Strategy Perception : A Qualitative Study of Perception Differences and Similarities

• Main Authors: Barazeghi, Roya, Hagring, Alexander, Klint, Fredrik
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Internationella Handelshögskolan, Högskolan i Jönköping, IHH, ESOL (Entrepreneurship, Strategy, Organization, Leadership) 2011
• Subjects: Strategy; Strategy Perception; Strategy Awareness; Strategy Process; Strategy Formation; Cognitive Style; Yoigo
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-16120

Strategy is an important part of any business. To become successful, a company must put a lot of effort into creating a strong and feasible strategy. To eliminate problems to follow the strategy it should be clear and jointly formulated. However, a problem could still be that the strategy is perceived and understood differently by managers and em-ployees within the company. This could implicate issues because these persons are ex-pected to follow the strategy and adopt their plans according to it. In this study we in-vestigate how the perceptions of a strategy differ among employees within an organisa-tion. This study is made with Yoigo, which is a Spanish telecommunication company that recently finished the creation of a new strategy.In this research, a qualitative method was used to collect primary data. Highly standard-ized and open interviews were conducted in Madrid at the Yoigo headquarter. In addi-tion, observations were used as primary data in order to better answer our research ques-tions and to fulfil our purpose.Our results indicate that there are significant differences and similarities in employees’ perception of the strategy. This study also concludes that a company’s internal envi-ronment could affect employees’ strategy awareness. We tested the perception of strat-egy through four different perspectives. The first three are customers, competitors and corporation; these perspectives are pointed out as key factors to a successful strategy (Ohmae, 1982). The fourth perspective was to investigate how perceptions differed in terms of the strategy formation process. Our major findings are that employees’ percep-tions regarding competitors and the strategy process are highly coherent while the op-posite is found about customers and corporation.