CRITIQUE AND EVALUATION OF RESEARCH ARTICLE WRITTEN BY
The purpose of this paper is to critique and evaluate Luby's (1996) research investigation of the process of strategic planning (strategy making) at the University of Paisley in Scotland. To this end, the paper describes the basic nature of the study, and the methods used to collect and analyze data. This is followed by a discussion of these methods and their relation to the study's basic purposes and objectives.
The third section of the paper examines alternative methods that might have been used in the investigation as well as generalizability issues. The fourth and final section of the paper discusses the article in terms of its interest value for this writer.
In the article Luby (1996) reports on conducted qualitative research (a case study approach) undertaken in an effort to examine the strategic planning approach being used at the University of Paisley. Three research questions were formulated regarding this process. These were:
(1) Is the university using an emergent strategy process?
(2) If an emergent process is being used, is it identifiable as that of "unconnected strategies?"
(3) Is there an alternative and more appropriate process for the university?
These three questions were constructed on the basis of a review of three theoretical articles which had addressed key issues associated with strategic planning in the university environment. The basic problem here is that the discussion of these articles was highly conceptual and very little effort was made by Luby (1996) to align these terms with the more concrete behavioral steps involved in the actual process of strategic planning. The result was that the reader had a very difficult time understanding, with any degree of precision, the phenomena being investigated.
For example, two of the research questions addressed what is termed the "emergent process" associated with strategic m...