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The purpose of this paper is to study the operational process factors that affect successful strategy implementation in the Middle East.

Five operational process factors were studied (resource availability, communication, operational planning, people, control and feedback). Data were collected using a self-administrated questionnaire from employees who implement and/or are responsible for strategy implementation in 17 pharmaceutical companies. In total, 330 questionnaires were distributed, and a total of 259 were responded with a response rate of 78 per cent.

Findings revealed that four of the operational process factors, namely, resource availability, communication, operational planning in addition to control and feedback, strongly affect the success of strategy implementation. Further, resource availability was ascertained to be the most influential factor, followed by control and feedback, then by communication, while people factor showed no effect on the implementation process.

It is advised that, during the implementation phase, company management should provide staff employees with the necessary training and instructions to link employee performance with the overall reward and compensation system in the organization and to strengthen effective communication and coordination.

This is one of the few studies that cover operational process factors and successful strategy implementation and is the first study to test the model on companies in the pharmaceutical sector in the Middle East.

This study focuses on the key success factors (KSFs) for strategy implementation in the fisheries industry in Iceland identified by chief executive officers within the industry. The purpose is to provide a comprehensive categorization of KSFs that influence how strategy is mobilized. The secondary aim is to uncover the level of priority that companies place on the dimensions of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The methodology involves qualitative case studies based on in-depth elite interviews with nine chief executive officers of Icelandic fishing companies.

The research indicates strategy implementation can be improved in four main areas. First, by engaging and involving all employees in the implementation process. Second, by enhancing bottom-up innovation and communication. Third, through alignment of the corporate strategy and the UN SDGs, and fourth, by following rigorous action plans with clear, measurable and prioritized objectives and timeframes for the managers to follow. These improvements have both theoretical and practical implications for the fishing industry. Consequently, a conceptual framework for integrated strategy implementation in the fisheries industry is proposed.

A limited number of in-depth elite interviews were conducted since access to the chief executive officers of the country’s largest fishing companies proved challenging. However, the nine companies collectively hold nearly 50% of the country’s total quota, thereby proving a deep understanding of the topic relevant to the industry. The research uncovered a substantial cross-section of viewpoints, and as such, the results are relevant for both academia and practitioners alike.

This study contributes to the debate on KSFs relevant to strategy implementation within a specific industry but also aligns with the UN SDGs by proposing a dedicated framework for implementing strategies in the fisheries industry. Overall, this study can help managers achieve strategy implementation.

This study aims to consider how the degree of participation at various hierarchical levels impacts action plan implementation success and firm financial performance. Specifically, the study seeks to assess the relationship among organizational structure, involvement by top management, middle management, lower management and frontline employees and its effect on firm performance; and, when controlling for firm size and industry segment membership, the effect of the relationship among direct involvement effects and interacting involvement effects on performance.

The study used survey methodology and a random sample of members in a US state restaurant association. The analysis included comparisons between groups using independent sample t tests and hierarchical regression to assess direct and interacting effects.

The findings indicate that, regardless of firm size or industry segment, the direct effects of greater top management involvement and the interaction effects of one three‐way interaction (middle management, lower management, and frontline staff) and the four‐way interaction led to higher levels of action plan success. For the longer‐term impact on financial performance, higher participative approaches used by top management and frontline staff were significantly associated with higher overall profits and financial success.

The sample was drawn from a specific region in the USA and may not be generalizable. The study attempts to minimize the potential for non‐response bias and to ensure inter‐rater reliability but these potential threats to validity cannot be totally ruled out.

In general, higher top management participatory approaches are important to enhance financial and strategy implementation success, regardless of firm size. The interaction of participation by all levels of the firm is a useful approach to increase the likelihood of strategy implementation success. Top management and frontline employee participation are critical organizational levels for enhancing participative management approaches and ultimately increasing financial performance for all foodservice firms.

The value of this study is the consideration of the impact of participation by degree across four hierarchical levels on firm performance and plan execution success.

Organisational strategy becomes reality by connecting organisation’s resources and capabilities in daily operations, and physical workspace is one of the environments in which this takes place. This study aims to explore to what extent factors required for successful strategy implementation are considered when designing, using and managing workspaces of knowledge-intensive organisations.

For the study, managers in 25 large and medium-sized knowledge-intensive organisations were interviewed. The semi-structured interviews focused on organisation’s strategy, strategy implementation practices and workspace design and management. To form a comprehensive framework of strategy implementation success factors for the study, the factors of 11 frameworks were analysed, grouped and renamed.

Current workspace design, usage and management mainly support human-related strategy implementation factors. However, both organisation- and human-related factors are needed for the strategy implementation to be successful. Therefore, the organisations studied may have unused potential in their workspaces to ensure strategy-aligned operations and behaviour.

Due to the potential imbalance between organisation- and human-related strategy implementation factors, a more holistic, organisational-level approach to workspace design, usage and management is recommended to ensure the success of strategy implementation.

Workspaces have extensively been studied from individual strategy implementation factors’ as well as employees’ perspectives. Prior to this work, there are only few studies exploring workspace in the holistic, strategy implementation context.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the intra-organizational factors effective in a successful strategy implementation, measure the interaction intensity, analyze relation patterns among those factors, and lastly, prioritize the factors according to the level of importance and effect in the success of a strategy implementation.

A review of the literature produced 13 key intra-organizational factors involved in successful strategy implementation. The factors were then prioritized and the interaction among them was identified using interpretive structural modelling (ISM). DEMATEL was employed to quantitatively calculate the importance, intensity and effect in the interaction among the factors. Finally, combining both the aforementioned methods an integrated ISM-DEMATEL model was devised through which the factors were prioritized while the importance, intensity and effect of each factor were quantitatively calculated.

Prioritization and establishing relations and interactions among the identified factors by ISM; determining the priority of each factor and their intensity of effect and interaction on a quantitative basis through DEMATEL method and developing the integrated model of ISM-DEMATEL for intra-organizational factors effective in successful strategy implementation.

Due to time limitation, the hybrid model could not be practically applied to any organizations or businesses and in this research, only 12 experts were consulted to construct the model. If the experts involved were increased both quantitatively and qualitatively no doubt the final model would be upheld.

Managers who are involved in strategy implementation or who intend to enter this phase are advised to apply the integrated ISM-DEMATEL model that presented in this paper in order to obtain good perspective about interaction and prioritization among the intra-organizational factors effective in strategy implementation success.

Identification of 13 key intra-organizational factors effective in successful strategy execution, by studying through the literature; prioritization and establishing relations and interactions among the identified factors by ISM; determining the priority of each factor and their intensity of effect and interaction on a quantitative basis through DEMATEL method; developing the integrated model of ISM-DEMATEL for intra-organizational factors effective in successful strategy execution; improving the integrated model through ISM by applying the findings obtained through DEMATEL.

This research aims to examine the relationship between information security strategy and organization performance, with organizational capabilities as important factors influencing successful implementation of information security strategy and organization performance.

Based on existing literature in strategic management and information security, a theoretical model was proposed and validated. A self‐administered survey instrument was developed to collect empirical data. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses and to fit the theoretical model.

Evidence suggests that organizational capabilities, encompassing the ability to develop high‐quality situational awareness of the current and future threat environment, the ability to possess appropriate means, and the ability to orchestrate the means to respond to information security threats, are positively associated with effective implementation of information security strategy, which in turn positively affects organization performance. However, there is no significant relationship between decision making and information security strategy implementation success.

The study provides a starting point for further research on the role of decision‐making in information security.

Findings are expected to yield practical value for business leaders in understanding the viable predisposition of organizational capabilities in the context of information security, thus enabling firms to focus on acquiring the ones indispensable for improving organization performance.

This study provides the body of knowledge with an empirical analysis of organization's information security capabilities as an aggregation of sense making, decision‐making, asset availability, and operations management constructs.

The main objective of this paper is to consider how firms set about strategising in marketing and the nature of their implementation effort. Prior research has not considered the alternative means of implementation that firms display in practice.

A model is developed from a mid‐level (marketing) managerial perspective by comparing three groups of strategy implementation types (“change”, “collaborative”, and “cultural”) against five contextual and process characteristics of marketing strategy implementation.

Contrary to literature that has recommended bottom‐up marketing planning, the findings show if the firm displays an implementation environment characterised by hierarchical structures and strong top‐down influences, then marketing strategy implementation will be more effective.

More analysis of the daily lives of mid‐level employees is essential to improve the understanding of the key implementation success factors. Also, more research is needed on the influence of firm factors, such as culture, structure and management style, in determining the context for implementation.

The strategic paradox in the results suggests that there is a need for a degree of top‐down imposition, yet it also suggested that fostering the cooperation of mid‐level marketing managers through bottom‐up initiatives is required in the implementation process.

Provocatively, the paper concludes that the movement to restructure corporate hierarchies should not amount to a rejection of hierarchy as an organising principle in terms of implementing marketing strategies more effectively. The data indicate that a hierarchical implementation style will positively enhance the performance of those strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to gain a better understanding of how national board administrators, more precisely, officials at the Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE) have perceived the primary influencing factors, or “regulators”, of the national core curriculum reform and the success of the implementation. The alignment between the identified regulators was also explored.

Altogether, 23 FNBE officials participated in this mixed methods study.

The results showed that the officials perceived the core curriculum reform as a systemic entity: the reform was implemented using a top-down and bottom-up strategy, and several regulators were identified at different levels of the education system. The officials also viewed the implementation as successful, and identified more promoting than hindering factors in it. However, they emphasised regulators at the administrative level, whereas regulators at the district or national levels were less often identified. They also highlighted the importance of orchestrating collaboration in comparison with the other regulators.

The results imply that in addition to considering separate determinants of reform success, it is important to pay attention to sufficient alignment between the regulators at different levels of the education system in order to better understand and promote the implementation of a large-scale reform.

This study provides new knowledge on national board administrators’ perspectives on what regulates the implementation of a large-scale curriculum reform.

The purpose of this paper is to verify the extent to which corporate strategy is reflected in lower managerial levels, and problem addressed by the author has been analysed with reference to a functional as well as a process-oriented system.

This paper is empirical in nature, as it refers to results of a survey conducted in 30 Polish enterprises. The author’s attention has been focussed on identification and analysis of the actions comprising implementation of a strategy on different levels of management, with particular consideration of the process level.

Based on the measurements undertaken by the author, it was established which methods were most frequently applied for the sake of strategy implementation, the existing barriers were highlighted and the correctness of the strategy deployment on the strategic, the tactical and the operating level was assessed. It was also assessed to what extent the strategy becomes reflected on the level of key processes.

The results obtained are, in the first instance, legitimate with regard to large and medium-size organisations, and second, to businesses which have matured in the scope of strategic management and process management.

The practical aspects addressed by the author are linked with identification of the most problematic obstacles encountered in strategy implementation as well as the solutions proposed for their elimination.

The paper provides an innovative solution for studying the degree of successful strategy implementation in a functional as well as a process-oriented system. The research results presented in the paper are up-to-date and reflect the latest trends observed in the enterprises examined.

The purpose of this paper is to address the following question: How do strategy implementation obstacles relate to each other and affect strategy implementation?

The research methodology is qualitative and based on an extensive review of the literature and on an in-depth case study analysis.

This paper draws two main conclusions. The first is that the many obstacles that impact the strategy implementation process can interact and be strongly interrelated in dynamic and complex manners. The second is that obstacles can lead to and reinforce other obstacles, eventually forming long chains of blockages.

Strategy implementation remains a difficult task with improbable success. This paper provides a contribution to an explanation on why so many strategy implementation efforts fail. It is one of the very few papers addressing the issue of the relationships between strategy implementation obstacles.