Strategic thinking, strategic planning

Abstract

There is no agreement in the literature on what strategic thinking is, what strategic planning is, or on the nature of their interrelationship. This paper disentangles the relationship between the terms strategic thinking and strategic planning as found in the literature, identifying four main varieties of this relationship; clarifies the nature of strategic thinking and strategic planning by developing the analogy of strategic planning as single-loop learning and strategic thinking as double-loop learning; and proposes a dialectical view of the relationship between strategic thinking and strategic planning which sees them as distinct, but interrelated and complementary thought processes.