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ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · Concepts of strategy

Ostrava Pharma's formal plan targeted expansion in Asia. Over two years, however, a regional manager repeatedly won small contracts in Africa, which the board began to support with funding until Africa became the main growth market. Using Mintzberg's terminology, what does the African success represent?

It is an emergent strategy. The African focus arose from a pattern of actions and opportunities rather than from the board's original intention, which was Asia, so that part of the intended plan went unrealised while the unplanned pattern became the realised strategy.

  1. AAn emergent strategy that arose from actions rather than the intended plan, while the Asia plan was partly unrealisedCorrect
  2. BA deliberate strategy fully realised as planned
  3. CA pure intended strategy
  4. DA strategy of retrenchment

Explanation

Mintzberg distinguishes intended, deliberate, unrealised and emergent strategies. The Asian intention was partly unrealised, while the African pattern emerged from a stream of actions without being planned, and was later endorsed. It was not deliberate because the board did not intend it at the start.

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