Strategic planning‐effectiveness‐environment linkage: a case study

The literature on strategic planning has examined the process of planning in some detail, but most of it has ignored the external environment in its discussion. In the studies that have looked at the linkage between the environment and the strategic planning process, the strategic planning process has been treated like a black box. The literature does not delve into the box and examine the linkage between the environment and the characteristics (components and context) of the strategic planning process, but rather it has only looked at a simple relationship between the environment and this entity called the strategic planning process. It is this omission that is addressed in this study. This paper suggests that there is a need to open the black box and examine the relationship between the characteristics of the strategic planning process and the external environment of the organisation.