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Measuring strategy coherence through patterns of strategic choices
Author(s) -
Nath Deepika,
Sudharshan D.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
strategic management journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 11.035
H-Index - 286
eISSN - 1097-0266
pISSN - 0143-2095
DOI - 10.1002/smj.4250150104
Subject(s) - coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) , strategic management , business , industrial organization , process management , economics , computer science , management science , operations management , marketing , mathematics , statistics
Strategies at different levels need to be coherent to ensure competitive advantage (Hofer and Schendel, 1978). Strategy coherence is the consistency of strategic choices across business and functional levels of strategy. In this paper we focus on strategy coherence. Using patterns of strategy, we develop a measure of the extent of strategy coherence. The relationship between coherence and performance is used to validate the measure. We illustrate the application of the measurement and validation process, in the context of acute care hospitals. The results indicate that our measure of coherence is monotonically related to performance. We also find performance differences between more and less coherent hospitals on the industry specific performance indicator of occupancy. Implications for theory and practice are highlighted.