| Book Review of Corporate Strategic Planning, (2008) | |||||||||||||
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| Corporate Strategic Planning (CSP) reports on an important study of planning practices and the value of those practices. Though it is a long book, nearly 500 pages, one can get almost the full benefit by reading about 200 pages. In fact, CSP contains an excellent summary (Chapter 11) that is only 33 pages; this chapter should be sufficient for most readers. My review assesses what the book has to offer and provides a guide to the potential reader. The book provides an extensive and up-to-date review of the literature, but its primary contribution comes from the authors ' 1980 survey of corporate planning practices. The firms surveyed were selected from the 258 firms in the Fortune 500 located in the eastern half of the United States. A random sample of 155 firms was selected from this frame. One hundred thirteen interviews were obtained. There were only nine refusals; most nonresponse was due to scheduling problems during the interview period. Extensive structured interviews were held with the chief planner and one assistant in each of the firms. The researchers also examined planning documents; they obtained 501 measurements on aspects of planning. In addition, information was gathered on another 400 environmental factors for each firm. This is the most comprehensive survey of planning practices published to date. Despite the wide range of measures, I would have preferred some others. In particular, if one views planning as a way to improve the performance of a system, it would be interesting to examine measures of | |||||||||||||
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