Stream 14 Strategic Management Competitive Session

Strategy formulation and implementation: identifying the key success factors

Winthrop Professor Gary J. Stockport Management & Organisations, Business School, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Perth, Western Australia 6009 Email: [email protected]

Professor Roger Smith Management & Organisations, Business School, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Perth, Western Australia 6009 Email: [email protected]

Research Assistant and PhD Student Bikendra S. Thapa Management & Organisations, Business School, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Perth, Western Australia 6009 Email: [email protected]

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Stream 14 Strategic Management Competitive Session Strategy formulation and implementation: identifying the key success factors ABSTRACT We investigated strategy formulation and implementation within a private sector organisation. This paper specifically focuses upon identifying the key success factors for successful formulation and implementation of a strategic plan. A review of the academic literature found that there had been only limited research into the actual strategy formulation and implementation process including the key success factors. In-depth data about a company was collected through a qualitative research design involving semi-structured interviews with Senior Executives including the CEO and COOs, focus groups comprising middle and lower level staff and participant observation within strategy meetings. Data was analysed through using NViVo 10. The identified key success factors included: CEO’s leadership, employee input, continual monitoring of performance and talent development. Keywords: Strategy formulation; implementation; strategy process. INTRODUCTION Strategic management essentially contains two main elements: one is strategy formulation and the other is strategy implementation (Hrebiniak, 2006). Broadly, strategy formulation is about developing strategies whilst strategy implementation is about translating the direction of strategies into action. These two integral parts of strategic management address what the strategy shall be and how it should be put into effect (Alexander, 1991). Most of the previous research about key success factors for strategy has focused on key success factors predominantly for strategy implementation (Alamsjah, 2011; Alexander, 1985; Brenes, Mena & Molina, 2008; Crittenden & Crittenden, 2008; Hakonsson, Burton, Obel & Lauridsen, 2012; Miller, 1997; Shah, 2005). Little research has investigated the key success factors for both the formulation and implementation of a strategic plan. Therefore, the purpose of this paper was to help fill this gap. This research adopted a qualitative case study approach to investigate strategy formulation and implementation in a private sector organisation. A qualitative case study is an in-depth description and analysis of a bounded system such as an organisation (Merriam, 2009). The organisation selected for this study is the GS Group (and its name has been changed for confidentiality reasons), which is one of South-East Asia’s premier property developers involved in residential and commercial properties, resort development and green buildings. Since its beginning in 1982, this company has developed over 50,000 units of residential and commercial properties and 5 million square feet of office space. It has

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not only achieved much financial success, but it has also won many awards for its innovative building designs. The driving force behind the company’s success was its founder, Mr. TS (and his name has been changed for confidentiality reasons) who favoured a top-down leadership style and had ‘dominated’ strategy formulation for some 30 years. When his son, Mr. BK (again, the name has been changed for confidentiality reasons) took over as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) on 2nd April 2012, he immediately started to transform the GS Group. This included the formulation and implementation of a Strategy Plan. An overview of the academic literature is considered next.

OVERVIEW OF LITERATURE The term ‘strategy’ was derived from the Greek word ‘strategos’, which broadly means ‘the art of leading an army’ (Heracleous, 2003, p. 3). Despite its early origin in the military domain, the term ‘strategy’ today is largely associated with business. According to Hrebiniak and Joyce (1984, p. 29), ‘Strategy formulation is a decision process focusing on the development of long-term objectives and the alignment of organisational capabilities and environmental contingencies so as to obtain them’. Strategy formulation typically involves developing a detailed strategic plan and for the GS Group this included the formulation of a One Page Strategy Plan (OPSP). A strategic plan is a comprehensive document used to communicate an organisation’s strategic objectives and the actions needed to achieve them (Higgins, 2005). It has been well noted that formulated strategies produce superior results for the organisation only when they are successfully implemented (Beaudan, 2001; Hrebiniak, 2006; Noble, 1999). As defined by Hamermesh (1986, p. 43), ‘Implementation is the process of ensuring that strategy is embodied in all that an organisation does. The objective of implementation is to create connections between strategic objectives and the organisation's daily activities’. It is a process by which strategies are put into action through the creation of programs, budgets and procedures (Wheelen & Hunger, 2012). Collis (2005) stated that unlike strategy formulation that is largely a market driven creative activity, strategy implementation is primarily an operations driven activity that involves managing people and business processes. Furthermore, strategy implementers are typically a much more diverse set of people that those who formulate strategies (Wheelen & Hunger, 2012).

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It is generally assumed that strategies do not produce the intended results due to implementation problems rather than weaknesses in strategy formulation (Mankins & Steele, 2005; Morgan, Levitt & Malek, 2007; Neilson, Martin & Powers, 2008; Noble, 1999; Piëst & Ritsema, 1993; Zagotta & Robinson, 2002). Consequently, Hrebiniak (2006) pointed out that managers need to be thinking about implementation even as they are formulating strategic plans. Therefore, Fogg (1999) recommended developing an implementation plan while formulating strategies. According to Alamsjah (2011, p. 1444) key success factors are ‘...the most important and overriding factors that affect successful strategy execution’. An example of a key success factor was having clear goals and priorities. In a study of 26 organisations, Collins and Porras (2000) found that having Big Hairy Audacious Goals, known by its acronym BHAG, gave leverage to the visionary organisations to outpace their competitors. Along with having clear goals, Aaltonen and Ikavalko (2002), Beer and Eisenstat (2000) and Mankins and Steele (2005) emphasised the importance of establishing a few priorities. Another key success factor for implementation was top management support. Brenes et al. (2008) found that implementation became very challenging without commitment from the top management and especially the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). A third key success factor was communication. In a study conducted to evaluate a strategic decision in 93 organisations, Alexander (1985) reported that communication was emphasised more than any other factor facilitating successful strategy implementation. The content of such communication included what the strategy was, why it was formulated and what role each employee played in implementation. As mentioned earlier, successful strategy formulation and implementation is important for organisational success (Bossidy & Charan, 2002). Consequently, this research considers the key success factors for both strategy formulation and implementation. The next part of this paper outlines the research methodology.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY A case study approach was selected for this research. ‘A case study is an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident’ (Yin, 2009, p. 18). A case study

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could be an individual, a group, an organisation, or even an event or situation (Sekaran & Bougie, 2013). According to Merriam (2009), a strength of a case study approach is that it offers a means to investigate complex social units consisting of multiple variables that are important to understand a phenomenon. Consequently, a case study can result in a rich and holistic study. Another strength of case study research is triangulation, which involves collecting data from multiple sources to help corroborate the findings (Yin, 2009). Nevertheless, Merriam (2009) pointed out that the issue of generalisability was a concern in the case study approach as it tends to focus upon a single unit of analysis. The case study about the GS Group comprised the collection of both in-depth secondary and primary data. Secondary data is information that has been collected by another researcher for another purpose (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2012). The secondary data was collected from the organisation’s website, Factiva search engine for newspaper articles etc. as well as relevant internal documents such as full access to the Notes from past Annual Strategy Workshops over 3 years. Some of these documents provided a privileged and rich ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at strategy formulation and implementation within the GS Group. They included: • Copies of a number of speeches from the CEO such as his initiation speech delivered early April 2012, his first 100 days speech July 2012 as well as several Quarterly Review Speeches. • The GS Group’s One Page Strategic Plan (OPSP) including its various versions and updates. • The Notes from the Annual Strategy Workshops held during April 4th-6th 2012, February 1st3rd 2013 and June 23rd-25th 2014. These Notes comprised some 150+ pages of strategy content. • The Minuted Notes of Monthly Senior Leadership Team (SLT) meetings. • The Notes of an Open Space Technology Forum held July 2nd 2014. • Various issues of the company’s newsletters. These typically contained the Chairman’s message, key achievements, events, project updates and staff news amongst other things. The primary data for this study was collected using semi-structured interviews, focus groups and participant observation. Ten Senior Executives were interviewed one-on-one including the Chief

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Executive Officer (CEO) and three Chief Operating Officers (COOs), five members of the SLT and one member of the OPSP Working Committee. A semi-structured interview is a qualitative data collection technique where a researcher has some key questions to be covered while others may be included, excluded or amended depending upon the flow of the conversation (Saunders et al., 2012). An advantage of the semi-structured interview is that it allows the researcher to get responses to predetermined questions as well as emerging ideas on the topic by using probing questions (Merriam, 2009). In other words, semi-structured interviews provide flexibility required to collect in-depth data from the interviewee respondents. Different interview questions were prepared for the CEO, COOs, SLT Members and OPSP Working Committee member i.e. four sets of questions were prepared. Some summary descriptive information about the semi-structured interviews is presented in table 1. These interviews typically lasted around 45 minutes. -------------------------Put Table 1 about here -------------------------This research also conducted three focus groups which included members of the OPSP Working Committee (one group) as well as middle to lower level employees of the GS Group (two groups). A focus group is a research technique used to collect data about a topic through interactive discussion amongst a group of participants (Sekaran & Bougie, 2013). Typically, a focus group involves 4 - 12 participants although the specific number depends upon a number of factors such as the topic being investigated as well as the moderator’s skill in managing the group (Saunders et al., 2012). A distinct advantage of using a focus group is that it enables participants to react to and build on the responses of other group members, which may produce data that might not have been uncovered during one-on-one interviews (Stewart, Shamdasani & Rook, 2007). However, a drawback of this method is that inputs obtained in a focus group could be biased as a consequence of the influence of a dominant participant (Stewart et al., 2007). Consequently, the effective ‘management’ of a focus group is crucial. The three focus groups comprised 4-5 persons and took between 60 – 120 minutes. Again, different sets of questions were developed for the OPSP Working Committee versus the middle to lower level employees. Some summary information about the focus groups is presented in table 2 and table 3.

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-------------------------Put Table 2 about here --------------------------------------------------Put Table 3 about here -------------------------This research also gathered primary data through participant observation of attending three GS Group meetings. Participant observation lies within the tradition of ethnography and is an approach frequently used in case studies where a researcher collects data by participating in the activity of a group or organisation under study (Sekaran & Bougie, 2013). In this data collection method, a researcher can essentially take one of two different roles. In the role of a participant-as-observer, the researcher collects data by becoming a part of the work team (Cavana, Delahaye & Sekaran, 2001). On the other hand, in the role of an observer-as-participant, the researcher collects data by observing activities in the organisation without becoming part of a group (Saunders et al., 2012). However, the group being observed typically knows that the researcher is observing their actions (Merriam, 2009). This research assumed the role of ‘observer-as-participant’ when attending and observing three meetings within the GS Group. These meetings comprised: • A Senior Leadership Team (SLT) meeting which was attended by 28 employees. This meeting investigated various strategy matters and lasted for 3 hours. This meeting was typically held on a monthly basis. • A SCORE (Seamless Co-ordination of Operational Review for Execution) meeting which was attended by 15 staff. This meeting was chaired by the CEO and attended by senior managers. It lasted for 90 minutes. The purpose of this meeting was to evaluate progress on the major projects that were outlined in the OPSP. This meeting was usually held on a fortnightly basis. • A Monday morning briefing session and attended by employees at middle to lower levels. This meeting was chaired by the Human Resource Manager and was attended by 14 employees. The purpose of this meeting was to inform employees about recent management decisions and seek input

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regarding issues that they felt needed to be addressed by the management. This meeting was usually held on a weekly basis and it lasted for 30 minutes. Data was analysed using NVivo 10 through coding the qualitative data. According to Sekaran and Bougie (2013, p. 337), ‘Coding is the analytic process through which the qualitative data you have gathered are reduced, rearranged and integrated to form theory’. Data analysis started with deductive coding by creating four main nodes in NVivo 10. These nodes were named as formulation of a strategic plan, implementation of the strategic plan, key success factors and barriers. Then, various nodes were added under these main nodes based on the analysis of the internal documents and transcripts. Consequently, many nodes were generated from the secondary and primary data. The documents and transcripts were read and analysed several times as per the constant-comparative method until no new nodes were generated. After creating the nodes, the researcher grouped related nodes under a category. For example, nodes such as performance bonus and salary increment under one category called cash rewards. Then, similar categories were grouped together to create a theme. For example, under key success factors, a theme named providing rewards was created by combining categories such as cash rewards, career growth opportunities and monthly star performer award. In this way, key themes were generated. The next part of this paper presents some of the key findings.

FINDINGS The CEO’s Leadership Style There was a general agreement amongst the interviewees that the CEO’s leadership style was pivotal in formulating and implementing the OPSP. Contrary to the founder’s top-down leadership style, the new CEO empowered the employees by involving them in a bottom-up process of formulating and implementing the OPSP. The CEO acted as a motivator, auditor and cheerleader in this regard. In all his speeches, the CEO constantly reminded employees about the organisation’s vision and core purpose. During a focus group session, M&L2, M&L3, M&L4 and M&L5 also acknowledged the crucial leadership role of their CEO. M&L4 said: ‘Since he joined in April 2012, we are motivated to contribute as much as we can in the company. He is our inspiration. We like the way he talks and shares his thoughts. He empowers us’.

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Another focus group participant, M&L2 added: ‘I like the way he introduced us to the vision, core purpose and values. We are looking forward to our future in this company’. Furthermore, M&L3 and M&L4 added that the CEO participated in employee events including birthday celebrations. This helped him to bond with his staff. M&L3 noted: ‘We had lunch on a staff’s birthday. The CEO joined me on the same table. We know he is our CEO but he communicates with us like a friend. This makes me feel like a family and motivates me to give my 100%’. While emphasising the importance of the CEO’s leadership, SLT3 stated during the interview: ‘Everyone will listen to and want to follow if the CEO is backing your decision or your idea. The battle is half-won already’. Accordingly, WC1 commented on the importance of having a dedicated leader: ‘If you have a dedicated, committed leader, things will move on smoothly and people will not be just doing things at their own pace’. Top-Down Communication Many of the interviewees and focus group’s participants identified top-down communication as an important factor that helped to facilitate the successful formulation and implementation of strategy. This included the reinforcing key messages by the CEO, ensuring every employee received their own copy of the OPSP, explaining it in local language and using simple format and wording within the strategy plan. Reinforcing key messages by the CEO A content analysis of the speeches made by the CEO showed that he consistently re-iterated many crucial strategy things such as the company’s vision, core purpose, corporate values, key achievements and targets. During his interview, the CEO stated: ‘Communication is important so that each employee understands what their individual role is and how the employee can align towards the direction of the organisation. The employees need to understand the difference between the big and small picture and where they fit in’. One of the Chief Operating Officers (COO1) also emphasised that the continual communication of key messages from top management was needed to get commitment from employees for strategy formulation as well as implementation.

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Ensuring every employee received the OPSP Every employee was given their own copy of the OPSP after it was ‘launched’ by the CEO during his 2nd Quarter Review Speech 2013. The employees also received a copy of the OPSP when it was updated in July 2013, January 2014 and September 2014, etc. During the interview, the CEO emphasised the importance of ensuring that every employee received a copy. He noted: ‘If you don’t have a copy, then you miss the whole point of doing the whole process’. Explaining in the local language The Strategy Plan was translated into the local Malay language after it was launched in the CEO’s 2nd Quarter Review Speech 2013. The CEO mentioned, during his 3rd Quarter Review Speech 2013, that roadshows had also been conducted in the local language to help employees better understand their roles. During their interviews, the CEO and SLT4 emphasised that explaining it in the local language also facilitated information sharing and getting inputs. This matter was also discussed during a focus group session. Accordingly, M&L3 commented: ‘I am not very fluent in English. Many of us in this company who are in the lower level are not familiar very much with English. So we need to have the OPSP explained to us in the local language’. Using simple format and wording During their focus group session, WC2 highlighted that the simple format and wording of the OPSP also helped to facilitate a better understanding. ‘You see that text is simple and arranged in colours, in columns. This is very important because if the message is all jumbled up, people won’t get it’. Focus group participants from middle and lower level agreed that the OPSP was easy to understand. While commenting on the wording of the OPSP, M&L5 noted: ‘The OPSP has been written in simple English. I can understand what is written there’. On its format and specificity, M&L8 said: ‘There are no difficulties in understanding it because the targets are stated clearly in different colours’. Employee Inputs During his interview, the CEO emphasised that getting buy-in from the employees was important to increase the ownership of the OPSP. This comment was consistent with his 2nd Quarter

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Review Speech 2013 and 1st Quarter Review Speech 2014 when emphasised that every employee owned the OPSP. He pointed out that actively seeking employee inputs was a key success factor for both strategy formulation and implementation. Consequently, an Open Space Technology (OST) Forum was held on July 2nd 2014 where some 50 middle and lower level employees participated. This session sought their input within an ‘open’ and largely ‘unstructured’ process about how to better involve everybody in strategy formulation as well as how to contribute towards reaching the objectives within the OPSP. Commenting on the OST Forum within his 2nd Quarter Review Speech 2014, the CEO noted: ‘All the participants I spoke to said it was a productive session as they were able to share their ideas and concerns and they felt the company was sincere in listening to what they had to say’. During his interview, the CEO indicated that he did not attend the OST Forum so that staff could give their inputs ‘without hesitation’. The notes from this Forum indicated that the participants not only identified various issues relating to strategy formulation but also suggested remedial measures to help address the identified problems. Continual Monitoring of Performance There was a general consensus among the interviewees that the continual monitoring of performance was a key success factor for both strategy formulation and implementation. COO2 commented during his interview: ‘Monitoring is very important because if we have a plan and we don’t monitor, we don’t know whether the plan is working or not working. For example, I intend to submit a plan for approval in 3 months. So I appoint an architect to draw the plan. It is very important that I call a meeting with him every week to know what is the status, what has been completed and is there any problem. We need to know this information and take suitable action because the deadline for submission of the plan does not change. So, if we don’t monitor, we can’t perform our job within the due date’. During a focus group, WC3 and WC5 also emphasised: ‘We all have to know what is happening in this OPSP. I think if nobody monitors it, everybody tends to forget about it’. An analysis of all the speeches made by the CEO showed his strong commitment on monitoring the targets and goals agreed upon within the OPSP. In all his speeches, the CEO stated not only the key achievements and highlights but also the key challenges. Taking one example: ‘We need to work together to push hard from now to sell our products. We need to ensure the remaining retail lots of TS Complex and push the sales of the Business Park’.

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During his interview, the CEO said that he monitored the progress of various projects in fortnightly SCORE meetings and weekly sessions with the COOs. He also stated that a new performance management system would soon be introduced to help better monitor each employee’s key targets. During the interviews, the COOs said that they used various approaches to monitor the progress of various strategies outlined in the OPSP. COO1 monitored sales on a weekly basis and construction on a fortnightly basis. COO2 followed the timeline of an individual project to monitor its progress. COO3 reviewed weekly cash flow reports and chaired the financial task force meetings every week. Additionally, he reviewed the quarterly performance report to monitor sales, profits and cash flow. Talent Development Talent development was also identified as a key success factor and the CEO emphasised within all his speeches that staff were the most important strategic resource of the company. He continually remarked that talent development was a priority. For instance: ‘We take pride that our team members are making the difference and talent management is paramount to our long term success’. The Notes about Key Takeaways and Personal Action Plans from the Annual Strategy Workshop held in June 2014 mentioned the following comment from a SLT member: ‘Attending the Strategy Workshop helped to broaden my strategic thinking ability’. The CEO’s speeches listed a number of training workshops that had been organised to help develop the skills of the staff. For example, a ‘Samurai Game’ in September 2012 to improve the personal and professional skills of employees, ‘HR for Non-HR’ Managers in April 2013 to educate all managers on human resource issues and Power Point Skill Training in April to June 2014. Providing Rewards Providing rewards to employees was also an important key success factor. The CEO noted within a Quarterly Review Speech: ‘I would like to emphasise the importance of achieving our targets – everyone will be rewarded for helping the GS Group achieve success...Resulting from the sale of Building A, I would like to announce cash reward of $...to everyone in the organisation’. M&L4 commented: ‘Bonus and then good salary increment at the end of the year motivates me to achieve my targets’.

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Nevertheless, COO2 and COO3 pointed out that career growth opportunities were the key motivating factors for them. According to COO2: ‘In some cases people are not motivated by money but they are motivated by the fair opportunity to grow in the organisation’. The GS Group had also introduced a monthly star performer programme called the Awesome Programme. According to SLT4, employees were rewarded as ‘Awesome Winners’ if they went the ‘extra mile’ to perform their duties and their actions showed the customer-centric values of trust, satisfaction, sensitivity and timeliness. The winners were typically given cash vouchers and their names mentioned in the CEO Quarterly Review Speeches. They were also mentioned in the company newsletter.

CONCLUSIONS AND AREAS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH This paper has attempted to identify some key success factors for strategy formulation and implementation. From this in-depth study of one company, it can be concluded that a number of factors are important. These include the crucial role of the CEO, actively seeking the input from staff during both the formulation and implementation of strategy as well as continually monitoring performance. As with any research study, this study has some limitations. One organisation was studied and therefore generalisation made must be treated with some caution. Further research might include revisiting this company at a later date and gathering additional data to see how far strategy has progressed. Research might also incorporate a mixed methods approach including quantitative data being collected from a large sample of respondents from within a company or across multiple organisations. Perhaps, a cross-country comparative study might also be undertaken. Finally, an ethnographic study involving a longitudinal design and adopting a role of participant-as-observer might provide some rich and deep insights about strategy formulation and implementation process including key success factors.

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REFERENCES Aaltonen, P. & Ikavalko, H. (2002). Implementing strategies successfully. Integrated Manufacturing Systems, 13(6), 415-418. Alamsjah, F. (2011). Key success factors in implementing strategy: middle-level managers’ perspectives. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 24, 1444-1450. Alexander, L. D. (1985). Successfully implementing strategic decisions. Long Range Planning, 18(3), 91-97. Alexander, L. D. (1991). Strategy implementation: nature of the problem. International Review of Strategic Management, 2(1), 73-96. Beaudan, E. (2001). The failure of strategy. Ivey Business Journal, 65(3), 64. Beer, M. & Eisenstat, R. A. (2000). The silent killers of strategy implementation and learning. Sloan Management Review, 41(4), 29-40. Bossidy, L. & Charan, R. (2002). Execution: The discipline of getting things done (1st edn.). New York, Crown Business Brenes, E. R., Mena, M. & Molina, G. E. (2008). Key success factors for strategy implementation in Latin America. Journal of Business Research, 61(6), 590-598. Cavana, R., Delahaye, B. L. & Sekaran, U. (2001). Applied business research: Qualitative and quantitative methods. Milton, Queensland, John Wiley & Sons Australia. Collins, J. C. & Porras, J. I. (2000). Built to last: Successful habits of visionary companies (3rd edn.). London, Random House. Collis, D. J. (2005). Strategy: Create and implement the best strategy for your business. Boston, Massachusetts, Harvard Business School Press. Crittenden, V. L. & Crittenden, W. F. (2008). Building a capable organization: The eight levers of strategy implementation. Business Horizons, 51(4), 301-309. Fogg, C. D. (1999). Implementing your strategic plan: How to turn intent into effective action for sustainable change. New York, Amacom.

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Hakonsson, D. D., Burton, R. M., Obel, B. & Lauridsen, J. T. (2012). Strategy implementation requires the right executive style: Evidence from Danish SMEs. Long Range Planning, 45(2), 182-208. Hamermesh, R. G. (1986). Making strategy work: How senior managers produce results. New York, JohnWiley Heracleous, L. (2003). Strategy and organization: Realizing strategic management. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Higgins, J. M. (2005). The Eight ‘S’s of successful strategy execution. Journal of Change Management, 5(1), 3-13. Hrebiniak, L. (2006). Obstacles to effective strategy implementation. Organizational Dynamics, 35(1), 12-31. Hrebiniak, L. & Joyce, W. F. (1984). Implementing strategy. New York, Macmillan. Mankins, M. C. & Steele, R. (2005). Turning great strategy into great performance. Harvard Business Review, 83(7/8), 64-72. Merriam, S. B. (2009). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass. Miller, S. (1997). Implementing strategic decisions: Four key success factors. Organization Studies, 18(4), 577. Morgan, M., Levitt, R. E. & Malek, W. (2007). Executing your strategy: How to break it down and get it done. Boston, Massachusetts, Harvard Business School Press. Neilson, G. L., Martin, K. L. & Powers, E. (2008). The secrets to successful strategy execution. Harvard Business Review, 86(6), 60-70. Noble, C. H. (1999). The eclectic roots of strategy implementation research. Journal of Business Research, 45(2), 119-134. Piëst, B. & Ritsema, H. (1993). Corporate strategy: Implementation and control. European Management Journal, 11(1), 122-131. Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A. (2012). Research methods for business students (6th edn). New York, Pearson.

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Sekaran, U. & Bougie, R. (2013). Elements of research design research methods for business a skillbuilding approach (6th edn.). West Sussex, John Wiley & Sons. Shah, A. M. (2005). The foundations of successful strategy implementation: Overcoming the obstacles. Global Business Review, 6(2), 293-302. Stewart, D. D., Shamdasani, P. N. & Rook, D. W. (2007). Focus groups: Theory and practice (2nd edn.). Los Angeles, Sage Publications. Thompson, A. A. & Strickland, A. J. (1995). Strategic management concepts and cases (8th edn.). Chicago, Irwin. Wheelen, T. L. & Hunger, J. D. (2012). Strategic management and business policy toward global sustainability (10th edn.). Boston, Massachusetts, Pearson. Yin, R. (2009). Case study research: Design and methods (4th edn.). Los Angeles, California, Sage Publications. Zagotta, R. & Robinson, D. (2002). Keys to successful strategy execution. The Journal of Business Strategy, 23(1), 30-34.

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Table 1 Summary of Interview Participants Participant Code

Years with GS Group

Interview Date (Actual)

Interview Date (Planned)

Interview Duration in minutes

Involved in strategy formulation

Involved in strategy implementation

CEO

2.5

09/09/2014

09/09/2014

68

Yes

Yes

COO1

13

10/09/2014

11/09/2014

71

Yes

Yes

COO2

4

11/09/2014

11/09/2014

68

Yes

Yes

COO3

14

15/09/2014

11/09/2014

62

Yes

Yes

SLT1

20

10/09/2014

10/09/2014

38

Yes

Yes

SLT2

1.3

12/09/2014

10/09/2014

30

Not directly

Not directly

SLT3

2

10/09/2014

10/09/2014

42

Yes

Yes

SLT4

4

12/09/2014

10/09/2014

43

Yes

Yes

SLT5

1.5

10/09/2014

10/09/2014

63

Yes

Yes

WC5

6

15/09/2014

n.a

30

Yes

Yes

Table 2 Summary of OPSP Working Committee Focus Group Participant Code

Years with GS Group

Duration of Involvement in the Committee

WC1

Not available

Jan – June 2013

WC2

1

July 2014 - Present

WC3

10

Jan – June 2013

WC4

3

July 2013 - June 2014

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Table 3 Summary of Middle & Lower Level Employees Focus Groups Participant Code

Years with GS Group

M&L1

13

M&L2

4

M&L3

6

M&L4

7

M&L5

6

M&L6

14

M&L7

7

M&L8

20

M&L9

3

M&L10

7