Mintzberg 5p's Concept

Business strategy

Definition: Strategy is the direction and scope of an organization over long term, which achieves advantage in a changing environment through its configuration of resources and competencies with the aim of fulfilling stakeholder expectation. (Johnson, Scholes and Whittington, 2008)

Mintzberg, 1987: The Strategy Concept I: 5Ps for strategy

• It is inadequate and inappropriate to define strategy with a single definition thus, Mintzberg integrate the various definition strategy into an explicit description through the terms of Plan, Ploy, Pattern, Position and Perspective.

Plan: some sort of consciously intended course of action, a guideline to deal with a situation. They are made in advance and developed consciously and purposefully to outwit the competitors.

Ploy: maneuver intended to outwit the competitors or a threat the competitors.

Pattern: a pattern in a stream of actions or can be inferred as consistency in behaviour whether or not intended. Plan and Pattern can be independent where plan go unrealized, while pattern may appear without preconceptions/intention. In the interpretation of Hume whereby strategies could be distinguished as deliberate strategies where intentions existed before strategies were realized whereas emergent strategies where patterns developed in absence of intentions or despite them which he infer that actions could evoke plan.

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Position: Locating firms in an environment, the mediating force between organization and environment. Can be preselected and aspired through plan or ploy and found through a pattern of behaviour. Strategy becomes a Niche, a unique position that is occupied to avoid competition.

Perspective: an ingrained way of perceiving the world. Strategy is a concept or abstraction which exist only in the minds of interested parties, those who pursue them are influenced by the pursuit. The key importance in this definition is that perspective is shared by the members in an organization. Shared perspective refers to unity of by common thinking or behaviour.

Interrelation of the 5P’s  

• Plan, Ploy, Pattern, Position and Perspective are interrelate can have on without the other
• Strategy may arise at any point within the 5Ps

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• While action and position maybe replaceable, perspective is unchallengeable which signify that once established and ingrained in the behaviour of the organization perspective is difficult to change. As such, it would indefinitely affect the ability to change of plan, position, pattern and ploy unless is compatible to the existing perspective.
• All 5P’s are NOT substitute they complement among each other.

Example: Honda, intended plan is to expand to the US by promoting superbike but failed, hence, they abandoned the initial plan (Unrealized Strategy) and turned to selling supercubs (emergent strategy) without knowingly that it would be successful.

5Ps are interrelated: not a substitution but complement each other. Perspective can give rise to plan. Perspective dictating pattern. Pattern can evoke plan. Positon can evoke plan. Pattern can give rise to plan and position.