Towards control using strategic navigation in turbulent organisational environments

Abstract

This paper explores the idea of strategic navigation as a flexible approach to managing organisational performance and dealing with environmental turbulence. Strategic navigation expands and builds on the traditional concept of strategic control and could be used to help guide the design of more flexible and informal management control systems to help manage organisational performance. A key dimension of strategic navigation is fastforward creativity, which reflects a flexible and informal but targeted control focus. More conventional ideas of control, including balanced scorecards and interactive control may lack flexibility and be too restrictive in helping organisations to adapt effectively and rapidly to varying and uncertain external circumstances. Strategic navigation provides a means of strengthening the relevance and usefulness of management control, with a key focus on the management rather than the control of organisational performance.