overlook failures or long terms. It is not clear what information is needed. As Shekhar said,
Every strategy has some inherent weakness due to the conditions under which it is formulated.
(Shekhar, 2009, p 48). Some researchers see learning school as purposeless and anti-strategic
(Shekhar, 2009, p 48). Some researchers go beyond and believe that learning school may form a
structure that is no longer required. Organizations should not only be on learning mode but also shall
evaluate the learning in order to get work done.
The main criticism of the school is that it is formulated under specific conditions, which may not be easy
to change and therefore the school itself may not be adapted to the rapid environmental changes. The
other criticism is that being obsessed with learning, the strategy may overlook failures and some
essential aspects, as it happened with Nokia vs. Motorola. The school depends on the conditions under
which the strategy is formulated. The conditions are subject to changes and the strategy has to be
flexible to respond these rapid changes. More critics come from the tendency to overlook failures,
distant futures and distant places (Jelenc, 2009, p 243). There is also criticism that learning process can
be purposeless and anti-strategic (p 243) may result manipulation and misinterpretation and not
strategic thinking (p 243). The learning process may be too slow and when the formation is ready it
may no longer be valid or required. Some strategists suggest the formation should be not only out of
learning but also out of exploitation of learning.
Shekhar et al (2009) highlighted the Mintzbergs concept of logical incrementalism in the learning
school, arguing that Mintzberg described it as unclear or ambiguous during formation of strategic
vision. Shekhar described the school as a synthesis that is supported by a successful example of
strategic actions. In addition, Mintzberg was criticized for not analyzing every single aspect, including
scenario planning approach with integrated internal and external factors. He also was criticized for
lowing managerial and strategists values and for not defining the issue of social responsibility.
The school is lacking in emphasizing on the future. From one hand, it refers to the business reality and
shapes the future through experience. From the other hand, one of the arguments of learning school is

that the future is unpredictable and this argument undervalues the effect of learning, showing that
there are some possibilities for trials and errors.
Pelling criticized the school for being too idealistic and confusing global strategy with localized tactics
(p 75). His argument was that the learning school confuses learning with responseandit does not
have any useful concept of active sensing (p 75). The author accused the school of being too dialectical
with little capacity to self-reflection or self-assessment (p 75). Pelling argues that the school grounds
its philosophy on pragmatic learning where anomalities may occur and responses to these anomalities
do not add any values or usefulness. Although he mentioned that the school has many useful features,
he strongly argued that it is anti-judgment and unscientific.
Despite of criticism, the school can be applicable for a highly complex situation, for unpredictable
environments that are not well understood. Mintzberg promotes schools approach for decentralized,
professional organizations that face complex dynamic situations (Sandlberg, 1992). The contribution of
such school is that it offers solutions for complex and volatile context and allows more people to learn.
The process is extended not only to the leaders. The strategy can apply to an emergent concept and is
strong in complex and changing context. Learning school is a process of strategy formation out of
knowledge and experience, with respect to individual and group experiences. Similarly to the cognitive
school, learning school reviews behavior that stimulates thinking (Jelenc, 2009, p 243).
The strategy is suitable for professional organizations. The limitation of such school is that the school
can lead without strategy or just with tactical maneuvering, applying strategic drift. The strategy is quite
questionable during crisis and is not useful in stable context. Besides, any learning process is costly to
organizations.
The Configuration School
Configuration school is Mintzbergs favorite. The school is more academic and descriptive, has more
stable and integrative characteristics, compare to the environmental school. The school views
transformation as a central process with defined context, segments, time, terms, and conditions. It
reviews an organization as a stable arrangement with certain behavior that would give a foundation for
strategy formation. The school compiles the applicable characteristics of the previous schools,
configured and adopted to the circumstances. It is architected out of the configuration process. The
school assesses organizations status, its context, through a transformation process. The school reviews
how different organizations characteristics are grouped together under specific context to determine
states and how these organizational states change over time. The school has been criticized for being
too simple, too incomplete to be understandable and practical. The school has too many assumptions
and raises more questions than answers.
The premises of the configuration school are formed on the vision of other schools but the school is
applicable for different context. Most of the time, organizations can be viewed as stable configurations
with defined structures that are fit to a particular context over a period of time. Such context engages a
particular behavior that forms specific set of strategies. However, sometimes such stability can be
disturbed by some processes of transformation. These states of configuration during processes of

transformation may lead to into determined progressions. Thus, the central point of strategic
management is to maintain stability or to adapt to a change with recognition of needs for
transformation. The process of transformation needs to be managed without distorting the
organization. Strategy formation can be executed through conceptual designing or formal planning,
systematic analyzing or leadership visioning, cooperative learning or competitive politicking, focusing on
individual condition, collective socialization orresponse tothe environment (Mintzberg, 1999, p 306)
but each process must be fit to a specific time and context.
The main criticism of the school came from Lex Donaldson (1996), who argues that organizations have
many forms and most of the time do not demonstrate either simple structures or bureaucratic
sophistication, most of the companies somewhere in between. Business has many grey areas that
cannot be expressed in black and white. Therefore, each configuration may have a problem of
diversification. Organization may have many different units with different structures which require
different strategies. Besides, an organization cannot be static or change quickly to new configurations to
avoid intermediate points or to reach a more stable configuration. It questions the process of transition
itself. Donaldson argues that the school is good for theoretical perspective, but the reality is always
more complex (Mintzberg, 1999, p 345).
Despite of criticism the school is applicable for a highly complex situation. The school consolidates
characteristics of other schools and employs the process that constructs various forms of strategy
formation in a particular time frame. For Mintzberg, the school promotes the concept that integrates
other strategic management schools into a strategy formation through configuration patterns,
reconciling disagreements and findings of the other nine schools.
Configurative school has academic and descriptive features, considering organizations as a configuration
or rational groups of attributes and behaviors that represent the arguments of the other schools. The
school is rooted from a frame theory (Rumelt, 1979), which explains when to apply various theories
from the other nine schools. For instance, planning prevails in formal and bureaucratic organizations
with the necessary presence of stability. Entrepreneurship is accompanied by the dynamic patterns of
startup and turnaround (Mintzberg, 1999, p 25). The key words for this school are configuration and
transformation. Configuration is about context and transformation is about a strategy process that
illustrates how different aspects of an organization are grouped together under specific conditions, to
identify ideal types or models for different states.
Configuration school views strategy formation as a process of transformation, where people are
integrative, grouping various elements of the strategy-making process (Makipaa, 2004, p 423). The
school takes the content of strategy, organizational structures and places them under specific terms, for
instance merge and acquisition, development, or restructuring. Selecting the required information is
based on the situation and the applied school. Such analysis has two limitations: classification of the
school use different criteria, which does not cover all aspects. The second limitation is that the
information needs of different schools has not been in focus on classification (p 424) and there is no
clear definition on the evaluation of internal information, its value, how such information can apply to
the external environment and how external information can apply to the internal conditions.

The school argues that each organization has stable configurations of its characteristics (Gregory,
2007, p 4), which apply to a particular type of context (p 4). It changes the organizations behavior in a
certain way, which allows to creating a particular set of strategies. In such contexts, the periods of
stability are disrupted by transformation. The methodology of strategy formation adapts to its time and
context, through the framework of ten schools. Such formation itself has configurations. The limitation
of such vision is that it creates many uncertainties and some configurations may not be valid.
Pelling names the configuration school as meta-school in a sense of adapting the most appropriate
strategy from the previous schools. The strategy should be adopted as a configuration to the context,
when demanded. However, he states that the school produces more questions than answers. First, what
are the criteria for selecting the right school for the right context or on a demand? When the particular
school is appropriate? What happen if the configuration is overlapped or when reconfiguration is
required? There are many other questions raised by Pelling. The author argues that the school may be
reasonable to respond to environmental pressure (p 82), however, it is not more than mirrors
Mintzbergs strategic agnosticism (p 82) and it is full of his ideological bias that are pro-model and antitheoretical. The school may fail into the subjective strategic design of knowledge, which is suitable for a
specific situation. Pelling argues that configuration should have active characteristics with active
multiple structures that would allow active choice between them rather than passively accept what such
structures offer. The school has been criticized for an attempt to combine the premises of all the
schools (Shekhar, 2009, p 51) to present an overall status for strategy formation. Shekhar criticized the
school for being too simple, he also doubted and challenged its practicality.
Comparing Learning and Configuration school
Learning school looks into depth, and configurative school looks at the process. Both schools fail under
descriptive category, form and express their knowledge through personal experience, and are
collaborative in nature. The schools are shaped out of knowledge, its processing and structuring.
Creativity is a very essential part of these schools. Both schools have been criticized for subjectivity and
misinterpretation of consolidated data. Such subjectivity has a negative impact on strategy formation.
Both schools form strategies out of knowledge and experience and recognize behavior that stimulates
thinking (Jelenc, 2009, p 243). Both schools depend on the conditions of strategy formation, have
flexibility challenges and the risk to overlook failures, distant futures and distant places (Jelenc, 2009,
p 243).
Strategy formation and Mintzbergs schools
There are different options in the market segments, products and services, customers and geographic
location. Determining what is possible and what is required is the result of strategic choice, the process
that involves a comparison of strategic options. Strategic options need to be aligned with organizational
requirements. Even if managers are free to make strategic choices, they need to predict the result by
evaluating what are the chances or opportunities. The process of strategic choice can be rationally
defined in an analytical manner. Practically, it may be difficult to identify all possible options and create

new opportunities, considering unexpected events that can destroy such opportunities, but good
strategic choice should be challenging and achievable.
Strategy formation process may go from a number of phases, such as available options, strategic intent
and strategic assessment. Where all three are overlapped, there will be feasible options for selecting a
strategy. In practice, the process of strategy selection can be more sophisticated, complex and messy.
The process of strategy selection is answering the following questions; what, how, why, who, and
when.
The learning school strategy formation is applicable for complex and uncertain environments when
individuals and groups can learn from the situation and organizations capability. Such process takes
time and promotes the behavior of retrospective thinking. Under such strategy, the role of leaders is to
manage the process of strategic learning (Shekhar, 2009, p 51). The configuration school applies for
confutation and transformation processes. The configuration explains the organizations state in an
environmental context, but transformation applies to the strategy making process.
The learning and configuration school in a competitive market
Market structure is characterized by four different criteria: 1) the number of entities in the market, 2)
the size of the entities, 3) the amount of product differentiation in a market, and 4) the ease of entry
and exit the market. Understanding the market structure is a critical element to understanding and
developing marketing strategies. Knowing market structure can help to predict the behavior of an
organization. The structure influences the options that are available to organizations in terms of pricing
and market strategy. Economists believe that if organizations know the market structure they can
predict others firms behavior. The structure influences profitability and efficiency of market.
The most familiar market structures are competitive market, oligopoly and monopoly. The competitive
market structure is characterized by: 1) the multiple amount of participants (or players), all about the
same size, 2) equal rights on price formation, no single firm can make a production decision that would
affect the market price, 3) relatively easy entry and exit is required to enter or to leave the market, 4)
similarity in products.
Competitive market focuses on profit, products, and customers satisfaction. Knowledge and
competency are required to identify objectives and determine the methods and approaches to satisfy
customers. The thought of learning school helps in acquiring information on competitors, the
products uniqueness, key clients, channels for distribution, pricing strategy, expenses and research and
development (Sidharta, 2010). Learning schools concepts are better for planning when there is a
deficiency in predictability for changes in organizations environment. Learning school is a process of
strategy formation out of knowledge and experience. The schools gives credits to individual and group
experiences and is the most efficient when decision is based on the experience. Learning school
examines the behavior that stimulates thinking (Jelenc, 2009, p 243) and can be utilized when creative
environment is required, for instance, for workshops, brainstorming, and innovations. Learning can
apply for more complex and sophisticated organizational context, when planning is not possible.

Marketing strategy depends on the situation and market environment, which is not constant. The
strategy should be linked to the market turbulence, in order to continue a successful business and be
competitive. The thought of configuration school would be one of the most effective applications in
such context. Configuration school views transformation as a central process with defined context,
segments, time, terms, and conditions. The school is characterized as a meta-school, which compiles
the applicable characteristics of the previous schools, configured and adopted to the circumstances (of
competitive market). The school suggests how to group different organizations characteristics together
under a specific context (of competitive market).
Brandenbruger et al (1995) raise the point that the essence of business success lied in making sure
youre paying the right game (p 57). To ensure whether organizations play the right game, they can
employ game theory, which was developed as a mathematical structure for the game of business. Being
the greatest scientific achievements of the century (p 57), with mathematical and economical roots,
the theory provides a systematic way to understand the behavior of players in situations where their
fortunes are interdependent (p 57). The authors of the game, Neumann and Morgenstern,
demonstrated two types of games: 1) rule-based, 2) freewheeling games.
Rule-based games use specific rules of engagement, which can be documented in terms of contracts,
agreements or loans. Freewheeling games have more flexible relationship among all parties and
cooperate without external limitations. Business does not have a pure setting for ether type; business is
a complex combination of both. Rules-based game is simple in terms of principle: each action has a
reaction. The complexity arises from the fact that there is no single formula for the reactions and to
know the reaction, someone needs to play back and forth all possible reactions that may arise from the
actions. The reaction can be positive, negative, neutral, or combination of all three. Such game
presumes the appliance of learning school thought because the organizations need to learn the
reactions in order to anticipate and plan further actions. Learning school is the best solution for the
complex and unpredictable context.
Thoreau suggests that the best learning comes through personal experience (or experiment). Such
learning helps to built confidence in the direction of desires, which would bring to a success that will not
be reached under ordinary or common conditions. Successful strategy can be developed by freeing
yourself from the boundaries of stereotypes, by accepting new, universal, and more liberal laws
(Thoreau et al, 2010). At the same time, author emphasizes the fact that any strategy must have a
proper foundation and should be guided by universal rules and laws.
The main principle of freewheeling games is that someone cannot take away from the game more than
he or she brought to it. In the business domain, it can be translated as the value someone brought to the
game and what is the remaining share of values among other players. Organizations can benefit from
these internal principles to develop a new game that would be the best for a particular organizational
setting. The benefit from changing the game may be greater than from the current one. The thought of
configuration school would be the most effective applications in such approach. The school defines
context, segments, time, terms, and conditions of organizational changes and configures and adopts
such changes to the circumstances.

Knowledge on customers, competitors and understanding the market are the key to a good business.
Research process should be developed to support the gain of such knowledge and understanding.
Information-based economies are built upon knowledge assets and intellectual capital. Enlargement of
the national knowledge societies incorporates economic growth and social, cultural and human
development. There is a common understanding that countries that have higher knowledge assets and
intellectual capital are much better in terms of growth and development. Stewart (1997) defined
intellectual capital (IC) as the intellectual material knowledge, information, intellectual property,
experience that can be put to use to crate wealth. Such analysis illustrates that the importance of
knowledge assets has been increased. Economic growth became more dependable on intangible assets
such as information and intellectual capital, and there is an imperative need for assessing the existing
measurement models and theoretical frameworks of knowledge assets, in order to identify areas for
improvement and provide appropriate tools for developmental needs.
Market prices reflect not only to the materialistic side of man but also to his philosophical, ethical and
religions ideas. Build and maintain houses of workshop, avoid certain food and alcohol, refrain from
certain beverages and tobacco, assist to those in needs, follow particular dress code, and many others
are the factors that determine the supply and demand of the consumers good and the conduct of
business. The way of how thinking process can be understood in terms of representational structures is
the central part of cognitive science. Most work in cognitive science illustrates that the mind has mental
representations, which is similar to computer data structure and computational procedures similar to
computer algorithms. Cognitive theory states that the mind contains such mental representations as
logical propositions, rules, concepts, images, and analogies, and such mental procedures as deduction,
search, matching, rotating, and retrieval. Thus, cognitive science works with a complex 3-aspects
analogy among the mind, brain, and computers. Cognitive theory explains how the minds work.
Explanation on formal logic, rules ifthen, concepts, and analogies are part of cognitive theory. From
a marketing viewpoint, interest, values, attitudes and abilities drive people behavior and affect people
lives. Understanding how people feel and how they think is an important aspect of competitive market.
Many scholars admit the fact that modern management theory and practice works with complex,
dynamic and unpredictable business environment, which requires business professionals to be a
creative thinker, fast learner and active player. Under such forceful demand, the old approach of
strategic planning may be not appropriate. For instance, Dagmar Recklies (2001) illustrates traditional
strategic planning, developed by Mintzberg, as a model with the following components: 1) vision and
objectives, 2) critical success factors, 3) strategic options, 4) core competency, 5) evaluation and choice,
6) implementation. One obvious thing derives from this model, the predictable future, which is not the
case in a turbulent market. The main characteristic of turbulent market is uncertainty for planning
(Reckliers, 2001). Turbulent market leaves almost no opportunities to plan and predict business
development. The traditional strategic approach is not applicable for such a situation, because it cannot
adapt fast enough to unpredictable or unexpected changes, or to modifications of turbulent market.
Under such circumstances, organizations need new strategic approaches, which allow organizations to
recognize and utilize imminent opportunities. The though of learning and configuration schools are can
be such strategic approaches.