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Aleh Cherp

Professor, Coordinator of the MESPOM Consortium

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SEA and strategy formation theories: from three Ps to five Ps

Author

  • Aleh Cherp
  • Alan Watt
  • Vadim Vinichenko

Summary, in English

A transition to environmentally sustainable societies should involve a significant and comprehensive —

strategic—change. Much of the promise of SEA is associated precisely with its perceived capacity to facilitate

such a strategic transformation by influencing selected ‘strategic decisions’. This paper examines the potential

effectiveness and limitations of such an approach in light of contemporary organizational strategy theories. Most

of these theories separate ‘strategies’ from ‘decisions’ and also transcend the notion of strategies as formal plans,

policies and programs (PPPs). Instead, they consider strategies as “five Ps”, adding “Position”, “Perspective”,

“Pattern” and “Ploy” to the “Plan”. Lessons from organizational strategy formation give rise to the following

challenges for SEA theory and practice:

1. How to assess and influence informal as well as formal aspects of strategic initiatives?

2. How to extend SEA ‘beyond decisions’ to address ‘emergent strategies’ where strategic action is not

necessarily preceded by a decision?

3. How to ensure that knowledge provided as a result of SEA is strategically relevant and communicated to

key players in strategy formation?

4. How to deal with an uncontrollable and unpredictable environment in which strategic initiatives unfold?

5. How to recognize those situations when SEA can have most strategic influence?

This paper takes a step towards examining these challenges by exploring the intellectual history of SEA

in light of the main strategy formation theories and by identifying directions in which the SEA discourse

may be further enhanced to meet these five challenges.

Department/s

  • The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics

Publishing year

2007

Language

English

Pages

624-644

Publication/Series

Environmental Impact Assessment Review

Volume

27

Issue

7

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Keywords

  • Strategy
  • SEA
  • Strategic initiatives
  • Strategy formation theories
  • Emergent strategy
  • Environmental Assessment
  • Strategic Environmental Assessment

Status

Published

Project

  • System for Environmental and Agricultural Modelling; Linking European Science and Society

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0195-9255