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Review article, strategy and strategic leadership in education: a scoping review.

• 1 Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Research Centre for Human Development, Porto, Portugal
• 2 Universidade de Évora, Évora, Portugal

Strategy and strategic leadership are critical issues for school leaders. However, strategy as a field of research has largely been overlooked within the educational leadership literature. Most of the theoretical and empirical work on strategy and strategic leadership over the past decades has been related to non-educational settings, and scholarship devoted to these issues in education is still minimal. The purpose of this scoping review was to provide a comprehensive overview of relevant research regarding strategy and strategic leadership, identifying any gaps in the literature that could inform future research agendas and evidence for practice. The scoping review is underpinned by the five-stage framework of Arksey and O’Malley . The results indicate that there is scarce literature about strategy and that timid steps have been made toward a more integrated and comprehensive model of strategic leadership. It is necessary to expand research into more complex, longitudinal, and explanatory ways due to a better understanding of these constructs.

Introduction

Strategy and strategic leadership are critical issues for school leaders ( Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ; Eacott, 2010a ; Eacott, 2011 ). However, strategy as a field of research has largely been overlooked in educational leadership literature ( Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2008b ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ; Eacott, 2011 ). Most of the theoretical and empirical work on strategy and strategic leadership over the past decades has been related to non-educational settings, and scholarship devoted to these issues in education is still very limited ( Cheng, 2010 ; Eacott, 2011 ; Chan, 2018 ).

The concept of strategy appeared in educational management literature in the 1980s; however, little research was produced until the 1990s (cf. Eacott, 2008b ). Specific educational reforms led to large amounts of international literature mostly devoted to strategic planning ( Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2008b ; Eacott, 2011 ). For a long period, the concept of strategy was incomplete and confusing. The word “strategy” was often used to characterize different kinds of actions, namely, to weight management activities, to describe a high range of leadership activities, to define planning, or to report to individual actions within an organization ( Eacott, 2008a ).

Strategy and strategic planning became synonymous ( Eacott, 2008b ). However, strategy and planning are different concepts, with the strategy being more than the pursuit of a plan ( Davies, 2003 , Davies, 2006 ; Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2008b ; Quong and Walker, 2010 ). Both phases of plans’ design and plans’ implementation are related, and the quality of this second phase highly depends on planning’ quality ( Davies, 2006 ; Davies, 2007 ; Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2008b ; Eacott, 2011 ; Meyers and VanGronigen, 2019 ). Planning and acting are related and must emerge from the strategy. As stated by Bell (2004) .

Planning based on a coherent strategy demands that the aims of the school are challenged, that both present and future environmental influences inform the development of the strategy, that there should be a clear and well-articulated vision of what the school should be like in the future and that planning should be long-term and holistic (p. 453).

Therefore, it is necessary to adopt a comprehensive and holistic framework of strategy, considering it as a way of intentionally thinking and acting by giving sense to a specific school vision or mission ( Davies, 2003 , 2006 ; Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2008b ; Quong and Walker, 2010 ).

The works of Davies and colleagues ( Davies, 2003 ; Davies, 2004 ; Davies and Davies, 2004 ; Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ) and Eacott (2008a , 2008b) , Eacott (2010a , 2011) were essential and contributed to a shift in the rationale regarding strategy by highlighting a more integrative and alternate view. Davies and colleagues ( Davies, 2003 ; Davies, 2004 ; Davies and Davies, 2004 ; Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ) developed a comprehensive framework for strategically focused schools , comprising strategic processes, approaches, and leadership. In this model, the strategy is conceptualized as a framework for present and future actions, sustained by strategic thinking about medium to long term goals, and aligned to school vision or direction.

Strategic leadership assumes necessarily a relevant role in strategically focused schools. Eacott (2006) defines strategic leadership as “leadership strategies and behaviors relating to the initiation, development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of strategic actions within an educational institution, taking into consideration the unique context (past, present, and future) and availability of resources, physical, financial and human” (p. 1). Thereby, key elements of strategic leadership can be identified as one that: 1) acts in a proactive way to contextual changes; 2) leads school analysis and response to changing environment; 3) leads planning and action for school effectiveness and improvement in face of contextual challenges and; 4) leads monitoring and evaluation processes to inform decision making strategically ( Cheng, 2010 ). This brings to the arena a complex and dynamic view of strategic leadership as it is a complex social activity that considers important historical, economic, technological, cultural, social, and political influences and challenges ( Eacott, 2011 ).

Along with these authors, this paper advocates a more comprehensive and contextualized view of strategy and strategic leadership, where strategy is the core element of any leadership action in schools ( Davies and Davies, 2010 ; Eacott, 2011 ). Here, strategic leadership is not seen as a new theory, but an element of all educational leadership and management theories ( Davies and Davies, 2010 ). Even so, these concepts can inform and be informed by diverse leadership theories, a strategy-specific framework is needed in the educational field.

Considering all the above, strategy can be identified as a topic that is being researched in education, in the recent decades. Nonetheless, there is still scarce educational literature about this issue ( Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ; Cheng, 2010 ; Eacott, 2011 ; Chan, 2018 ). After 10 years of Eacott’s analysis of literature on strategy in education, it seems that this educational construct is being overlooked as there is still no consensual definition of strategy, different studies are supported in diverse conceptual frameworks and empirical studies about this topic are scarce ( Cheng, 2010 ; Eacott, 2011 ; Chan, 2018 ). Moreover, despite the interest of a multidisciplinary vision of strategy and strategic leadership, we agree with Eacott (2008b) about the need for a meaningful definition of strategy and strategic leadership in education, as it is a field with its specifications. Hence, research is needed for a clear definition of strategy, an integrated and complete framework for strategic action, a better identification of multiple dimensions of strategy and a comprehensive model of strategic leadership that has strategic thinking and action as core elements for schools improvement (e.g., Eacott, 2010a ; Hopkins et al., 2014 ; Reynolds et al., 2014 ; Harris et al., 2015 ; Bellei et al., 2016 ). This paper aims to contribute to the field offering a scoping review on strategy and strategic leadership in the educational field.

A clear idea of what strategy and strategic leadership mean and what theory or theories support it are of great importance for research and practice. This scoping review is an attempt to contribute to a strategy-specific theory by continuing to focus on ways to appropriately develop specific theories about strategy and strategic leadership in the educational field, particularly focusing on school contexts.

This study is a scoping review of the literature related to strategy and strategic leadership, which aims to map its specific aspects as considered in educational literature. Scoping reviews are used to present a broad overview of the evidence about a topic, irrespective of study quality, and are useful when examining emergent areas, to clarify key concepts or to identify gaps in research (e.g., Arksey and O’Malley, 2005 ; Peters et al., 2015 ; Tricco et al., 2016 ). Since in the current study we wanted to explore and categorize, but not evaluate, information available concerning specific aspects of strategy in educational literature, we recognize that scoping review methodology serves well this purpose.

In this study, Arksey and O’Malley (2005) five-stage framework for scoping reviews, complemented by the guidelines of other authors ( Levac et al., 2010 ; Colquhoun et al., 2014 ; Peters et al., 2015 ; Khalil et al., 2016 ), was employed. The five stages of Arksey and O’Malley’s framework are 1) identifying the initial research questions, 2) identifying relevant studies, 3) study selection, 4) charting the data, and 5) collating, summarizing and reporting the results. In the sections below, the process of this scoping review is presented.

Identifying the Initial Research Questions

The focus of this review was to explore key aspects of strategy and strategic leadership in educational literature. The primary question that guided this research was: What is known about strategy and strategic leadership in schools? This question was subdivided into the following questions: How should strategy and strategic leadership in schools be defined? What are the main characteristics of strategic leadership in schools? What key variables are related to strategy and strategic leadership in schools?

Identifying Relevant Studies

As suggested by Arksey and O’Malley (2005) , keywords for the search were defined, and databases were selected. Key concepts and search terms were developed to capture literature related to strategy and strategic leadership in schools, considering international perspectives. The linked descriptive key search algorithm that was developed to guide the search is outlined in Table 1 .

TABLE 1 . Key search algorithm.

Considering scoping review characteristics, time and resources available, inclusion and exclusion criteria were developed. Papers related to strategy and strategic leadership, published between 1990 and 2019, were included. Educational literature has reported the concepts of strategy and strategic leadership since the 1980s ( Eacott, 2008a ; 2008b ). However, it gained expansion between 1990 and 2000 with studies flourishing mostly about strategic planning ( Eacott, 2008b ). Previous research argues that strategy is more than planning, taking note of the need to distinguish the concepts. Considering our focus on strategy and strategic leadership, studies about strategic planning were excluded as well as papers specifically related to other theories of leadership than strategic leadership. A full list of inclusion and exclusion criteria is outlined in Table 2 .

TABLE 2 . Inclusion and exclusion criteria.

The following six electronic databases were searched to identify peer-reviewed literature: ERIC, Education Source, Academic Search Complete, Science Direct, Emerland, and Web of Science. Additionally, a manual search of the reference lists of identified articles was undertaken, and Google Scholar was utilized to identify any other primary sources. The review of the literature was completed over 2 months, ending in August 2019.

Study Selection

The process of studies’ selection followed the Preferred Reporting of Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement ( Moher et al., 2009 ). Figure 1 illustrates the process of article selection.

FIGURE 1 . PRISMA chart outlining the study selection process.

With the key search descriptors, 1,193 articles were identified. A further number of articles were identified using Google Scholar. However, a large number of articles were removed from the search, as they were duplicated in databases, and 231 studies were identified as being relevant.

The next phases of studies’ selection were guided by the inclusion and exclusion criteria presented above. A screening of the titles, keywords, and abstracts revealed a large number of irrelevant articles, particularly those related to strategic planning (e.g., Agi, 2017 ) and with general ideas about leadership (e.g., Corral and Gámez, 2010 ). Only 67 studies were selected for full-text access and analyses.

Full-text versions of the 67 articles were obtained, with each article being reviewed and confirmed as appropriate. This process provided an opportunity to identify any further additional relevant literature from a review of the reference lists of each article (backward reference search; n = 2). Ultimately, both with database search and backward reference search, a total of 29 articles were included to be analyzed in the scoping review, considering inclusion and exclusion criteria. During this process of study selection, several studies were excluded. As in the previous phase, examples of excluded papers include studies related to strategic planning where the focus is on the planning processes (e.g., Bennett et al., 2000 ; Al-Zboon and Hasan, 2012 ; Schlebusch and Mokhatle, 2016 ) or with general ideas about leadership (e.g., FitzGerald and Quiñones, 2018 ). Additionally, articles that were primarily associated with other topics or related to specific leadership theories (e.g., instructional leadership, transformational leadership) and that only referred briefly to strategic leadership were excluded (e.g., Bandur, 2012 ; Malin and Hackmann, 2017 ). Despite the interest of all these topics for strategic action, we were interested specifically in the concepts of strategy, strategic leadership, and its specifications in educational literature.

Data Charting and Collation

The fourth stage of Arksey and O’Malley (2005) scoping review framework consists of charting the selected articles. Summaries were developed for each article related to the author, year, location of the study, participants, study methods, and a brief synthesis of study results related to our research questions. Details of included studies are provided in the table available in Supplementary Appendix S1 .

Summarising and Reporting Findings

The fifth and final stage of Arksey and O’Malley (2005) scoping review framework summarises and reports findings as presented in the next section. All the 29 articles were studied carefully and a content analysis was taken to answer research questions. Research questions guided summaries and synthesis of literature content.

In this section, results are presented first with a brief description of the origin and nature of the studies, and then as answering research questions previously defined.

This scoping review yielded 29 articles, specifically devoted to strategy and strategic leadership in education, from eleven different countries (cf. Figure 2 ). The United Kingdom and Australia have the highest numbers of papers. There is a notable dispersion of literature in terms of geographical distribution.

FIGURE 2 . Number of papers per country.

A large number of these articles were published by Brent Davies and colleagues ( N = 9) and Scott Eacott ( N = 6). Without question, these authors have influenced and shaped the theoretical grounding about strategy and strategic leadership in educational literature. While Davies and colleagues have contributed to design a framework of strategy and strategic leadership, influencing the emergence of other studies related to these topics, Eacott provided an essential contribution by exploring, systematizing, and problematizing the existing literature about these same issues. The other authors have published between one and two papers about these topics.

Seventeen papers are of conceptual or theoretical nature, and twelve are empirical research papers (quantitative methods–7; qualitative methods–4; mixed methods–1). The conceptual/theoretical papers analyze the concepts of strategy and strategic leadership, present a framework for strategic leadership, and discuss implications for leaders’ actions. The majority of empirical studies are related to the skills, characteristics, and actions of strategic leaders. Other empirical studies explore relations between strategic leadership and other variables, such as collaboration, culture of teaching, organizational learning, and school effectiveness.

How should Strategy and Strategic Leadership in Schools be Defined?

The concept of strategy is relatively new in educational literature and, in great part, related to school planning. In this scoping review, a more integrated and comprehensive view is adopted ( Davies, 2003 ; Davies, 2006 ; Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2008b ; Quong and Walker, 2010 ). Davies (2003) defined strategy as a specific pattern of decisions and actions taken to achieve an organization’s goals (p. 295). This concept of strategy entails some specific aspects, mainly that strategy implies a broader view incorporating data about a specific situation or context ( Davies, 2003 ; Dimmock and Walker, 2004 ; Davies, 2006 ; Davies, 2007 ). It is a broad organizational-wide perspective , supported by a vision and direction setting , that conceals longer-term views with short ones ( Davies, 2003 ; Dimmock and Walker, 2004 ; Davies, 2006 ; Davies, 2007 ). It can be seen as a template for short-term action . However, it deals mostly with medium-and longer-term views of three-to 5-year perspectives ( Davies, 2003 ; Davies, 2006 ; Davies, 2007 ). In this sense, a strategy is much more a perspective or a way of thinking that frames strategically successful schools ( Davies, 2003 ; Davies and Davies, 2005 ; Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ).

Eacott (2008a) has argued that strategy in the educational leadership context is a field of practice and application that is of a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary nature. More than a single definition of strategy, what is needed is a conceptual understanding and articulation of its fundamental features, which removes the need to answer, “what is a strategy?” Understanding strategy as choosing a direction within a given context, through leadership, and articulating that direction through management practices ( Eacott, 2008a , p. 356) brings to the arena diverse elements of strategy from both leadership and management. From this alternative point of view, a strategy may be seen as leadership ( Eacott, 2010a ). More than an answer to “what is a strategy?”, it is crucial to understand “when and how does the strategy exist?” ( Eacott, 2010a ), removing the focus on leaders’ behaviors and actions per se to cultural, social, and political relationships ( Eacott, 2011 ). Hence, research strategy and strategic leadership oblige by acknowledging the broader educational, societal, and political contexts ( Dimmock and Walker, 2004 ; Eacott, 2010a ; Eacott, 2010b ; Eacott, 2011 ).

Strategic leadership is a critical component of school development ( Davies and Davies, 2006 ). However, to define leadership is challenging considering the amount of extensive, diverse literature about this issue. Instead of presenting a new categorization about leadership, the authors most devoted to strategic leadership consider it as a key dimension of any activity of leadership ( Davies and Davies, 2004 ; Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Eacott, 2010a ; Eacott, 2010b ; Eacott, 2011 ). Barron et al. (1995) stressed the idea of change. As mentioned by the authors, implementation of strategic leadership means change: change in thinking, change in the way schools are organized, change in management styles, change in the distribution of power, change in teacher education programs, and change in roles of all participants ( Barron et al., 1995 , p. 180). Strategic leadership is about creating a vision, setting the direction of the school over the medium-to longer-term and translating it into action ( Davies and Davies, 2010 ; Eacott, 2011 ). In that sense, strategic leadership is a new way of thinking ( Barron et al., 1995 ) that determines a dynamic and iterative process of functioning in schools ( Eacott, 2008b ).

In their model of strategic leadership, Davies and Davies (2006) consider that leadership must be based on strategic intelligence, summarised as three types of wisdom: 1) people wisdom, which includes participation and sharing information with others, developing creative thinking and motivation, and developing capabilities and competencies within the school; 2) contextual wisdom, which comprises understanding and developing school culture, sharing values and beliefs, developing networks, and understanding external environment; and 3) procedural wisdom, which consists of the continuous cycle of learning, aligning, timing and acting. This model also includes strategic processes and strategic approaches that authors define as the centre of this cycle ( Davies and Davies, 2006 , p. 136).

To deeply understand strategic leadership, it is necessary to explore strategic processes and approaches that leaders take ( Davies and Davies, 2010 ). In this sense, strategic leadership, strategic processes, and strategic approaches are key elements for sustainable and successful schools, which are found to be strategically focused. Davies (2006) designed a model for a strategically focused school that may be defined as one that is educationally effective in the short-term but also has a clear framework and processes to translate core moral purpose and vision into an excellent educational provision that is challenging and sustainable in the medium-to long-term (p.11). This model incorporates 1) strategic processes (conceptualization, engagement, articulation, and implementation), 2) strategic approaches (strategic planning, emergent strategy, decentralized strategy, and strategic intent), and 3) strategic leadership (organizational abilities and personal characteristics). Based on these different dimensions, strategically focused schools have built-in sustainability, develop set strategic measures to assess their success, are restless, are networked, use multi-approach planning processes, build the strategic architecture of the school, are strategically opportunistic, deploy strategy in timing and abandonment and sustain strategic leadership ( Davies, 2004 , pp.22–26).

What Are the Main Characteristics of Strategic Leadership in Schools?

Davies (2003) , Davies and Davies (2005) , Davies and Davies (2006) , Davies and Davies (2010) discuss what strategic leaders do (organizational abilities) and what characteristics strategic leaders display (personal characteristics). The key activities of strategic leaders, or organizational abilities, are 1) create a vision and setting a direction, 2) translate strategy into action, 3) influence and develop staff to deliver the strategy, 4) balance the strategic and the operational, 5) determine effective intervention points ( what, how, when, what not to do and what to give up ), 6) develop strategic capabilities, and 7) define measures of success ( Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ). The main characteristics that strategic leaders display, or their characteristics, are 1) dissatisfaction or restlessness with the present, 2) absorptive capacity, 3) adaptive capacity, and 4) wisdom.

Two specific studies explored the strategic leadership characteristics of Malaysian leaders ( Ali, 2012 ; Ali, 2018 ), considering the above-mentioned model as a framework. For Malaysian Quality National Primary School Leaders, the results supported three organizational capabilities (strategic orientation, translation, and alignment) and three individual characteristics of strategic leadership (dissatisfaction or restlessness with the present, absorptive capacity, and adaptive capacity). For Malaysian vocational college educational leaders, the results were consistent with seven distinct practices of strategic leadership, such as strategic orientation, strategic alignment, strategic intervention, restlessness, absorptive capacity, adaptive capacity, and leadership wisdom.

Other studies were also focused on the characteristics of strategic leadership with different populations and countries. Chatchawaphun et al. (2016) identified the principles, attributes, and skills of the strategic leadership of secondary school administrators from Thailand. The principles identified within the sample of principals included appropriate values, modern visionary, future focusing strategy, empirical evidence focus, intention toward accomplishment, decency, and making relationships. The attributes found were strategic learning, strategic thinking, and value push up. The skills were learning, interpretation, forecasting, planning, challenge, and decision making. Chan (2018) explored strategic leadership practices performed by Hong Kong school leaders of early childhood education and identified effective planning and management, reflective and flexible thinking, and networking and professional development as variables. Eacott (2010c) investigated the strategic role of Australian public primary school principals concerning the leader characteristics of tenure (referring to the time in years in their current substantive position) and functional track (referring to the time in years spent at different levels of the organizational hierarchy). These demographic variables have moderating effects on the strategic leadership and management of participants. These five studies seem to be outstanding contributions to solidify a framework of strategic leadership and to test it with different populations in different countries.

Additionally, Quong and Walker (2010) present seven principles for effective and successful strategic leaders. Strategic leaders are future-oriented and have a future strategy, their practices are evidence-based and research-led, they get things done, open new horizons, are fit to lead, make good partners and do the “next” right thing—these seven principles of action seem related to the proposal of Davies and colleagues. Both authors highlighted visions for the future, future long-term plans, and plans’ translation into action as important characteristics of strategic leaders.

One other dimension that is being explored in research relates to ethics. Several authors assert that insufficient attention and research have been given to aspects related to moral or ethical leadership among school leaders ( Glanz, 2010 ; Quong and Walker, 2010 ; Kangaslahti, 2012 ). The seventh principle of the Quong and Walker (2010) model of strategic leadership is that leaders do the “next” right thing. This relates to the ethical dimension of leadership, meaning that strategic leaders recognize the importance of ethical behaviors and act accordingly. For some authors, ethics in strategic leadership is a critical issue for researchers and practitioners that needs to be taken into consideration ( Glanz, 2010 ; Quong and Walker, 2010 ). Glanz (2010) underlined social justice and caring perspectives as required to frame strategic initiatives. Kangaslahti (2012) analyzed the strategic dilemmas that leaders face in educational settings (e.g., top-down strategy vs. bottom-up strategy process; leadership by authority vs. staff empowerment; focus on administration vs. focus on pedagogy; secret planning and decision making vs. open, transparent organization; the well-being of pupils vs. well-being of staff) and how they can be tackled by dilemma reconciliation. Chen (2008) , in case study research, explored the conflicts that school administrators have confronted in facilitating school reform in Taiwan. The author identified four themes related to strategic leadership in coping with the conflicts accompanying this school reform: 1) educational values, 2) timeframe for change, 3) capacity building, and 4) community involvement. These studies reinforce the idea that school improvement and success seem to be influenced by the way leaders think strategically and deal with conflicts or dilemmas. Researchers need to design ethical frameworks or models from which practitioners can think ethically about their strategic initiatives and their dilemmas or conflicts ( Chen, 2008 ; Glanz, 2010 ; Kangaslahti, 2012 ).

Despite the critical contribution of Davies’ models ( Davies, 2003 ; Davies, 2004 ; Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ) and subsequent works, Eacott (2010a) questions the production of lists of behaviors and traits. This is likely one of the main differences between Davies’ and Eacott’s contributions in this field. While Davies and colleagues include organizational abilities and personal characteristics in their model of strategic leadership, Eacott (2010a , 2010b) emphasizes the broader context where strategy occurs. These ideas, however, are not contradictory but complementary in the comprehension of strategy as leadership in education since both authors present a comprehensive and integrated model of strategic leadership. Even though Davies and colleagues present some specific characteristics of leaders, these characteristics are incorporated into a large model for strategy in schools.

What Are Other Key Variables Related to Strategy and Strategic Leadership in Schools?

Other studies investigated the relationship between strategic leadership and other key variables, such as collaboration ( Ismail et al., 2018 ), the culture of teaching ( Khumalo, 2018 ), organizational learning ( Aydin et al., 2015 ) and school effectiveness ( Prasertcharoensuk and Tang, 2017 ).

One descriptive survey study presented teacher collaboration as a mediator of strategic leadership and teaching quality ( Ismail et al., 2018 ). The authors argue that school leaders who demonstrate strategic leadership practices can lead to the creation of collaborative practices among teachers and thus help to improve the professional standards among them, namely, teaching quality ( Ismail et al., 2018 ). One cross-sectional study identified positive and significant relations among the variables of strategic leadership actions and organizational learning. Transforming, political, and ethical leadership actions were identified as significant predictors of organizational learning. However, managing actions were not found to be a significant predictor ( Aydin et al., 2015 ). One other study establishes that strategic leadership practices promote a teaching culture defined as the commitment through quality teaching for learning outcomes ( Khumalo, 2018 ). These three studies provide essential highlights of the relevance of strategic leadership for school improvement and quality. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that in a research survey that examined the effect of leadership factors of administrators on school effectiveness, the authors concluded that the direct, indirect, and overall effects of the administrators’ strategic leadership had no significant impact on school effectiveness ( Prasertcharoensuk and Tang, 2017 ). These studies introduce important questions that need to be explored both related to strategy and strategic leadership features and its relations and impacts on relevant school variables. Such studies stimulate researchers to explore these and other factors that relate to strategic leadership.

The knowledge about strategy and strategic leadership is still incomplete and confusing ( Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2008b ). From the 29 studies selected, divergent data and multiple concepts of strategy can be identified which reinforces the confusion about these issues. Some integrative clarification is still needed about the concepts of strategy and strategic leadership as about its core features. In this section, it is intended to contribute to the clarification and integration of the concepts considering the studies selected.

The emergence of politics and reforms related to school autonomy and responsibility in terms of efficacy and accountability brings the concept of strategy to the educational literature ( Eacott, 2008b ; Cheng, 2010 ). It first appeared in the 1980s but gained momentum between 1990 and 2000. However, the main focus of the literature was on strategic planning based upon mechanistic or technical-rational models of strategy. Authors have criticized the conceptualization of strategy as a way for elaborating a specific plan of action for schools ( Davies, 2003 ; Davies, 2006 ; Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2008b ; Quong and Walker, 2010 ). These same authors adopted a more comprehensive and holistic model of strategy. The concepts have been developed from a more rational and mechanistic view related to planning processes to a more comprehensive and complex view of strategy and leadership that take into consideration a situated and contextual framework. Considering the contribution of these studies, strategy incorporates three core dimensions, articulated with a schoolwide perspective 1) Vision, mission and direction (e.g., Davies, 2003 ; Dimmock and Walker, 2004 ; Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Davies, 2007 ; Eacott, 2008a ) 2) Intentional thinking (e.g., Barron et al., 1995 ; Davies, 2003 ; Davies and Davies, 2005 ; Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ): and; 3) Articulated decision-making and action (e.g., Davies, 2003 ; Dimmock and Walker, 2004 ; Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Davies, 2006 ; Davies, 2007 ; Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2010a ; Eacott, 2010b ; Eacott, 2011 ).

Strategic leaders have an important role in strategy but, even considering this comprehensive and holistic concept of strategy, research poses the question of what are the main characteristics of strategic leaders in schools? From the literature reviewed, specific abilities, behaviors, and other characteristics may be identified. Looking for an integrated picture of strategic leadership, Table 3 represents the main contributions of the studies selected.

TABLE 3 . Strategic leadership: Main features.

Despite the contribution of these studies to deep knowledge about strategic leadership, the discussion here considers whether it is worthwhile to produce lists of behaviors and traits for strategic leaders in the absence of an integrated model that acknowledges the broader educational, societal and political context ( Dimmock and Walker, 2004 ; Eacott, 2010a ; Eacott, 2010b ; Eacott, 2011 ). Eacott (2011) argues that strategy, as constructed through analysis, is decontextualized and dehumanized and essentially a vacuous concept with limited utility to the practice that it seeks to explain (p. 426). Without a comprehensive and contextual model of strategy and strategic leadership, supported by research, the topics may still be overlooked and misunderstood. With this in mind, Figure 3 attempts to represent the core dimensions of strategy from a comprehensive perspective.

FIGURE 3 . Strategy and core dimensions from a comprehensive perspective.

As this is a scoping review, we tried to display a general view of the literature that can serve as a basis for a specific strategy theory in education and to more in-depth studies related to strategy and strategic leadership in schools. Nevertheless, we need to identify some methodological limitations of this study. As a scoping review, methods and reporting need improvement ( Tricco et al., 2018 ) and we are aware of this circumstance. Also, our search strategy may have overlooked some existing studies, since grey documents (e.g., reports) and studies from diverse languages than English were not included, that can misrepresent important data. Besides, inclusion criteria focused only on studies specifically devoted to strategy (not strategic planning) and strategic leadership (no other theories of leadership), but we acknowledge important contributions from this specific literature that were excluded. Finally, in our study there is no comparative analysis between the western and eastern/oriental contexts. However, we are aware that these contexts really differ and a context-specific reflection on strategy and strategic leadership in education would be useful. More research is needed to overcome the limitations mentioned.

Besides, the pandemic COVID19 brought new challenges in education, and particularly, to leaders. This study occurred before the pandemic and this condition was not acknowledged. However, much has changed in education as a consequence of the pandemic control measures, these changes vary from country to country, and schools’ strategies have changed for sure. Future research needs to explore strategy and strategic leadership in education considering a new era post pandemic.

With this scoping review, the authors aimed to contribute to enduring theories about strategy and strategic leadership in education. From our findings, it appears that this issue is being little explored. Despite the important contributions of authors cited in this scoping review ( Aydin et al., 2015 ; Chatchawaphun et al., 2016 ; Prasertcharoensuk and Tang, 2017 ; Ali, 2018 ; Chan, 2018 ; Ismail et al., 2018 ; Khumalo, 2018 ), minor advances seem to have been made after 2010. This is intriguing taking into account the leaders’ role in the third wave of educational reform, where strategic leadership pursues a new vision and new aims for education due to maximizing learning opportunities for students through “ triplisation in education’ (i.e., as an integrative process of globalization, localization and individualization in education)” ( Cheng, 2010 , p. 48). It was expected that research moved from rational planning models towards a more complex view of strategy in education ( Eacott, 2011 ). This review brings the idea that some timid and situated steps have been made.

Since the important review by Eacott, published in 2008, a step forward was made in the distinction between strategy and planning. Despite the significant number of papers about planning that were found during this review, the majority were published before 2008 (e.g., Nebgen, 1990 ; Broadhead et al., 1998 ; Bennett et al., 2000 ; Beach and Lindahl, 2004 ; Bell, 2004 ). Also, most of the papers selected adopt a more integrative, comprehensive, and complex view of strategy and strategic leadership (e.g., Eacott, 2010a ; Eacott, 2010b ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ; Eacott, 2011 ; Ali, 2012 ; Ali, 2018 ; Chan, 2018 ). More than identifying the “best of” strategy and strategic leadership, alternative models understand strategy as a way of thinking ( Davies and Davies, 2010 ) and a work in progress ( Eacott, 2011 ).

This also resonates with the educational literature about loosely coupled systems . There is evidence that loosely coupled educational organizations continue to exist and that resistance to change is a characteristic of school organizations ( Hautala et al., 2018 ). Strategic leadership gains relevance since leaders need to consider how to manage their loose and tight configurations and, hence, reinforce simultaneous personal and organizational dimensions related to school improvement. It is time to expand the research into more complex, longitudinal, and explanatory ways due to a better understanding of the constructs. This scoping review was an attempt to contribute to this endeavor by integrating and systematizing educational literature about strategy and strategic leadership.

Author Contributions

MC-collected and analyzed data, write the paper IC, JV, and JA-guided the research process and reviewed the paper.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) for the support to this publication (Ref. UIDB/04872/2020).

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2021.706608/full#supplementary-material

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Keywords: strategy, strategic leadership, school leadership, scoping review, education

Citation: Carvalho M, Cabral I, Verdasca JL and Alves JM (2021) Strategy and Strategic Leadership in Education: A Scoping Review. Front. Educ. 6:706608. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2021.706608

Received: 07 May 2021; Accepted: 23 September 2021; Published: 15 October 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Carvalho, Cabral, Verdasca and Alves. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Marisa Carvalho, [email protected]

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Strategic planning

The need for an iiep remains higher than ever.                                    (unesco internal oversight services, 2013).

 An effective ministry is guided by a plan which brings together all stakeholders and is regularly monitored and updated. IIEP strongly believes that planning is not a one-off activity. Rather it is a continuous practice that should engage all ministry departments and partners at national and subnational levels in a consultative and participatory process. Institutionalizing planning necessitates that ministries establish a strategic vision and priorities, coordinate their programmes and budgets annually and within a medium-term expenditure framework, negotiate with national and international financing agencies, and periodically monitor that it is on track to achieve policy objectives through implementation reviews.

Strategic planning guides educational development by giving a common vision and shared priorities. Educational planning is both visionary and pragmatic, engaging a wide range of actors in defining education’s future and mobilizing resources to reach its goals. For policy-makers, planning offers the path to:

• implement education reform and system transformation;
• realize equal opportunities for children and youth;
• provide quality education for all.

IIEP has strong experience and expertise in strategic planning and has developed in collaboration with the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) two newly published documents to help ministries in charge of education transform their processes and operations to meet the challenges of a changing world:

• Guidelines for Education Sector Plan Appraisal
• Guidelines for Education Sector Plan Preparation
• Guidelines for transitional education plan preparation

• train and coach on concepts, processes and tools to improve the practice of educational planning and management;
• analyse and reflect on education trends and issues from a policy and planning perspective;
• provide technical assistance and policy advice on critical issues for educational development.
• IIEP in Action 2018-2019
• Capacity development in educational planning and management: Learning from successes and failures

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5 Steps To Highly Effective Strategic Planning In Higher Education (FREE template)

A crystal clear strategic plan can be the big difference between becoming the leading university… VERSUS ending up at the bottom. You know - where you struggle to attract students, the right staff members or even funds to support your institution.

So, in order to achieve your university’s goals, you need to learn how to build an effective strategic plan. 

In this blog post, we will reveal:

• The #1 reason university strategies fail
• The overlooked role of a strategic plan for higher ed
• The 5-step process you can follow to build a plan with your team

What is strategic planning in higher education? 

Strategic planning is the process an institution follows to realize its vision of its ideal future state. It’s a roadmap for getting there. Your vision becomes a reality through the process that defines specific goals, needs, and actions. It helps you to structure and contextualize information leading to important decisions. 

Sounds obvious, right? 

So, the question is:

Why do so many universities fail at strategic planning?

Because they forgot what the main role of a strategic plan is.

Most universities and colleges work on some form of strategic planning, but they usually come out as a 28-page PDF. They create an impressive presentation with shiny headings, upload it to their website and consider themselves successful. 

The end result is a ‘strategic plan’ that serves more as a marketing brochure and less like a roadmap to success.

What’s wrong with this usual approach?

Most vice-chancellors and vice presidents are not even aware of what they are losing. Staff members and faculty members work in silos with no focus on the big picture. Departmental plans are unaligned with the overall strategic plan. This leads to inefficiency, wasted resources, and things getting missed.

Clearly, this approach lacks the organization and accountability necessary for success. As a result, some institutions are losing their reputation, while others are losing program accreditation, experiencing declining student success, or having fewer funds available.

Sometimes all of the above. 

Strategic planning goes beyond ambitious and attractive presentations that describe the organization’s state in the next 5, 10 or more years.

Now let's take a closer look...

What is the real purpose of the strategic plan in higher education?

Your first and foremost goal should be to stay true to the promises you made to your stakeholders.

Think of your strategic plan as the foundation to achieve your long-term goals.

It’s supposed to help you translate high-level ambitions into tangible actions at a departmental level. Furthermore, it organizes everyone so that they can do those actions and report on them in a systematic and transparent manner. 

It serves as a guiding light for your staff, allowing them to focus on the things that drive real progress towards the university's strategic goals. 

On top of that, it’s an important resource for planning your yearly budget allocation. Even in the most difficult financial times, integrating strategic planning and budgeting throughout the organization creates opportunities for success.

It's obvious, isn't it? You need to stop treating your strategic plan as merely a glorified marketing document.

What are the 5 steps in the strategic planning process?

This five-step process will help you to craft a strategic plan that goes beyond marketing and delivers on promised results.

1. Understand your current situation

An effective planning process starts with a thorough understanding of your current situation. 

You can start by asking these questions: 

• What are our core competencies?
• Which important KPIs are trending over the last few years upwards? 
• Where do we notice a drop in performance? What led to this drop?
• Where do we want to be in 5 or 10 years?
• Do we need to develop new programs?
• How do we get there? 
• What external factors can impact us in the future?

Search for answers and go deep into every department and aspect of your institution. From financial health and university rankings to student enrollment, retention rates, and placement rates.

Next, understand the expectations and needs of your internal and external stakeholders.

Remember, top-down approach doesn’t work for universities. Higher education institutions are highly interconnected with their community and shouldn’t neglect its interest when making strategic decisions.

Collect feedback from every stakeholder group whose expectations affect your performance:

• Alumni members
• Faculty members & campus community
• Community groups
• Senior administrators
• External partnerships

Include their input into planning and translate it into the institution’s major goals. Embrace this collaborative approach and prevent too many unexpected "buts" in the future.

Don’t forget that you’re only collecting information at this stage, not brainstorming solutions or action plans. 

‍ Cascade tip:

The SWOT analysis framework  is still one of the most effective methods for evaluating internal operations and the external environment. Be honest and thorough in your evaluation. You can use it numerous times through strategic planning but you should start early in the planning process.

2. Lead with vision and values

Your university's vision is a part of its identity and a powerful latent tool.

Higher ed institutions of any size can utilize it, but they usually don’t. They don’t believe that people care about the big picture or that it affects the university's daily operations.

However, a clear and unique vision statement will set you apart from the competition and make you more memorable to potential students. They will know exactly what to expect from studying at your university and why they should come. 

At the same time, it gives a strong sense of pride and belonging to current students, faculty, and alumni. It becomes an emblem that attracts the right students, staff members, and funding opportunities. 

Here’s  an example  of a vision statement for the university: 

We will work as one Oxford bringing together our staff, students and alumni, our colleges, faculties, departments and divisions to provide world-class research and education.

- University of Oxford

You can take it one step further and include your institutional mission statement. 

And don’t forget about the values. They define your university’s culture. They determine how people act, which behaviors are praised and which are condemned. 

When you build a culture intentionally, then everyone inside and outside your school knows what you stand for, reinforcing all the benefits of a harnessed vision.

Cascade tip:

One of the biggest blockers to the successful execution of a strategic plan is the attempt to accomplish too much at once.  Creating a Vision Statement  will help you to avoid that trap right from the start. It becomes your north star guiding your strategy. It will be easier for you to identify what is relevant and worthy of your attention versus what isn't.

3. Concentrate your strategic planning efforts on key areas

There's a problem most presidents and strategic planning committees face: they don't define the real focus of their plans. 

You see, you can’t achieve everything, everywhere, all at once.

Your resources are limited, and you should prioritize accordingly. 

I’m glad you followed the first two steps. Now you have all the information you need to identify the biggest and most urgent challenges your university faces.

Clarifying the obstacles ahead of time helps you prioritize your strategic goals and develop focused efforts to achieve them.

For example, let’s say you’re creating a 5-year strategic plan. Here are some key focus groups you might want to focus on: 

• Provide superb undergraduate experience 
• Ensure graduate education and lifetime learning 
• Increase community engagement 
• Increase research excellence 
• Optimize financial resources

Focus areas help you decide what falls outside the university's priorities and prioritize your strategic planning efforts. 

We usually suggest creating between 3 to 5 Focus Areas. Any fewer and they will probably be too vague. Any more, and well..... you lose your focus. Dive deeper into focus areas with this  guide . 

4. Translate plan into tangible actions

This is the part that turns your strategic plan into reality. 

If you ever want to achieve your goals, you need to break down the plan into smaller, granular pieces specific to each department. Start by adding strategic objectives to your focus areas. 

The secret to  writing great strategic objectives  is simplicity and specificity. Avoid jargon and use a verb to indicate action. Accompany it with a deadline and preferably an owner (or two).

Here is an example:

Increase citations per faculty by 5% by May 2024, owned by Jane Doe.

The next step is to migrate from goal-setting to action-planning with projects. Projects describe what you’ll do to accomplish your objectives.

Projects  articulate a set of actions within a certain timeline. They include specific tasks, milestones, dependencies and dates (deadlines). Every objective should include at least one project or action-like event. Otherwise, you’ll never achieve any progress towards it.

Of course, nothing is so linear, but this process forces you to come up with action plans to support every strategic initiative and allocate funds and your staff’s time appropriately.

One of the most important steps in the planning process is to take the high-level plan and break it down into tangible actions at the departmental level. 

Cascade  helps you to achieve that with  planning models completely customizable  to your strategic planning approach. 

You can create a university-wide strategic plan and then break it down into  portfolio or departmental plans.  Clarify their goals, projects and key metrics. Collaborate with your teams to build multiple inter-connected plans and tie them back to the overall plan.

You get complete  visibility into how different plans or projects are connected  and contribute to the overall strategic plan. 

5. Don’t forget to measure progress

There is no perfect strategic planning for higher education (or anywhere for that matter). 

Every plan can be derailed by events beyond our control (such as a pandemic, change in public policy, or an unstable economic environment on a global scale). There is, however, disciplined execution through regular reviewing habits. The secret lies in the way you measure your progress and the frequency of reviewing it.

Determine the indexes that you want to improve and then  set key performance indicators (KPIs)  to drive and measure your performance against set targets. 

Here are some examples of KPIs you might want to keep track of:

• University ranking
• Post-graduation placement rate
• Number of students involved in undergraduate research
• Fundraising ROI

Establish the KPIs you will be reporting on in advance, and always end your reviews with a "next steps" discussion.

Create dashboards to measure progress in real-time.  Cascade’s customizable dashboards  help you to quickly identify areas that are underperforming and act before it’s too late.

Zoom your screen in on the screenshot below to check out Cascade's beautiful dashboards!

Extra tip:  Use Cascade reports to help you demonstrate your success in a transparent way and attract more investments in the key areas of your university. 

What’s next for your university?

Most university’s failure to reach their strategic goals isn’t because of bad strategy, but because strategy is constrained by PowerPoint. Kept miles from those who can make it happen. The best in Advancement, the finest HR, the most profound ideas - they’re all framed in slides rather than shaping every day’s activities for everyone across the university.

Remember, a strategic plan isn’t just a glossy presentation to attract new students or to get that accreditation approval for your academic program. It’s a manifesto for every employee to embrace and enact in whatever they do at your university. 

So, the next step is to transform your strategy from an intellectual exercise to an executable plan. It’s just a matter of shifting your approach and using the right tools. 

And once you make that shift, you’ll be able to create  an organized and aligned approach  to make your strategic goals happen.

Do that and get your plan to everyone, and your competition will be choking in your dust.

Are you ready to create your plan and start executing it? Turn your strategic plan into a competitive advantage with our 100% free, battle-tested strategic plan template , built for teams in higher education. 

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In education, evolution and adaptation are constants. Academic institutions must stay up to date with technology and teaching methods to succeed, while also managing students' social, emotional, and academic needs. With all of these considerations in addition to budgetary constraints, It's easy to see why ensuring student and institutional success requires a dynamic strategic plan.

This blog post will outline the best practices academic institutions should consider when developing an effective strategic plan to address these challenges. To create an effective strategic plan, we need to eliminate the disconnect between leadership's high-level vision and employees' tactical work. Leading academic institutions, growing companies, and organizations adapt to change through dynamic strategic planning. 

A dynamic strategic plan breaks down an organization's long-term vision into short-term goals and then builds a roadmap to achieve those goals. As part of this process, the organization's plan should be reviewed and revised regularly to ensure relevance and alignment with its mission. Academic plans are typically written as multi-year plans and organizations often face challenges in developing effective strategic plans that are easy to understand and execute. Here are a few suggestions to help address these challenges:

• Clearly define your vision: The first step in developing an effective strategic plan is to define the vision for the school. This should be a clear, concise statement that articulates what the school hopes to achieve. 
• Identify key objectives: Once you have a clear vision, identify the key objectives that will help you achieve them. These should be specific and measurable goals that align with your vision.
• Create measurable, outcome-focused key results: With your objectives in mind, it is important to focus on creating key results that drive outcomes, not outputs to help you reach your targets. Schools that focus on driving actionable objectives with outcome-based key results will ensure they stay aligned on what truly matters.
• Prioritize and allocate resources: It's essential to prioritize your strategies and allocate resources accordingly. Determine which strategies are most critical to achieving your objectives and ensure that you have the resources (e.g., time, budget, personnel) to implement them effectively.
• Monitor and evaluate progress: Finally, monitor and evaluate progress regularly to ensure that you are on track to achieving your objectives. This will help you identify areas where you may need to adjust your strategies or allocate additional resources.

By following these steps, academic institutions can develop a strategic planning framework and process that is effective, simple, and links vision to tactical execution. So now that we have the steps needed to build our strategy, let's start to bring it to life.

Take a field trip: host an annual Strategic Planning Offsite 

Before each academic year, we recommend holding a strategic planning meeting offsite with your leadership team. This is dedicated time to focus on the priorities for the upcoming year. Before diving into where you're headed, set aside time for a retrospective to discuss the previous year. In addition, discuss the current education landscape.

To build a future-focused and tailored plan for your academic institution, the team should reconfirm your mission and values, set your vision, and define your top strategic priorities. 

As you head into your offsite, we recommend the following best practices that lead to success:

• Get Outside of the Office : Find space outside of the work environment to reduce distractions and encourage collaboration.
• Set a Clear Agenda : Agree ahead of time on the purpose of each day, the deliverables, and actionable next steps. 
• Make Space to Think: Carve out time for free thinking vs. relying on group thinking to encourage new ideas. If you need a template, we recommend using this worksheet to guide the conversation .

Simplify the strategic plan: align your high-level strategy with tactical execution

Academic plans are typically written as multi-year plans (5-year plans are most common) which can lead to a very detailed and dense plan. Given the complexity and length of the strategic plan, it can feel overwhelming and difficult to break the plan down and prioritize what’s most imperative to execute and focus on. We recommend breaking the larger multi-year plan into digestible annual plans that are more manageable. 

We recommend identifying 3-5 main themes in your strategic plan, often referred to as pillars or rallying cries. Once you have core themes, you can prioritize and bucket the most critical initiatives and objectives. Every theme will have specific supporting objectives and key results. We recommend using consistent nomenclature when creating themes, objectives, and key results so any team member can easily understand why the work is significant. 

Once we have the multi-year plan broken into annual plans and themes identified, we recommend defining short-term objectives (quarterly or semi-annually) and measurable metrics to drive key results. Breaking down the plan into quarters will feel more approachable and attainable. In addition, it will provide clarity and transparency for the executing team. When the strategic plan is broken down into actionable items, small wins can be celebrated along the way. This boosts motivation, engagement, and morale.  

Consistency is key to a successful strategic plan

When individuals understand how their work aligns with the high-level strategy and vision, they can prioritize their initiatives. Establish clear, measurable objectives and key results that are easy to track and provide consistent nomenclature. Keep these three tips in mind when writing your strategic plan objectives:

• Objectives should be aspirational and push people outside their comfort zone.
• Each objective should have 2-3 measurable and quantifiable results.
• Have a clear, defined owner responsible for recurring status updates. 

The best way to write objectives is to start by asking, “Why is this initiative important?” When you understand the why, you can create measurable outcome-driven results. Let’s walk through an example objective with key results laid out in Elate.

Theme: Develop and retain a diverse educator workforce.

Objective: Strengthen and diversify the educator pipeline and workforce.

Objective Purpose Statement: Increase mentoring and leadership development programs to retain educators, particularly educators from under-represented backgrounds. 

Key metrics: 

• Increase mentoring program engagement by 50% 
• 96% educator retention rate 

Implement rituals and track success with dynamic strategic planning

After your plan is built, it is imperative to establish rituals to stay on track and measure progress against the strategic plan. Rituals are defined as a rhythm, cadence, and process for reviewing objectives and strategic plans. Establishing strong rituals allows critical conversations to happen proactively. When objectives are stuck in limbo or fall off track, proactive discussions can happen. However, many academic institutions have different rituals for different teams. Implementing consistent rituals regularly will help you stay aligned, measure progress, and ensure you’re having the right conversations at the right time.

To keep everyone on the same page and connect tactical execution to strategic vision, we recommend objective owners provide bi-weekly updates. Across many academic institutions, strategy, and operations leaders spend countless hours tracking down updates that become outdated quickly. With Elate, reminder notifications are automatically sent to team members so they can focus more on execution and less on chasing down updates. 

We recommend spending a few minutes in executive team meetings reviewing objectives that are off-track or not making progress to create an action plan moving forward. This ritual of reviewing the plan early often brings awareness to the leadership team about objectives that need attention or are falling behind. It also allows space to celebrate accomplishments and wins. 

This makes it easy to ensure the strategic plan lives and breathes. Setting and clearly defining rituals for how the plan progresses, updates are made and reviewed, and addressing red flags is key to success. 

Focus on the right metrics to measure your strategic plan's success

With key results, objectives, and business-as-usual metrics all in one place, Elate keeps the strategic plan organized with a consolidated view. In Elate, scorecards provide an essential view of business-as-usual metrics and progress. Create specific scorecards for the board, enrollment, grant, and donor activity. 

Elevate your strategic plan with Elate

Strategic planning is critical for academic institutions that want to stay competitive, adapt to change, and achieve their goals. By following these best practices, higher education and academic institutions can achieve their goals and stay competitive in an ever-changing environment. 

Strategic planning has never been easier with Elate. Our platform simplifies and streamlines the strategic planning process, taking the stress out of it. We make it easy to stay on track with transparent reporting, simple collaboration, and one-click integrations with Salesforce, Google Sheets, Microsoft Teams, and Slack. Your vision can finally meet your strategy.

Learn more about our strategic planning tools and services, or contact us today to learn more about how we specifically work with other Academic Institutions!

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The Importance of Strategic Planning in Education

RELATED TAGS:

blog , Education , Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is a method used in various industries to deliberately guide decision-making. In education, strategic planning provides leaders with guidance to keep the institution operating, carry out its missions and comply with regulations. Educational strategic planning focuses on the future of a college or university, providing an intentional way to reflect on performance and determine where to implement initiatives to make positive changes for the future.

To create effective university strategic plans, administrators and stakeholders must understand the ins and outs of how they work and how they can apply them.

In This Article

• Lack of Ownership
• Poor Strategic Alignment
• Poor Communication
• Slow Plan Adoption
• Improve Efficiency
• Engage Stakeholders and the Community
• Form a Focus
• Plan a Future
• Test Your Hypotheses
• Use Specific Language
• Make Implementation a Priority
• Hold Team Members Accountable

Transform Strategic Planning and Execution Within Your Education Institution With AchieveIt

The challenges of strategic planning in education.

Universities and colleges face several pressures and challenges that can complicate strategic planning in educational environments. Understanding some of these challenges can help you overcome them to create an impactful approach.

1. Lack of Ownership

While strategic plans involve feedback and participation from all of your institution’s departments and entities, you should limit ownership of the plan and documentation to one person. Without explicit ownership over the strategic plan, initiatives are more likely to be lost, forgotten or overlooked. With one person in charge, your school is more likely to achieve success.

2. Poor Strategic Alignment

Alignment and representation across your university are crucial to success. Universities and colleges often experience a lack of strategic alignment because the church and state divisions typically have different goals for schools. These clashing perspectives lead to poor strategic alignment and a stand-still in decision-making.

3. Poor Communication

Many educational institutions also struggle with strategic planning due to poor organizational communication. Effectively implementing a strategic plan requires institutional-wide teamwork. Poor communication significantly increases the difficulty of agreeing upon and executing effective solutions and setting attainable goals.

4. Slow Plan Adoption

With a significant focus on innovation and growth, universities may make numerous changes in a year. Constant changes often lead to low motivation to adopt new plans. The longer your teams take to implement a strategic plan, the more likely it is to become outdated. When this situation happens, the plan becomes irrelevant to your current processes.

Why Education Institutions Need Strategic Planning

Despite the inherent challenges, educational strategic planning is necessary for a successful institution operation. A strategic plan can help you improve several aspects of your educational institution through intentional goal-setting and initiative implementation. Strategic planning for colleges and universities helps students, staff and the community progress toward a better future.

Here are a few reasons you should use strategic planning in education:

1. Improve Efficiency

One of the biggest reasons to begin strategic planning is the opportunity for improved efficiency in numerous areas of your organization. The challenges of educational planning often lead to a lack of efficiency. Strategic planning for schools allows leaders to determine more effective ways to streamline processes.

For example, your decision-making teams may take significant time to agree on new policies or procedures. Strategic planning helps your institution use time more efficiently because it allows you to form decision-making strategies.

Improved efficiency also results in better cost-effectiveness. The less time is wasted, the more money you’ll save, especially over time.

2. Engage Stakeholders and the Community

Strategic planning involves more people than only the primary decision-makers — your planning should involve your community and stakeholders. Feedback from these entities can help you develop a more beneficial and strategically targeted plan based on what these entities want or need from you. Engaging the stakeholders and community also shows you value their input and want to create an environment where they want to be.

3. Form a Focus

Determining a focus for the school year ahead can be challenging without clear objectives. Without focus, your institution will struggle to grow and attract students and staff. For example, you may have vague expectations for the upcoming school year, which prevents decisions and progress from being made. A strategic plan allows you to determine your goals and focus for the upcoming year and beyond while also helping you track your progress.

4. Plan a Future

Strategic planning is ideal for planning a successful future for your institution. Developing a plan for your future helps ensure your school can grow and continue benefiting from its offerings. Rather than being unprepared for the next year and future school years, you can effectively strategize to make the most of your school year.

Strategic Planning Tips for Education Institutions

While every school’s strategic plan will look different depending on its goals and resources, the strategic planning process is often similar for colleges and universities. Explore a few tips for educational strategic planning to help you get started:

1. Test Your Hypotheses

You’re ultimately hypothesizing the outcome when you set initiatives in your strategic plan. These hypotheses are often based on assumptions, though it’s typically best to experiment to determine what would work and what may not. For example, if you ask your faculty to begin submitting weekly reports, conduct a quick test to ensure they can do so and have time to do so.

2. Use Specific Language

Using vague or wordy language increases the risk of confusion and the possibility of initiatives being misunderstood and ignored. Swapping out complicated words for simpler, more specific words can help ensure everyone understands your plan. It can help to have someone review the language you use to ensure nothing is confusing and everyone is on the same page.

3. Make Implementation a Priority

Because schools involve numerous departments and divisions, implementing a plan can be difficult without prioritization . Make your plan a priority to ensure it’s properly implemented. Doing so is often easiest when leaders promote and require implementation.

4. Hold Team Members Accountable

Another way to make university strategic plans stick is by holding team members accountable. School performance management software allows you to track reports and other strategy-related information to determine who’s completing their duties so you can keep them accountable.

Educational institutions require significant planning to ensure a successful school year. Strategic planning software for higher education can help you focus your strategy despite your institution’s challenges. Software like AchieveIt has features that help your team turn ideas into actions.

A few things you can do with our software include:

• Solve common implementation challenges: AchieveIt makes connecting members of your team and various initiatives easy. You can track projects, keep everyone on the same page and quickly send updates.
• Gain comprehensive visibility: Our platform lets you see every initiative in real time, providing comprehensive visibility over progress.
• Consult with our experts: Our strategic plan experts help you execute your plan effectively. Draw on our expertise for inspiration or customize one of our templates to create your plan.

Let’s actually do this. Request a demo of AchieveIt to see what we can do for you today.

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Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, strategic planning in higher education: a simplified b-var model.

International Journal of Educational Management

ISSN : 0951-354X

Article publication date: 3 August 2021

Issue publication date: 21 October 2021

Executives who are engaged in strategic planning for higher education generally complain about the process and the lack of clear outcomes from the strategic plan. They generally argue that the process is complex and sometimes confusing and the end result does not justify the time spent in preparing the plan. The extant literature on strategic planning in higher educational institutions (HEIs) is replete with these types of complaints. The work undertaken in this paper provides a solution to this problem. This paper proposes a simplified and efficient strategic planning model which executives can use to facilitate strategic planning in HEIs. This model takes into consideration, all the elements of previous models and synthesize them into a manageable, simplified framework that can be adapted to meet the planning needs of senior executives in any HEI.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses the action research framework to ground the solution to the problem identified. The action research framework is a sound research method that assists in resolving some of the practical problems executives in HEIs encounter as they move towards strategic planning. The researcher and a client in the higher educational sector, the UWI, engaged in collaborative problem-solving to develop a strategic plan for the client. To derive the solution, the researcher drew on the experience of the strategic planning process at the University of the West Indies (UWI) and also a number of selected universities in North American, Europe, Asia and Africa. The researcher then synthesized the outcomes from the deliberations and consultations with the client, the UWI and drew on theoretical knowledge in strategic management to derive the simplified model for strategic planning in higher education.

The research presented in this paper found that the existing strategic planning models used in higher education are generally complex, mostly designed specifically for an individual institution and lacks clarity regarding the implementation process. To overcome these problems for strategic planners in higher education, this paper proposes a simplified model that can be adapted by any HEI to assist with their strategic planning process. The Brainstoming- Visioning Action Results (B-VAR), the solution to the problem, presents the various elements of the strategic planning process that will need to be in place in order to develop a workable strategic plan and one that is implementable and will deliver tangible results for the HEI.

Originality/value

Besides adding to our knowledge in strategic management and specifically, strategic management in higher education, the greatest value from this paper is the solution it presents to solve the long-standing problem of having complex and ineffective planning models to lead strategic plan development in HEIs. The added value is that the model is integrative as it draws on elements of previous planning models but simplified them for their adaptation to any HEI.

• Higher education

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank all those who have participated in the various workshops, focus groups and research work during the planning phase for the development of the UWI's 2017–2022 plan. The ideas generated in those meetings have helped to motivate the writing and research carried out for this paper.

Williams, D.A. (2021), "Strategic planning in higher education: a simplified B-VAR model", International Journal of Educational Management , Vol. 35 No. 6, pp. 1205-1220. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEM-08-2020-0382

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A Systematic Review on Educational Strategic Management

• Cari Edward C. Beñalet
• Manuel E. Paquiao Jr.
• Rosalie C. Baldezamo
• Ruel S. Vicente
• Jarah I. Reomero
• Marilou D. Junsay
• Nov 24, 2023
• strategic management

*Cari Edward C. Beñalet, Manuel E. Paquiao Jr., Rosalie C. Baldezamo, Ruel S. Vicente, Jarah I. Reomero, Marilou D. Junsay

Davao del Norte State College, New Visayas, Panabo City, Davao del Norte, Philippines

*Corresponding Author

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2023.701177

Received: 11 October 2023; Revised: 19 October 2023; Accepted: 23 October 2023; Published: 24 November 2023

This systematic review delves into the extant literature on educational strategic management, employing the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework. A selection of research articles from Google Scholar, published between 2018 and 2022 and written in English, served as the primary data source. This review delineates the demographic characteristics of the existing work on educational strategic management, focusing on the geographical distribution, research methodologies, and participant numbers. Additionally, it synthesizes vital aspects of educational strategic management and consolidates recommendations found in the literature. Analysis of the literature’s demographics reveals a notable paucity of studies emanating from Asian and African countries, underscoring the need for a broader international perspective. Thematic analysis of eight articles spanning five countries identifies four central themes concerning the features of educational strategic management: optimized organizational structures, dynamic managerial capabilities, sustained pursuit of long-term objectives, and responsive feedback mechanisms. Furthermore, the review distills recommendations from various sources into four fundamental elements of strategic management: environmental scanning, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and evaluation and control. This comprehensive analysis provides valuable insights for school leaders seeking to enhance their educational institutions. It also underscores the potential for future research endeavors to explore diverse dimensions of educational strategic management, such as challenges and coping strategies.

Keywords : Education, strategic management, systematic review

INTRODUCTION  

In the last decade, educational systems worldwide have embarked on a profound transformation journey. This transition marks a shift from entrenched traditions of educational management rooted in the past to a forward-looking model anchored in strategic direction. The central objective of education under this new paradigm is to advance and sustain educational excellence. Notably, this era of change has seen a pronounced emphasis on reforms dedicated to enhancing educational institutions, pedagogical practices, and the overarching educational system (Latorre-Medina & Blanco-Encomienda, 2018).

Strategic management, adeptly employing an organization’s resources to fulfill its objectives, has been at the heart of this educational evolution. Prior studies have defined strategic management as the art of formulating goals, strategies, and objectives to enhance an organization’s or a company’s competitiveness. It predominantly revolves around efficiently utilizing human capital and material resources to achieve predefined objectives (Sabattin et al., 2020).

A burgeoning body of literature underscores the pivotal role of strategic management and planning as the foundation for success in the intricate landscape of education. Within this context, the human resources within educational institutions emerge as the linchpin of strategic management, essential for optimizing performance and fostering excellence in schools.

Explorations into the factors influencing strategic management in education reveal a compelling narrative. The success of educational institutions and centers is intrinsically linked to the judicious application of strategic management across diverse domains. A telling example lies in the strategic management practices employed by Hershey National Track Company, as illustrated by Darden et al. (1989), which illuminate how strategic decision-making at the executive level can facilitate success even in fiercely competitive environments (Carvalho et al., 2021).

Strategic management, furthermore, has emerged as a force for organizational effectiveness in various sectors. Within the realm of education, strategic planning has evolved from its more assertive origins, rooted in business practices. This evolution has been catalyzed by the influx of professionals from the private sector taking on leadership roles in educational institutions. These adaptations now emphasize collaboration and consensus, as exemplified by Kose and Kose (2019), who highlight key components of educational strategic management, including structured organizational frameworks, managerial proficiency, goal alignment, and constructive feedback mechanisms.

Nevertheless, the landscape of educational strategic management has its challenges. A comprehensive analysis reveals various issues, including leadership, training, resource allocation, and educational policy frameworks, which underscore the multifaceted nature of this domain (Nyagah, 2015). The significance of conducting a systematic review to pinpoint a research gap and have also outlined a systematic review protocol for this specific domain and its associated research (Price, 2017).

A systematic literature review has been undertaken to address these challenges and bridge theoretical gaps. This review is a comprehensive compilation of existing research on educational strategic management, offering invaluable insights and direction for all stakeholders within the educational sphere. As this transformation unfolds, schools need clear and strategic direction to avoid wandering, where objectives shift frequently, and school leaders may need clarification about the purpose of their work as educational managers. Historically, schools have leaned more toward operational planning, emphasizing efficiency and effectiveness (Bush & Coleman, 2018).

Research Questions

The study tends to conduct a systematic review analysis of the existing literature about educational strategic management. It aims to answer the following research questions:

• What demographic data is in the existing literature on educational strategic management regarding country, research design, and the number of participants?
• What are the features of educational strategic management?
• What suggestions for further research can be identified by exploring the current literature in educational strategic management based on the elements of strategic management?

METHODOLOGY

This study used a systematic review analysis design. A key aspect of systematic analysis is gathering and evaluating all papers on a topic and design. Based on their quality, systematic reviews do statistical meta-analyses of study outcomes (Ahn & Kang, 2018). It is also the primary concern of Ranganathan and Aggarwal (2020) that a systematic review is a statistical approach for statistically combining the results of several research studies to produce a pooled estimate of treatment impact, which is usually included in systematic reviews. Therefore, systematic reviews are the most substantial evidence (Chandler et al., 2019). The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) reporting checklist was used to conduct this systematic review, as shown in Figure 2. (PRISMA; Liberati et al., 2009). The process has four stages: identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion. For this investigation, a thorough literature search was done to discover articles that included systematic reviews.

Adopted from: Liberati A, Altman DG, Tetzlaff J, Mulrow C, Gøtzsche PC, et al. (2009) The PRISMA Statement for Reporting Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses of Studies That Evaluate Health Care Interventions: Explanation and Elaboration. PLOS Medicine 6(7): e1000100. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000100

 Figure 1: Information flow between the various stages of a systematic review

Searching, Screening, and Data Extraction

The primary database-search tool used by the study to find relevant literature that may be included in it was Google Scholar. Google Scholar was primarily chosen because it includes an advanced search tool that allows users to specify their preferred functional words, the portion of the paper in which they were used, and the year of publication. Additionally, it offers statistics depending on inclusion and exclusion standards, such as full-text versions.

To find relevant reviews, we launched Google Scholar, clicked the “advance search” option, and set the inclusion criteria to “in the title of the article” and the use of keywords like “educational strategic management” were applied in the search and browsing of valid literature, that generated two hundred and fifty-eight (258) results. We then set the publication year between 2018 and 2022, which was narrowed to ninety-two (92).

Furthermore, there were several duplicates, as we saw. To quickly eliminate the ten duplicates, we exported the articles using Microsoft Excel and sorted them from A to Z. As a result, eighty-two (82) items were still available. These were examined based on language, with only articles written in English included, leading to the identification of seventy-one (71) sources and the exclusion of 55 articles. Because the seven eliminated publications could not be accessed, the researchers only kept sixteen (16) sources from these 29 journals. The researchers then reduced the number of papers to nine (9), excluding seven that needed to be published in a journal format. To ensure that every paper the researchers review is in qualitative format, we removed one using quantitative methods, which left eight (8) qualified articles to be included.

Moreover, we screened the articles by concentrating on the key elements of educational strategic management. The inclusion and exclusion standards for this review are shown in Table 1, which shows the eligibility criteria that determine which articles were included and excluded.

Table 1 Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria of the Systematic Review

Search Strategy

The documentation of the analysis process and the establishment of inclusion criteria in this research were diligently carried out following established guidelines.

We used Google Scholar to look for pertinent works. To quickly compile the most recent and pertinent articles, we used the “advance search” option and selected inclusion criteria such as “in the title of the article” and the year between 2020 and 2022. To systematically include relevant works, we carefully filtered the searched articles by looking at the titles, reading the abstracts, and even downloading the whole texts for in-depth analysis. We searched various sources during the data collection procedure to adequately support

the current reviews. All references were properly cited for easier searching.

  Data Extraction Procedures

For convenience in reference, navigation, and citation, this systematic review has extracted the names of the authors, the year of publication, the country, the study design, participant characteristics, the study aims, the results and discussion, the conclusion, the recommendations, and the implications for strategic planning in education. The reviewed studies for strategic planning in education are included in Table 2. All of them were taken from Google Scholar.

Table 2  Reviewed Studies on strategic planning

Data Analysis

In the early part, with the final listing of the literature, simple tabulations of demographic data were made using Microsoft Excel regarding the study year, nation, and subject area. A comparison of the various literature was considered to overcome the outdated professional development skills in public schools. The analyzed data were also presented in a graphical format to provide a general image of the complete data set.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The eight reviewed articles in this paper came from eight countries. These were appropriately distributed according to the following:  India (1), Malaysia (2), Indonesia (3), Egypt (1), and Ghana (1). Five studies (63%) concentrated on basic education, while two studies (25%) focused on higher education. On the other hand, only one study (13%) was not identified (see Table 3).

Table 3   Distribution of the Reviewed Studies by Country and by Educational Level

The results of the framework’s sections are shown in the next section. The first section focuses on the demographic data in the existing literature on educational strategic management regarding the country, research design, and the number of participants. The second section identifies features of educational strategic management. The third part discusses the suggestions for further research that can be identified by exploring the current literature on educational strategic management based on the elements of strategic management.

Demographic Data on the Existing Literature on Educational Strategic Management

Table 4 summarizes the full-text publications and journals reviewed about educational strategic management and the nation in which the study was done, research methodologies, participant numbers, and study objectives. As seen in the table, India (1), Malaysia (2), Indonesia (3), Egypt (1), and Ghana (1) were the countries from which the studies were from. The quantity of qualitative and quantitative research designs used throughout all literature about educational strategic management may have been roughly balanced. According to the number of participants, the type of study and research design used have an impact.

The summary of the research emphasis for all relevant literature is shown in the last row following the review analysis. Additionally, the readers were informed of the study’s purpose(s) and expected that the posed research questions would be addressed.

Table 4  Demographics of the Various Literature

Features of Educational Strategic Management

Based on a thorough review of the ten (10) articles, four (4) emerging themes on the features of educational strategic management: Efficient Organizational Structure, Dynamic Management Skill, Maintaining Long Term Objectives, and Emerging Feedback, as shown in Table 5.

Table 5 Emerging Themes on the Features of Educational Strategic Management

Efficient Organizational Structure

In the efficient organizational structure in educational strategic management, the following characteristics, as shown above, are education innovation strategic management practices, awareness, clarity, enthusiasm, and commitment.

Education Innovation Strategic Management Practices . The execution methods are as follows in educational institution innovations. Personalized educational settings development (Dias, 2018). This concept aids the person’s abilities for thought and analysis, growth of their additional intelligence, and development of a dependable citizen. Additionally, eight distinct intelligence formations are necessary for success in many of today’s strategic management (Ashittey, 2022).

Furthermore, Yaakob et al. (2019) emphasize opportunities for learning through problems: Examine what you already know and learn more. You must acquire and improve your people skills to improve team performance by enhancing your communication abilities, developing more adaptability in information processing and satisfying obligations, using evidence to support claims, and practicing the abilities you will need after your education.

Awareness, Clarity, Enthusiasm, and Commitment. 

Plans provide for early commitment to a course of all corporate strategic activities that will benefit from being coordinated and implemented convincingly. Plans are a further programming tool (Swain & Pradhan, 2020). Commitment to the factors that, at all costs, will steer the organization in the right direction and the goals for the system (Bahri, 2020).

Dynamic Management Skill

Based on the comprehensive review, dynamic management skill is characterized by fundamental transformation, overcoming resistance to change, and developing skills and change competencies.

Fundamental Transformation . Various definitions come to mind when transformation work is considered. Swain and Pradhan (2020) stated that a transformation is a significant alteration in shape or appearance. It is a structural method of implementing a strategy or vision to transfer people, teams, and organizations from one state to another desired state in the future. Transformation is a process of change in which organizational culture shifts in favor of a particular type of culture that institutionalizes such social processes (Ramdhan,2019). Making long-term and short-term goals, a future perspective, a mission, and meaningful outcomes are all components of strategic management; as a result, the start of an effective shift in transformation can be strategic (Bahri, 2020).

Overcoming Resistance to Change and Developing Skills and Change Competencies . Change is a necessary process that must happen whether it is acknowledged because it is dynamic. Management is frequently viewed as a technique to control the company effectively and efficiently until the point of execution and evaluation, ensuring its goals and objectives are met (Sabaruddin et al., 2022). The configuration form is revealed according to the scope, competition results, targets, and resource allocation (Syarifudin et al., 2022). Additionally, Dias (2018) stated that people in the organization would be led and able to function at their best if strategic management could maintain long-term objectives and use strategic management techniques, using operational management as a tool to accomplish the organization’s strategic objectives or company, particularly in terms of competition, it can encourage managers and leaders to think strategically.

Maintaining Long Term Objectives

In Maintaining long-term objectives in educational strategic management, the following characteristics, as shown above, are creating innovative programs, sustaining the survival of the institutions, keeping the institute progressing, and achieving top standards. It includes strengths and weaknesses for the effective management of environmental opportunities and risk, and lastly, a configuration of the results that are expected to be achieved in the future.

 According to (Dias, 2018; Ashittey, 2022; and Sabaruddin et al., 2022), maintaining long-term objectives creates innovative programs because the school administrators can examine the efficacy of particular programs and enhance them in response to their results. It ensures the institutions’ survival by demonstrating future planning for the organization’s benefit and providing a potential solution to any issues that might arise (Ashittey, 2022; Syarifudin et al., 2022)

According to Ashittey (2022), decisions made by management regarding implementing measures to put a newly decided strategy into place and overseeing the ongoing pursuit of that plan. It is crucial to carry out the new plan to increase competence and effectiveness in decision-making while demonstrating quantifiable progress toward achieving the desired outcomes and objectives.

Diaz (2018) defines Organizational Strategy “as the determination of the basic long-term goals and objectives of an enterprise and the adoption of course of action and allocation of resources necessary for carrying out goal.”, thus the value of sound planning facilitates the implementation of the strategy and, eventually, results in success.

Additionally, planning is one of the management’s responsibilities. Management is frequently viewed as a technique to control the company effectively and efficiently until the point of execution and evaluation, ensuring its goals and objectives are met (Sabaruddin et al.,2022; Ashittey, 2022).

Emerging Feedback

In Emerging Feedback in Educational Strategic Management, the following characteristics are:  improves execution and maintains transparency in planning action and continuous improvement in the strategy control and determination of fair performance criteria.

Human resources are essential to educational administration in this challenging world since they are the ones who will carry out the task. The school administration should comprehend the characteristics of developing feedback to complete the task to boost the standard of educational quality. So, emerging feedback can help an organization run more efficiently. To balance developing plans and acting, leaders must be aware of the input, process, and output of feedback data as well as the impact and feedback of the teachers while creating educational strategic management. Leaders should establish fair performance criteria to clarify things for the teachers (Swain & Pradhan, 2020; Yaakob et al., 2019; Bahri, 2020).

According to Swain and Pradhan (2020), these institutions also frequently incorporate strategic planning, which enables organizations to respond to macroeconomic environmental and educational policies to improve the future.

Any organization must handle both internal and external environments. The shape, style, and nature of the interactions increase in complexity with the organization’s size. Because there are many various types of organizational leaders, it makes it more and more difficult for them to make decisions. Therefore, strategic and operational management must discover a fast and suitable solution (Ashittey, 2022; Sabaruddin et al., 2022; and Ramdhan, 2019).

Additionally, emerging feedback is essential to educational strategic management since it helps decision-makers in an organization make good choices.

Summary Of Suggestions From Various Literature

In providing a synthesis of the different recommendations from various works of literature, it used the four elements of strategic management, namely (1) environmental scanning, (2) strategy formulation, (3) strategy implementation, and (4) evaluation and control, as shown in Table 6.

Table 6  Synthesis of the Different Suggestions / Recommendations

With this scoping review, the authors aimed to contribute to educational strategic management, such as efficient organizational structure, dynamic management skills, maintaining long-term objectives, and emerging feedback that helps school leaders manage schools. Because leaders need to evaluate how to manage their loose and tight configurations and, as a result, reinforce simultaneous personal and organizational factors associated with school improvement, strategic leadership is becoming increasingly relevant. As a result of a deeper comprehension of the constructions, it is now time to advance the research into more intricate, longitudinal, and explanatory methods. This integrative and systematic evaluation of the educational literature on strategy and strategic leadership of determining the features of strategic management in education was an attempt to contribute to the overall goal of this project.

Research Agenda

Institutionalized education policies are derived from a wide range of short-term and long-term planning activities, such as development plans, government programs, and strategic plans, to find a solution to this issue and investigate the requirements that the field of strategic management will have shortly. Based on the demographics of the various literature, only some studies that the schools and school leaders must understand and realize the features of strategic management in education were noted in Southeast Asia. Hence, it can be a source of another similar study in the context of these countries. Lastly, the output of this study gains social relevance because the results can substantially satisfy all school leaders. They may utilize the results of this study in crafting and enhancing policy and implementation, and this can be an avenue to present this study in various local, national, and international forums, which will also have the potential to publish this work in a reputable journal.

  REFERENCES

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• Ashittey, A. J. (2022). An examination of the strategic management practices of selected private educational institutions in the Accra Metropolis. A Christian perspective. ADDRI Journal (Multidisciplinary). DOI: https://doi.org/10.55058/adrrij.v31i3%0(8)%20July-September.926
• Bahri, Saiful. (2020). Strategic planning and management of human resources in educational institutions. EDUKASI : Jurnal Pendidikan Islam (e-Journal), 8(1), 62–84. Retrieved from https://www.ejournal.staim-tulungagung.ac.id/index.php/edukasi/article/view/245
• Bush, T., & Coleman, M. (2018). Strategic management in education. Sage Journal, p. 463.
• Carvalho, M., Cabral, I., Verdasca, J.L., & Alves, J.M. (2021). Strategy and strategic leadership in education: A scoping review. 45-46.
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• Darden, William R. et al. (1989). Career vs. organizational commitment: Antecedents and con. Journal of Retailing. Greenwich. Vol. 65, Iss. 1
• Dias, E. (2018). Strategic management of educational institutions enabling transformation to excellent education innovative centers in India. International Journal of Management, Technology, and Social Sciences (IJMTS), 3(1), 25–36.
• Kose, E. K., & Kose, M. F. (2019). Strategic management and leadership of education: Central and local perspectives in Turkey. Educational Policy Analysis and Strategic Research, 348. Lancaster, PA: Technomic.
• Latorre-Medina, M.J., & Blanco-Encomienda, F. J. (2013). Strategic management as key to improve the quality of education. Science Direct Journal, Pages 270-274.
• Liberati A, Altman DG, Tetzlaff J, Mulrow C, Gøtzsche PC, et al. (2009) The PRISMA Statement for Reporting Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses of Studies That Evaluate Health Care Interventions: Explanation and Elaboration. PLOS Medicine 6(7): e1000100. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000100
• Nyagah, A. S. (2015). Challenges of formulation of strategic plans in secondary schools in Kenya: A case of Mombasa county and its environs. Journal of Education and Practice, 182-183.
• Palladan, A. A., Abdul Kadir, K., & Yen, W. C. (2016). Effects of strategic leadership, organizational innovativeness, and information technology capability on effective strategy implementation. International Journal of Organizational & Business Excellence, 1(2), 118.
• Price, James L. (2017). Handbook of organizational measurement, London: DC. Health and Company, 1972. Academy of Management Journal Vol.24, No. 3
• Ramdhan, D. F. (2019). Strategic management in increasing educational participation for 12-years cumpulsory education. Jurnal Pendidikan Islam UIN Sunan Gunung Djati (JPI), 5 (2). pp. 227-238. ISSN 2460-8149
• Ranganathan, P., & Aggarawal R. (2020). Study designs: Part 7 systematic reviews. Perspectives in Clinical Research11(2):97. DOI:4103/picr.PICR_84_20
• Sababu, B. (2007). Strategic management: The analytical approach. Nairobi: Jomo Kenyatta Foundation.
• Sabattin, J., Fuertes, G., Alfaro, M., Vargas, M., Gutierrez, S., & Ternero, R. (2020). Conceptual framework for the strategic management: A literature review Descriptive. Hindawi Journal.
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• Swain, P. K., & Pradhan, B. B. (2020). An investigation on strategic management success factors in an educational complex. PalArch Journal of Archaeology of Egypt / Egyptology. Volume 17 (6)
• Syarifudin, A. et al. (2022). Strategic management to cultivate Islamic boarding schools’ educational quality: Blending model implementation. Journal Eduvest. Vol 2(4): 816-828
• Yaakob, M. F. M., Musa, R. M., Habibi, A. (2019). Strategic management and strategic planning in school: Is it worth for teachers?. Academy of Strategic Management Journal. Volume 18, Issue 3, 2019

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• Business strategy |
• 7 strategic planning models, plus 8 fra ...

7 strategic planning models, plus 8 frameworks to help you get started

Strategic planning is vital in defining where your business is going in the next three to five years. With the right strategic planning models and frameworks, you can uncover opportunities, identify risks, and create a strategic plan to fuel your organization’s success. We list the most popular models and frameworks and explain how you can combine them to create a strategic plan that fits your business.

A strategic plan is a great tool to help you hit your business goals . But sometimes, this tool needs to be updated to reflect new business priorities or changing market conditions. If you decide to use a model that already exists, you can benefit from a roadmap that’s already created. The model you choose can improve your knowledge of what works best in your organization, uncover unknown strengths and weaknesses, or help you find out how you can outpace your competitors.

In this article, we cover the most common strategic planning models and frameworks and explain when to use which one. Plus, get tips on how to apply them and which models and frameworks work well together. 

Strategic planning models vs. frameworks

First off: This is not a one-or-nothing scenario. You can use as many or as few strategic planning models and frameworks as you like. 

When your organization undergoes a strategic planning phase, you should first pick a model or two that you want to apply. This will provide you with a basic outline of the steps to take during the strategic planning process.

During that process, think of strategic planning frameworks as the tools in your toolbox. Many models suggest starting with a SWOT analysis or defining your vision and mission statements first. Depending on your goals, though, you may want to apply several different frameworks throughout the strategic planning process.

For example, if you’re applying a scenario-based strategic plan, you could start with a SWOT and PEST(LE) analysis to get a better overview of your current standing. If one of the weaknesses you identify has to do with your manufacturing process, you could apply the theory of constraints to improve bottlenecks and mitigate risks. 

Now that you know the difference between the two, learn more about the seven strategic planning models, as well as the eight most commonly used frameworks that go along with them.

1. Basic model

The basic strategic planning model is ideal for establishing your company’s vision, mission, business objectives, and values. This model helps you outline the specific steps you need to take to reach your goals, monitor progress to keep everyone on target, and address issues as they arise.

If it’s your first strategic planning session, the basic model is the way to go. Later on, you can embellish it with other models to adjust or rewrite your business strategy as needed. Let’s take a look at what kinds of businesses can benefit from this strategic planning model and how to apply it.

Small businesses or organizations

Companies with little to no strategic planning experience

Organizations with few resources 

Write your mission statement. Gather your planning team and have a brainstorming session. The more ideas you can collect early in this step, the more fun and rewarding the analysis phase will feel.

Identify your organization’s goals . Setting clear business goals will increase your team’s performance and positively impact their motivation.

Outline strategies that will help you reach your goals. Ask yourself what steps you have to take in order to reach these goals and break them down into long-term, mid-term, and short-term goals .

Create action plans to implement each of the strategies above. Action plans will keep teams motivated and your organization on target.

Monitor and revise the plan as you go . As with any strategic plan, it’s important to closely monitor if your company is implementing it successfully and how you can adjust it for a better outcome.

2. Issue-based model

Also called goal-based planning model, this is essentially an extension of the basic strategic planning model. It’s a bit more dynamic and very popular for companies that want to create a more comprehensive plan.

Organizations with basic strategic planning experience

Businesses that are looking for a more comprehensive plan

Conduct a SWOT analysis . Assess your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats with a SWOT analysis to get a better overview of what your strategic plan should focus on. We’ll give into how to conduct a SWOT analysis when we get into the strategic planning frameworks below.

Identify and prioritize major issues and/or goals. Based on your SWOT analysis, identify and prioritize what your strategic plan should focus on this time around.

Develop your main strategies that address these issues and/or goals. Aim to develop one overarching strategy that addresses your highest-priority goal and/or issue to keep this process as simple as possible.

Update or create a mission and vision statement . Make sure that your business’s statements align with your new or updated strategy. If you haven’t already, this is also a chance for you to define your organization’s values.

Create action plans. These will help you address your organization’s goals, resource needs, roles, and responsibilities. 

Develop a yearly operational plan document. This model works best if your business repeats the strategic plan implementation process on an annual basis, so use a yearly operational plan to capture your goals, progress, and opportunities for next time.

Allocate resources for your year-one operational plan. Whether you need funding or dedicated team members to implement your first strategic plan, now is the time to allocate all the resources you’ll need.

Monitor and revise the strategic plan. Record your lessons learned in the operational plan so you can revisit and improve it for the next strategic planning phase.

The issue-based plan can repeat on an annual basis (or less often once you resolve the issues). It’s important to update the plan every time it’s in action to ensure it’s still doing the best it can for your organization.

You don’t have to repeat the full process every year—rather, focus on what’s a priority during this run.

3. Alignment model

This model is also called strategic alignment model (SAM) and is one of the most popular strategic planning models. It helps you align your business and IT strategies with your organization’s strategic goals. 

You’ll have to consider four equally important, yet different perspectives when applying the alignment strategic planning model:

Strategy execution: The business strategy driving the model

Technology potential: The IT strategy supporting the business strategy

Competitive potential: Emerging IT capabilities that can create new products and services

Service level: Team members dedicated to creating the best IT system in the organization

Ideally, your strategy will check off all the criteria above—however, it’s more likely you’ll have to find a compromise. 

Here’s how to create a strategic plan using the alignment model and what kinds of companies can benefit from it.

Organizations that need to fine-tune their strategies

Businesses that want to uncover issues that prevent them from aligning with their mission

Companies that want to reassess objectives or correct problem areas that prevent them from growing

Outline your organization’s mission, programs, resources, and where support is needed. Before you can improve your statements and approaches, you need to define what exactly they are.

Identify what internal processes are working and which ones aren’t. Pinpoint which processes are causing problems, creating bottlenecks , or could otherwise use improving. Then prioritize which internal processes will have the biggest positive impact on your business.

Identify solutions. Work with the respective teams when you’re creating a new strategy to benefit from their experience and perspective on the current situation.

Update your strategic plan with the solutions. Update your strategic plan and monitor if implementing it is setting your business up for improvement or growth. If not, you may have to return to the drawing board and update your strategic plan with new solutions.

4. Scenario model

The scenario model works great if you combine it with other models like the basic or issue-based model. This model is particularly helpful if you need to consider external factors as well. These can be government regulations, technical, or demographic changes that may impact your business.

Organizations trying to identify strategic issues and goals caused by external factors

Identify external factors that influence your organization. For example, you should consider demographic, regulation, or environmental factors.

Review the worst case scenario the above factors could have on your organization. If you know what the worst case scenario for your business looks like, it’ll be much easier to prepare for it. Besides, it’ll take some of the pressure and surprise out of the mix, should a scenario similar to the one you create actually occur.

Identify and discuss two additional hypothetical organizational scenarios. On top of your worst case scenario, you’ll also want to define the best case and average case scenarios. Keep in mind that the worst case scenario from the previous step can often provoke strong motivation to change your organization for the better. However, discussing the other two will allow you to focus on the positive—the opportunities your business may have ahead.

Identify and suggest potential strategies or solutions. Everyone on the team should now brainstorm different ways your business could potentially respond to each of the three scenarios. Discuss the proposed strategies as a team afterward.

Uncover common considerations or strategies for your organization. There’s a good chance that your teammates come up with similar solutions. Decide which ones you like best as a team or create a new one together.

Identify the most likely scenario and the most reasonable strategy. Finally, examine which of the three scenarios is most likely to occur in the next three to five years and how your business should respond to potential changes.

5. Self-organizing model

Also called the organic planning model, the self-organizing model is a bit different from the linear approaches of the other models. You’ll have to be very patient with this method. 

This strategic planning model is all about focusing on the learning and growing process rather than achieving a specific goal. Since the organic model concentrates on continuous improvement , the process is never really over.

Large organizations that can afford to take their time

Businesses that prefer a more naturalistic, organic planning approach that revolves around common values, communication, and shared reflection

Companies that have a clear understanding of their vision

Define and communicate your organization’s cultural values . Your team can only think clearly and with solutions in mind when they have a clear understanding of your organization's values.

Communicate the planning group’s vision for the organization. Define and communicate the vision with everyone involved in the strategic planning process. This will align everyone’s ideas with your company’s vision.

Discuss what processes will help realize the organization’s vision on a regular basis. Meet every quarter to discuss strategies or tactics that will move your organization closer to realizing your vision.

6. Real-time model

This fluid model can help organizations that deal with rapid changes to their work environment. There are three levels of success in the real-time model: 

Organizational: At the organizational level, you’re forming strategies in response to opportunities or trends.

Programmatic: At the programmatic level, you have to decide how to respond to specific outcomes or environmental changes.

Operational: On the operational level, you will study internal systems, policies, and people to develop a strategy for your company.

Figuring out your competitive advantage can be difficult, but this is absolutely crucial to ensure success. Whether it’s a unique asset or strength your organization has or an outstanding execution of services or programs—it’s important that you can set yourself apart from others in the industry to succeed.

Companies that need to react quickly to changing environments

Businesses that are seeking new tools to help them align with their organizational strategy

Define your mission and vision statement. If you ever feel stuck formulating your company’s mission or vision statement, take a look at those of others. Maybe Asana’s vision statement sparks some inspiration.

Research, understand, and learn from competitor strategy and market trends. Pick a handful of competitors in your industry and find out how they’ve created success for themselves. How did they handle setbacks or challenges? What kinds of challenges did they even encounter? Are these common scenarios in the market? Learn from your competitors by finding out as much as you can about them.

Study external environments. At this point, you can combine the real-time model with the scenario model to find solutions to threats and opportunities outside of your control.

Conduct a SWOT analysis of your internal processes, systems, and resources. Besides the external factors your team has to consider, it’s also important to look at your company’s internal environment and how well you’re prepared for different scenarios.

Develop a strategy. Discuss the results of your SWOT analysis to develop a business strategy that builds toward organizational, programmatic, and operational success.

Rinse and repeat. Monitor how well the new strategy is working for your organization and repeat the planning process as needed to ensure you’re on top or, perhaps, ahead of the game. 

7. Inspirational model

This last strategic planning model is perfect to inspire and energize your team as they work toward your organization’s goals. It’s also a great way to introduce or reconnect your employees to your business strategy after a merger or acquisition.

Businesses with a dynamic and inspired start-up culture

Organizations looking for inspiration to reinvigorate the creative process

Companies looking for quick solutions and strategy shifts

Gather your team to discuss an inspirational vision for your organization. The more people you can gather for this process, the more input you will receive.

Brainstorm big, hairy audacious goals and ideas. Encouraging your team not to hold back with ideas that may seem ridiculous will do two things: for one, it will mitigate the fear of contributing bad ideas. But more importantly, it may lead to a genius idea or suggestion that your team wouldn’t have thought of if they felt like they had to think inside of the box.

Assess your organization’s resources. Find out if your company has the resources to implement your new ideas. If they don’t, you’ll have to either adjust your strategy or allocate more resources.

Develop a strategy balancing your resources and brainstorming ideas. Far-fetched ideas can grow into amazing opportunities but they can also bear great risk. Make sure to balance ideas with your strategic direction. 

Now, let’s dive into the most commonly used strategic frameworks.

8. SWOT analysis framework

One of the most popular strategic planning frameworks is the SWOT analysis . A SWOT analysis is a great first step in identifying areas of opportunity and risk—which can help you create a strategic plan that accounts for growth and prepares for threats.

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Here’s an example:

9. OKRs framework

A big part of strategic planning is setting goals for your company. That’s where OKRs come into play. 

OKRs stand for objective and key results—this goal-setting framework helps your organization set and achieve goals. It provides a somewhat holistic approach that you can use to connect your team’s work to your organization’s big-picture goals.  When team members understand how their individual work contributes to the organization’s success, they tend to be more motivated and produce better results

10. Balanced scorecard (BSC) framework

The balanced scorecard is a popular strategic framework for businesses that want to take a more holistic approach rather than just focus on their financial performance. It was designed by David Norton and Robert Kaplan in the 1990s, it’s used by companies around the globe to: 

Communicate goals

Align their team’s daily work with their company’s strategy

Prioritize products, services, and projects

Monitor their progress toward their strategic goals

Your balanced scorecard will outline four main business perspectives:

Customers or clients , meaning their value, satisfaction, and/or retention

Financial , meaning your effectiveness in using resources and your financial performance

Internal process , meaning your business’s quality and efficiency

Organizational capacity , meaning your organizational culture, infrastructure and technology, and human resources

With the help of a strategy map, you can visualize and communicate how your company is creating value. A strategy map is a simple graphic that shows cause-and-effect connections between strategic objectives. 

The balanced scorecard framework is an amazing tool to use from outlining your mission, vision, and values all the way to implementing your strategic plan .

You can use an integration like Lucidchart to create strategy maps for your business in Asana.

11. Porter’s Five Forces framework

If you’re using the real-time strategic planning model, Porter’s Five Forces are a great framework to apply. You can use it to find out what your product’s or service’s competitive advantage is before entering the market.

Developed by Michael E. Porter , the framework outlines five forces you have to be aware of and monitor:

Threat of new industry entrants: Any new entry into the market results in increased pressure on prices and costs. 

Competition in the industry: The more competitors that exist, the more difficult it will be for you to create value in the market with your product or service.

Bargaining power of suppliers: Suppliers can wield more power if there are less alternatives for buyers or it’s expensive, time consuming, or difficult to switch to a different supplier.

Bargaining power of buyers: Buyers can wield more power if the same product or service is available elsewhere with little to no difference in quality.

Threat of substitutes: If another company already covers the market’s needs, you’ll have to create a better product or service or make it available for a lower price at the same quality in order to compete.

Remember, industry structures aren’t static. The more dynamic your strategic plan is, the better you’ll be able to compete in a market.

12. VRIO framework

The VRIO framework is another strategic planning tool designed to help you evaluate your competitive advantage. VRIO stands for value, rarity, imitability, and organization.

It’s a resource-based theory developed by Jay Barney. With this framework, you can study your firmed resources and find out whether or not your company can transform them into sustained competitive advantages. 

Firmed resources can be tangible (e.g., cash, tools, inventory, etc.) or intangible (e.g., copyrights, trademarks, organizational culture, etc.). Whether these resources will actually help your business once you enter the market depends on four qualities:

Valuable : Will this resource either increase your revenue or decrease your costs and thereby create value for your business?

Rare : Are the resources you’re using rare or can others use your resources as well and therefore easily provide the same product or service?

Inimitable : Are your resources either inimitable or non-substitutable? In other words, how unique and complex are your resources?

Organizational: Are you organized enough to use your resources in a way that captures their value, rarity, and inimitability?

It’s important that your resources check all the boxes above so you can ensure that you have sustained competitive advantage over others in the industry.

13. Theory of Constraints (TOC) framework

If the reason you’re currently in a strategic planning process is because you’re trying to mitigate risks or uncover issues that could hurt your business—this framework should be in your toolkit.

The theory of constraints (TOC) is a problem-solving framework that can help you identify limiting factors or bottlenecks preventing your organization from hitting OKRs or KPIs . 

Whether it’s a policy, market, or recourse constraint—you can apply the theory of constraints to solve potential problems, respond to issues, and empower your team to improve their work with the resources they have.

14. PEST/PESTLE analysis framework

The idea of the PEST analysis is similar to that of the SWOT analysis except that you’re focusing on external factors and solutions. It’s a great framework to combine with the scenario-based strategic planning model as it helps you define external factors connected to your business’s success.

PEST stands for political, economic, sociological, and technological factors. Depending on your business model, you may want to expand this framework to include legal and environmental factors as well (PESTLE). These are the most common factors you can include in a PESTLE analysis:

Political: Taxes, trade tariffs, conflicts

Economic: Interest and inflation rate, economic growth patterns, unemployment rate

Social: Demographics, education, media, health

Technological: Communication, information technology, research and development, patents

Legal: Regulatory bodies, environmental regulations, consumer protection

Environmental: Climate, geographical location, environmental offsets

15. Hoshin Kanri framework

Hoshin Kanri is a great tool to communicate and implement strategic goals. It’s a planning system that involves the entire organization in the strategic planning process. The term is Japanese and stands for “compass management” and is also known as policy management. 

This strategic planning framework is a top-down approach that starts with your leadership team defining long-term goals which are then aligned and communicated with every team member in the company. 

You should hold regular meetings to monitor progress and update the timeline to ensure that every teammate’s contributions are aligned with the overarching company goals.

Stick to your strategic goals

Whether you’re a small business just starting out or a nonprofit organization with decades of experience, strategic planning is a crucial step in your journey to success. 

If you’re looking for a tool that can help you and your team define, organize, and implement your strategic goals, Asana is here to help. Our goal-setting software allows you to connect all of your team members in one place, visualize progress, and stay on target.

Related resources

9 steps to craft a successful go-to-market (GTM) strategy

Unmanaged business goals don’t work. Here’s what does.

How Asana uses work management to effectively manage goals

Beat thrash for good: 4 organizational planning challenges and solutions

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Hawaii News

Uh moves toward an ‘indigenous-serving’ institution model.

• By Esme M. Infante [email protected]
• March 25, 2024

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII

UH Manoa students, faculty and staff work in a loi at the campus.

A year and four months after the University of Hawaii Board of Regents approved a strategic plan that in part calls for UH to “fulfill kuleana to Native Hawaiians and Hawaii,” officials are preparing to select an administrator to implement that “imperative” across the 10-campus system, and meanwhile launching a two-year cultural initiative on the flagship Manoa campus. Read more

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A year and four months after the University of Hawaii Board of Regents approved a strategic plan that in part calls for UH to “fulfill kuleana to Native Hawaiians and Hawaii,” officials are preparing to select an administrator to implement that “imperative” across the 10-campus system, and meanwhile launching a two-year cultural initiative on the flagship Manoa campus.

The cultural activities are part of the run-up to having 100% of UH schools, colleges and similar nonacademic units create their own five-year strategic plans “focusing on how their units can take steps toward becoming a Native Hawaiian place of learning in four specific focus areas,” Kaiwipuni­kauikawekiu Punihei Lipe, director of the Native Hawaiian Place of Learning Advancement Office for the Manoa campus, said in a news release.

The imperative, listed as the first of four on the UH strategic plan website, reads, “Imperative: Fulfill kuleana to Native Hawaiians and Hawai‘i. Goal: Model what it means to be an indigenous­-serving and indigenous-centered institution: Native Hawaiians thrive, traditional Hawaiian values and knowledge are embraced, and UH scholarship and service advance all Native Hawaiians and Hawai‘i.” “Kuleana” is a Hawaiian word with “right, privilege, concern, responsibility” among its definitions in the Hawaiian Dictionary by Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert.

The four imperatives are the backbone of the 2023-2029 strategic plan approved by the UH Board of Regents in November 2022. The others are “Develop successful students for a better future,” “Meet Hawaii’s workforce needs of today and tomorrow” and “Diversify Hawaii’s economy through UH innovation and research.”

UH President David Lassner said Wednesday in a conversation with Honolulu Star-Advertiser journalists that he is about to recommend a candidate for director of Hawaii Papa o ke Ao, who will lead UH’s systemwide effort to become a model Indigenous-­serving institution. The Hawaiian phrase means “Hawaii foundations enlightenment/knowledge,” a UH website says.

Lassner said he agrees with an opinion expressed in a Star-Advertiser interview in July by Alapaki Nahale-a, then UH Board of Regents interim chair, that of the four imperatives of the UH strategic plan, the one that calls for UH to become a model Indigenous-serving institution had been the least understood and developed when the plan was passed.

Lassner said he believes UH has made significant strides in certain aspects of serving Native Hawaiians, such as producing more Hawaiian-language speakers, increasing enrollment of Native Hawaiian students, building focus on decreasing Hawaiians’ overrepresentation in such areas as incarceration and health problems, and establishing the Native Hawaiian Place of Learning Advancement Office for the Manoa campus.

However, as many gaps remain, Lassner said a key question now is, “How do we really dig in?”

He acknowledged that “there wasn’t anybody getting up in the morning and saying, ‘My job is to move this imperative forward across the UH system.’ We publicly advertised that position, and I expect I’ll have a recommendation to the board within the next month or so for somebody to do that job. Because it takes a lot of getting up every day and saying, ‘I understand this imperative, and it’s my job to help make it happen.’”

The job description for the director of Hawaii Papa o ke Ao reads, in part, that that person will lead the UH system’s efforts “to model what it means to become an indigenous-­serving and indigenous-centered institution. In so doing UH is committed to advance as a Hawaiian Place of Learning that champions the principles of aloha as well as caring for people and place, as it integrates Hawaiian language, culture, history and values across the institution and its work. The director is the senior executive who is singularly focused on UH systemwide Native Hawaiian initiatives and advancement.”

Meanwhile, the cultural initiative on the Manoa campus has been launched by a team that is “tasked with helping advance the University of Hawaii at Manoa as a Native Hawaiian Place of Learning,” and the objective is “immersing a diverse range of students and employees in Native Hawaiian values and traditions,” the release said.

This week 54 participants — a mix of UH students, staff, faculty and administrators from more than 10 schools, colleges and units — are participating, and another 90 are expected for a session in May, a UH spokesperson said Thursday by email.

The activities are centered around Native Hawaiian concepts outlined in the UHM Strategic Plan, such as genealogy; intergenerational interdependent relationships; kuleana (responsibilities and privileges); nourishing and protecting one other; and caring for one another, the spokesperson said. Activities include mapping various genealogical stories; caring for a loi, or taro patch; learning chants; and participating in “pilina circles” for connection.

UH Manoa Provost Michael Bruno said in a separate address to the UH Board of Regents on Thursday about the Manoa campus that UH “can and must lead the way” in “support of the protection of Hawaii’s land and her communities.”

“We continue to close the gap in assuring that our Native Hawaiian student body is representative of our host community, but we must do more to ensure their academic success and the attainment of their career aspirations,” Bruno continued. “And sadly, we are still far short of where we need to be in having a representative percentage of Native Hawaiian scholars on our Manoa faculty.”

People of Native Hawaiian ancestry constitute 21.8% of Hawaii’s overall population, according to a 2023 report on the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs website.

But at the UH Manoa campus, 16.6% of students are Hawaiian or part Hawaiian, according to the UH Manoa Institutional Research Office. About 18% of Manoa faculty are Hawaiian or part Hawaiian, according to data from UH officials.

Vital Statistics: March 15-21, 2024

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California Management Review

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CMR INSIGHTS

3 models for assessing and improving ai corporate performance.

by J. Mark Munoz and Oliver Degnan

Image Credit | Shane Rounce

Introduction

The global AI market is estimated to be worth over $196 Billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at an annual growth rate of over 30% from 2023 to 2030 (Grandview Research, 2024). Amidst this landscape, studies have shown that approximately 9 out of 10 companies are leaning on AI to gain a competitive business advantage (Ransbotham et al., 2020). About 83% of executives surveyed indicated that AI is a strategic priority (Fatemi, 2019).

Related CMR Articles

“Getting AI Implementation Right: Insights from a Global Survey” by Rebecka C. Ångström, Michael Björn, Linus Dahlander, Magnus Mähring, & Martin W. Wallin

While there are numerous benefits associated with AI, such as product enhancement, internal and external operational efficiencies, improved decision-making, knowledge gain, and market expansion, among others, challenges such as difficulty in process and system integration, price, lack of technological understanding, and talent limitations exist (Davenport & Ronanki, 2018). 

Companies are at diverse stages of AI implementation, and there have been mixed results across industries regarding the accomplished level of success.

Amidst this landscape, companies need to assess their current AI operational readiness and performance and identify areas of strengths and weaknesses and pathways to future success. 

The authors recommend 3 models for assessing and improving corporate performance: The AI Program Review, AI Circle, and The AI Strategic Planning Committee. 

The AI Program Review

The AI Program Review is an approach where an external team of professionals objectively assesses the company’s AI operational performance. The assessment team may be selected by an initiator such as the Chief Operating Officer (COO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO), or Head of AI. The assessment team will consist of technology and business professionals. This team, composed of 5-7 individuals, would ideally include academics, AI or technology experts, and senior-level executives from diverse industries. The review team will be tasked to assess the AI operations and provide recommendations for improvement within a 3-to-6-month window, depending on the breadth and scope of the assessment. 

This approach presents an opportunity to leverage AI and examine efficiencies pertaining to finance, operations, sales and marketing, and development.

The areas of assessment may vary across companies. Potential areas of evaluation include systems architecture, vendor relationships, data integrity, model performance, compliance and ethics, operational readiness, user experience, cultural readiness, and ROI analysis. 

Upon discussion with top management team members, the initiator ideally informs the AI assessment team about the areas of assessment priority, the types of data that may be accessed, if any, and confidentiality and legal protocols. 

Upon completion of the AI assessment, the review team presents their findings and recommendations to the initiator and the top management team. The AI review findings and recommendations should be in a format that is presentable to the board of directors and investors. It should be clear and concise on its conclusions and recommendations for improvement and should consider immediate, short, and long-term expectations.

Professional fees may be paid directly to each evaluator. In cases where an organization leads the effort, payments may be made to the organization or the review team leader.

Companies can gain fresh perspectives on their AI activities and commitments through the AI Program Review. The gathered insights would help shape future strategic decisions. 

The AI Circle

The AI Circle is a quality improvement initiative comprised of executives across departments interested in learning more about AI and ways to better use the technology in the organization. 

The circle is an employee-driven initiative supported by management. The intent is to be educated and share knowledge and ideas on AI challenges, opportunities, and areas of improvement. 

The circle is headed by the AI Circle Head (AICH), who serves as a coordinator between top management and employee participants. The AICH coordinates meeting schedules and venues. As a leader, the AICH also sets the agenda, facilitates discussions, captures meeting notes, and monitors agreed upon quality improvement initiatives pursued. 

The AICH discusses with top management incentives and bonuses resulting from the accomplishment of top-quality work in the company’s AI agenda. The AICH also secures a budget for books, AI guest speakers, and specialized training for members. 

An essential impact of the AI Circle in organizations is that it creates a community of like-minded employees interested in learning more about AI and using the technology to improve their departmental operations. 

As a result of this effort, knowledge within the organization on matters relating to AI is enhanced, problems and challenges are discussed, and solutions are uncovered. 

The AI Strategic Planning Committee

Some companies face the challenge of integrating their AI agenda. In one study, only 8% of executives surveyed claimed relevant data are accessible using AI systems throughout the organization (McKinsey, 2018). This suggests that companies can do more in taking on a more holistic approach in their AI strategy.

An effective way to coordinate a company’s AI efforts is to create an AI Strategic Plan (Munoz & Naqvi, 2021). A strategic plan provides a comprehensive corporate-wide view of how the company wants to move forward with its AI agenda. This plan covers mission and goals, operational assessment, market and competitive analysis, infrastructure and technology, organizational design, relationships and alliances, risk assessment, financial considerations, implementation approach, and progress review and evaluation. 

This strategic plan is best created not solely by top management but rather by an AI Strategic Planning Committee comprised of managers and employees. The number of members in the planning committee and its composition largely depends on the company size and the level of commitment towards AI. It is crucial to have each department represented in the committee. The top management team assembles the committee based on departmental nominations. Once the committee is formed, the committee members vote on a Chairperson who will lead the effort toward creating a company-wide strategic plan. 

It is best to establish beforehand the overall goals and priorities of the committee, completion timelines, and the allocated budget for the effort. 

When managed correctly, the AI Strategic Planning Committee will help the company better coordinate and integrate its AI efforts and have a unified action plan for the future. The fact that the process involves all departments would also mean that critical voices are heard, and essential problems discussed. As a result, the chances for an entire organization’s buy-in of developmental plans dramatically improves. 

Concluding Thoughts

As the AI Revolution unfolds, many companies are experiencing a wide range of results ranging from dismal failure to phenomenal accomplishments. In companies worldwide, some form of assessment and improvement planning would offer significant merits and the opportunity to boost competitive advantage. These simple yet effective models could offer new solutions to problems, provide fresh operational perspectives, and even boost existing success. 

Davenport, T.H. & Ronanki, R. (2018). Artificial intelligence for the real world. Harvard Business Review. Accessed March 2, 2024, available at: https://hbr.org/2018/01/artificial-intelligence-for-the-real-world

Grandview Research (2024). Artificial intelligence market size and trends. Accessed March 2, 2024, available at: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/artificial-intelligence-ai-market

Fatemi, F. (2019). There are three ways artificial intelligence is transforming business operations. Forbes. Accessed March 2, 2024, available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/falonfatemi/2019/05/29/3-ways-artificial-intelligence-is-transforming-business-operations/?sh=1e652b66036c

McKinsey (2018). Notes from the AI frontier: AI adoption advances, but foundational barriers remain. Accessed March 3, 2024, available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Featured%20Insights/Artificial%20Intelligence/AI%20adoption%20advances%20but%20foundational%20barriers%20remain/Notes-from-the-AI-frontier-AI-adoption-advances-but-foundational-barriers-remain.ashx

Munoz, J.M. & Naqvi, A. (2021). The AI Leader: Mastery of Humans and Machines in the Workplace. First Hill Books: London. 

Ransbotham, S., Khodabandeh, S., Kiron, D., Candelon, F., Chu, M., & LaFountain, B. Expanding AI’s impact with organizational learning. MIT Sloan Management Review. Accessed March 2, 2024, available at: https://web-assets.bcg.com/1e/4f/925e66794465ad89953ff604b656/mit-bcg-expanding-ai-impact-with-organizational-learning-oct-2020-n.pdf

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