Back to basics and beyond : Strategic management – an area where practice and theory are poorly related

Based on the strategic challenges faced by Western companies in the coming decade, this paper is concerned with the area of strategic management. In particular, emphasis is on the relationship between managerial problems, managerial practice and state‐of‐the‐art theories on strategic management. Interestingly, it is found that managerial practice over the past 10 years has had a poor relationship to the actual problems faced by managers and to the state‐of‐the‐art theories on strategic management. At the same time, however, state‐of‐the art theories of strategic management have also had a poor relationship to the problems faced by managers. Strategic management is, therefore, lost and needs to be reconsidered in light of the empirical challenges of the area.