Strategy formulation activities with emphasis on strategic management tools and techniques in Slovak companies

  • Received May 26, 2023;
    Accepted June 28, 2023;
    Published July 11, 2023
  • Author(s)
  • DOI
    http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.21(3).2023.05
  • Article Info
    Volume 21 2023, Issue #3, pp. 54-68
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

The importance and benefits of strategic management in the business sphere are declared in studies worldwide. It represents an extensive area for research. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the strategy formulation activities as well as the strategic management tools and techniques used by Slovak companies. Data on 365 manufacturing companies were obtained through an online questionnaire during 2020–2021. Selected methods of inductive statistics helped to analyze the data (the Pearson chi-square test and interval estimates for population proportion). The results show that the potential of analyzed strategy formulation activities is not filled in the Slovak companies. Enterprises only perform certain activities, and attention is focused mainly on setting strategic goals. It prevails a small orientation to sustainable development in strategic goals (only 22% of enterprises). The most used strategic management tools and techniques consist of an analysis of company resources, SWOT analysis, and customer satisfaction. From the point of view of the manufacturing area, no significant differences are defined in the use of the tools. The future management directions should include a variety of strategic management tools from the external environment. At the same time, the given tools should be supplemented with newer strategic tools ensuring flexibility and adaptation to dynamically changing conditions.

Acknowledgment
We wish to thank project VEGA: Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic (Project No.1/0093/23 Research on the circular economy potential in the Slovak business environment in the production of innovative products based on recycled materials wood – rubber – plastic).

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    • Figure 1. The most frequent strategic tools/techniques by industry
    • Table 1. Strategic management tools and techniques used by companies in individual countries
    • Table 2. The share of investigated companies performing individual strategy formulation activities and a 95% interval estimate for the population proportion
    • Table 3. The share of surveyed companies with individual strategic goals
    • Table 4. The frequency of occurrence of individual reasons for realization of strategy formulation activities and interval estimate of population proportions for Slovak companies
    • Table 5. The share of surveyed companies using individual strategic management tools and techniques
    • Table 6. Dependencies in the use of strategic management tools/techniques from the point of view of certain company characteristics
    • Conceptualization
      Petra Lesnikova, Jarmila Schmidtova
    • Data curation
      Petra Lesnikova, Jarmila Schmidtova
    • Formal Analysis
      Petra Lesnikova, Jarmila Schmidtova, Izabela Cichocka
    • Funding acquisition
      Petra Lesnikova
    • Investigation
      Petra Lesnikova, Jarmila Schmidtova, Izabela Cichocka
    • Project administration
      Petra Lesnikova
    • Resources
      Petra Lesnikova, Jarmila Schmidtova, Izabela Cichocka
    • Writing – original draft
      Petra Lesnikova, Jarmila Schmidtova
    • Writing – review & editing
      Petra Lesnikova, Jarmila Schmidtova, Izabela Cichocka
    • Methodology
      Jarmila Schmidtova
    • Validation
      Jarmila Schmidtova
    • Visualization
      Jarmila Schmidtova, Izabela Cichocka