STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS: UCLA MEDICAL CENTER
Formal strategic planning (FSP) is defined as "the process of determining the mission, major objectives, strategies, and policies that govern the acquisition and allocation of resources to achieve organizational aims" (Pearce, Freeman, & Robinson, 1987, p. 658). Strategic planning is a process that generates specific actions which are required to carry out a particular strategy.
By definition, thus, the strategic planning process begins subsequent to the adoption of a strategy. The entire strategic process within an organization, however, is a set of highly interrelated components that function within a dynamic environment. Thus, in the so-called real world, strategic planning will often precede strategy development, because of the cyclical character of the strategic process.
This research considers the strategic planning process at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center. The organizational demographics of the institution are presented in the following section.
The UCLA Medical Center is a large and complex institution (Page, 1994, pp. 7-8). The Medical Center is comprised of several hospitals, clinics, and other health service organizations, and operates in association and conjunction with several health sciences schools and other health sciences institutions. The institution is publicly funded, and thus is subject to the severe budget constraints applicable to all publicly funded activities in the contemporary period (Mercer, 1994, pp. A36-A38).
There are five generally recognized elements of the strategic cycle (Rowe, Mason, & Dickel, 1990, p. 291). These elements are (1) organizational considerations, which are concerned primarily with the organizational structure, (2) resource requirements, (3) strategic control, which is concerned primarily with the organization's internal environment, (4) strategic planning, which is concerned pr...