From Strategy to Action: Involvement and Influence in Top Level Decisions

Who are the key people involved in making and implementing the big decisions that set the strategic direction for a firm? Do those who decide also see things through to implementation - and who amongst them wields the most influence? Drawing on data from a study of the making and implementing of 55 decisions in 14 UK public and private sector organizations, this research aims to discover who is involved in creating and who in maintaining organisations' strategic initiatives, and who has most - and least - influence. The findings are that who is most often in, and who is most often out, is remarkably constant across every kind of organization. There is a core and periphery of strategic actors: in most organisations production/service delivery and marketing, together with the CEO, are the heavyweights, but finance and suppliers also help set the direction. This article therefore identifies the group that bears much of the responsibility for the success, or otherwise, of strategic decisions in organisations.