Implementation strategies in the market-driven strategy era

Achieving successful implementation is a continuing challenge to the executives responsible for executing strategies and to the scholars seeking to understand implementation processes. The importance of implementation is not questioned by executives or scholars, although the activity warrants much more attention than it has been given in the past. Penetrating analyses of strategy implementation by scholars like Piercy (1998) are important and essential to moving the topic beyond action checklists to conceptual foundations for guiding empirical research and executive action. Advancing the state of knowledge of implementation will be enhanced if scholars and executives work together to advance thought and practice.