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The purpose of this paper is to assess strategy development processes in organizations operating in the Central and Eastern European region, and compare them with those headquartered in Western Europe.

Strategy development processes are measured using a multidimensional scale, incorporating elements of the following six dimensions: command, planning, incremental, political, cultural, and enforced choice. The study includes 366 participants from 52 organizations, with close to 40 percent headquartered in CEE countries.

While responses of western top management were consistent with previous findings, differences prevailed in comparison to the current sample reports of CEE top management. For example, managers in CEE organizations tended to place more emphasis on the top executive, while internal politics were significantly more pronounced in western firms.

Additional variables potentially influencing strategy development processes could be explored, using a more targeted sample.

The results suggest that despite surface level appearances, the overall management trends and business dealings characterizing CEE societies are still not identical to those in the west, highlighting the importance for top management teams to consider local approaches and practices when entering novel markets.

This study addresses a gap in the available literature by concerning strategy development processes through multiple dimensions, and in organizations operating in the relatively under-represented region of CEE countries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between time orientation and strategic practices in the context of an Arab country. Toward this end, the paper studies a conditional process model that assesses the role of visioning ability and perceived uncertainty in explaining how future-oriented managers may be better at strategic management.

The study adopts a quantitative research design with closed-ended questionnaires as the main mode of data collection, and applies bootstrapping technique to test the significance and validity of the conditional process model.

The results confirm that time orientation influences strategic practices in an organization through its impact on a manager’s visioning ability, when uncertainty in the environment is perceived as low-moderate. The study also notes that local managers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) tend to be relatively future oriented and demonstrate a greater preference toward strategic work in comparison to operational tasks.

The scope of this study has been limited to UAE nationals, and generalization of these results should be done with caution. Future research is recommended on a wider geographical area, such that cross-national results can be used to better understand the concept of time orientation in Arab countries.

Findings of this paper contribute to the literature by studying the concept of time orientation in a unique cultural domain. Moreover, by providing a theoretically relevant model for understanding the relationship between time orientation and strategic practices, the study highlights the significance of environmental uncertainty, and the importance of developing the visioning abilities of those involved in strategic roles in an organization.