Strategy Past, Strategy Futures

Strategy is a youthful discipline, with much of its research; material derived from studies in the last 30 years. Its roots, however, go back much further. Modern studies can be partitioned into four schools-Planning and Practice, Learning, Positioning and Resource-Based, each with long scholastic and practical traditions. The schools are not mutually exclusive nor do they cover all the contributions to the field. But they are a useful way of identifying the pathways to the present so that a clear view can be formed of potential strategy futures, This article paints four such futures; some based upon an extension of the past and other, alternative, trajectories, The aim of the paper is to stimulate thinking to help the progress of the youth from adolescence to adulthood. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.