Strategy and what it means to be strategic: redefining strategic, operational, and tactical decisions

What is it about?

Organizations that fail to distinguish between strategic and nonstrategic decisions risk their survival and prosperity. After more than 50 years of research, it is not yet clear what makes a decision strategic. Progress has been made recently, but the boundaries of strategic decisions are either too broad or too narrow. The contribution of this paper is fourfold. First, it reviews the extant literature and organizes it in five different categories. Second, it builds on the most insightful developments to suggest a more robust answer to the question of what makes a decision ‘strategic’. It emphasizes the distinction between strategic and tactical decisions. Third, it hones the definition of what a ‘tactical’ decision is, an area that is largely neglected in the business literature. Fourth, it develops a new decision-tree-based classification that is an easier and more reliable tool than the existing alternatives. The paper ends with research and practical implications.

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