Strategies for Research in Policy Formulation

Among fields of study in business schools, and equally in management practice, the policy area lags all others in the development of a body of theory and formal analytic techniques. Under various titles-Business Policy, Policy Formulation and Implementation, Strategic Planning, and similar rubrics-most graduate business schools offer courses that describe and examine the strategic decision process at the chief executive level. In the business world, of course, managers design and execute plans and strategies with an unexamined naturalness comparable to that of Moliere's M. Jourdain, who discovered to his surprise that he had been speaking prose all his life without knowing it. In both teaching and practice most of the content of policy making can be fairly described as art rather than science. Most of what is taught is simply accepted practice, and most of what is practiced is simply what seems to work. We believe that the policy area is ripe for a major organized research effort. A number of uncoordinated exploratory studies, principally in the past decade, have prepared the way for defining research strategies and programs. Structured case collections and systematic descriptions of the operating and institutional environment at the policy level are beginning to provide raw materials for conceptualization and analysis. Theories and techniques from the quantitative and behavioral areas are being tentatively transferred to the world of strategic planning. What is needed at this point is a comprehensive research strategy or set of related strategies that will organize earlier work and guide resource commitments in future studies. Both management education and management practice will derive important benefits from such an undertaking. On the educational side, the content and methods of existing courses can be enriched and focused more sharply on critical issues and analytic techniques. This should generate positive gains in M.B.A. and executive programs. Interesting opportunities for valuable contributions can also be identified in doctoral programs. On the management practice side, new insights can be developed for the core responsibility of the chief executive level, as well as more effective methods for relating strategies to objectives and resource commitments to strategies.