PR - Strategy Recognition And Implementation By New Zealand Pastoral Farming Strategists

Strategic management is often reduced by researchers to a set of simple concepts and processes. They describe what strategy is and how it should be practiced. The models or schools of thought that have been developed began with a quite mechanistic approach to strategic management with little appreciation of how strategy was recognised or created and have evolved to an appreciation of the complexity of the business systems and the important role of the people within them. Farm management literature and extension methods do not appear to have followed this evolution. Three case study farms, all successful strategic managers, were researched to identify the process by which they have identified, developed and implemented strategy in recent years. In all cases it was evident that the practices of these farmers could be described more by the recent schools of thought than by the classical schools. In the volatile, unprotected world that characterises New Zealand agriculture it can be concluded that strategising is a necessary skill and one that requires further research and inclusion in the farm management literature and extension programmes.

Keywords: Strategic Management, schools of thought, strategic thinking, farm businesses