Compare and Contrast the Linear and the Adaptive Approaches to Strategy Formation

A strategy is commonly explained as a broad plan developed to take an organization from where it is to where it wants to be. A well-designed strategy will help an organization reach its maximum level of effectiveness in reaching its goals while constantly allowing it to monitor its environment to adapt the strategy as necessary. Strategies are established to set direction, focus effort, define or clarify the organization, and provide consistency or guidance in response to the environment. Each organization ends up developing its own nature and model of strategic formation, often by selecting a model and modifying it as they go along in developing their own planning process. Certain models such as the Linear and Adaptive approaches are identified by Chaffee (1985), for the purpose of strategy development, and hence they will be further outlined as the topic develops.
According to Chaffee the linear approach consists of making decisions and formulating plans of action that will set and achieve viable goals. This tends to predominate in top-down organizations and assumes that future conditions will be fairly stable or predictable. It is a planned determination of goals, initiatives and allocation of resources, along the lines of the Chandler definition, which recognizes the importance of coordinating management activities under a well-structured strategy. Interactions between functions were typically handled by managers who relayed information back and forth between departments. Chandler stressed the importance of taking a long term perspective when looking to the future. In his 1962 ground breaking work Strategy and Structure, Chandler showed that a long-term coordinated strategy was necessary to give a company structure, direction and focus. He says it concisely, “structure follows