RESEARCH PROPOSAL

IMPACT OF STRATEGIC PLANNING ON INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE

Submitted ByIrfanullah Khan

Fahimullah Jan BangashM. Ali Farooqui

Ali Raza

MBA-V (D)

Submitted to

Ms. Sarwat Bilal

BAHRIA UNIVERSITY ISLAMABADApril 25th, 2011.

Contents

RATIONALE OF THE STUDY.....................................................................................................1

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM.........................................................................................................3

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES............................................................................................................3

LITERATURE REVIEW.................................................................................................................3

RESEARCH DESIGN/THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK.................................................................6

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.........................................................................................................7

EXPECTED OUTCOME OF THE RESEARCH:..........................................................................7

TIMELINESS.................................................................................................................................8

REFERENCES...............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION

In the perfect world, every Individual should complete his next

year’s plan before the start of every New Year, and must

communicate it to his organization. But the reality is, that most

of the employees don’t have a plan. Large number of those who say

that they do have a plan, in reality they only have goals or

objectives with no clear plan as to how they will attain their

goals.

Why is planning so important and why it should be done

considering a firm’s strategy? Businesses today take place in a

global marketplace. Everything is changing at a unique pace. By

the rapid growth of technology and the internet, time and

distance continue to become less and less relevant.

Strategic planning was once done by the biggest companies, the

market leaders, and those who lead change, but it is now a need

to survive in a global marketplace. Strategic planning provides a

company its purpose and direction. It is necessary that everyone

in an organization must know what they sell or do, who are the

firm’s target customers and how the firm competes, and with whom.

Without strategic planning, businesses are always reacting to the

pressure of the day. ( John E. Lawlor, 2005)

Individual performance means how well an individual in an

organization performs compared to the tasks that assigned to him.

It can also be defined as the quantitative and qualitative output

by an employee. It is necessary for an organization to carry out

individual performance planning because; (a) they need to get

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things done, in order to drive the business forward; (b) the more

people understand what is expected of them at work, the more

engaged and productive they are.

This study is focused on the telecom sector of Pakistan. To be

more specific, this research will be conducted on Pakistan

Telecommunication Company limited which has almost 30000

employees. The impact of strategic planning on individual

performance will be studied on PTCL as it is the largest telecom

organization in Pakistan.

RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

At one time, organization’s and employees’ relationship was very

specific as the employees in the past were considered just

another contribution for the organization in production of

commodities/goods and services. Conversely at present, this

relation has been broadened by the use of performance management.

Now we not only look into how we plan our strategies but also how

that planning affects the individual performance of the

employees. Now, as the performance management systems are in

place, there is greater focus on aligning organizational goals

with individual goals. Ultimately, the effective individual

performance will lead to effective accomplishment of

organizational goals and the fulfillment of strategic plans of

the firm.

The impact of Strategic planning on individual performance has

not been measured by many researchers. Only a small number of

researchers have studied the impact. Especially in Pakistani

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context this study will set the foundation for researchers all

over Pakistan.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Most of the firm’s efforts are directed towards increasing the

individual performance because individuals are basic unit of a

firm. Improving their performance, in turn, improves the

performance of the respective departments and ultimately that of

the firm as a whole. Individual performance derives its

importance from the fact that human capital is considered to be a

firm’s most important asset. One aspect that can ensure an

improvement in individual performance is strategic planning. This

study tries to address the following key statement;

Formal strategic management leads to a high level of individual

performance.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The research objectives are as follows;

Explore the relationship between the strategic management

process, and individual performance.

How the formal strategic planning process gives a sense of

direction to the individual employee.

How the formal strategic planning process helps in the

alignment of an individual’s goals and objectives to the

strategic goals of the firm.

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In Pakistan very few companies indulge in the process of formal

strategic management and then the alignment of their resources

including the HR efforts to the accomplishment of the strategic

goals.

LITERATURE REVIEW

(Robert M. Bushman et al., 1996) Robert and colleagues have

studied the role of individual performance evaluation in terms of

executives and CEO’s annual compensation system. Regardless of

the financial instruments for measuring individual performance

one should also include prudence and prejudice, as well as other

objective criteria. On the bases of agency theory it has been

concluded that the more the growth opportunities(relative to

assets in place, product life cycle) the more the individual

performance. This article gives a point that career growth

chances and time horizon gives an increase to individual

performance evaluation.

Change is the only constant thing in this world and same is the

case with the strategic planning. According to Wilson’s Study,

the survey conducted involving 50 corporations and industries

about their changing practices occurred over past 6-7 years. Most

changes involved shifting of planning responsibility from staff

to line managers, decentralization to business unit on the other

side with same corporate autonomy and the changing environment.

Scenarios and procedures have become more diversified, involving

of more techniques and sensitivity toward the objective as well

as the approach. The main point that his study shows is that,

with the passage of time the culture has increase its impact in

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the organization and has become a part in strategy execution and

thus the norms, values and beliefs, motivation and individual

behavior are the significant determinant of the corporate

performance.(Wilson, Ian, 1994)

Long span of time has been spent by American companies on

strategic planning but still they are getting competitively

weaker. But the point that Robert’s study shows is that it is not

because of the wrong ideology of strategic planning neither the

performance of the managers as there is a lot of experience and

expertise behind it. The main point is that how manager advances

toward the work of planning because new era has new industrial

competitions and new demands for strategic planning. (Hayes,

R.H., 1985)

Individual level of analysis in organizational behavior has been

studied by Teresa Marchant. Elements of motivation and ability

are linked by individual level of analysis, by which the

individual performance is determined, to the performance

management’s HR practices and reward and recognition systems.

Since new practices are best implemented with due attention to

the relevant change issues, Teresa’s research describes the

considerations for change management that are involved. In

keeping with the principles of Strategic HRM, the new strategies

for improving individual performance are aligned to the

organization’s strategic objectives. The two main points that

should lead to individual performance improvement are focusing on

training which will improve the ability of an individual and

emphasizing on developing intrinsic motivation. (Teresa Marchant,

1999)

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(Rodrigo Copony Valadares, 2006) His study concerns with the

individual performance in the organization in terms of

performance management system. With the help of the

questionnaires that had been distributed among different

employees of different organizations, it has been concluded that

the commitment of employees towards work and organization varies

accordingly to the performance management system (benefits and

return). Theses involve career development and power of autonomy.

The main goal is to achieve the workers commitment towards the

organization which would result high individual performance.

RESEARCH AUDIENCE

As this study will be conducted on Pakistan Telecommunication

Company limited (PTCL), it makes PTCL the primary audience,

because the findings of our study will help PTCL to deal with the

flaws in their strategic planning, and its alignment with the

individual performance.

Those researchers who are studying or have already studied the

connection between Strategic planning and individual performance

are considered as the secondary audience. They can use the

findings of this research either to strengthen their statements

or to carry out new studies.

RESEARCH DESIGN/THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

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The framework is based upon the goal setting theory proposed by

(Locke & Latham, 2002) for both strategic planning and individual

performance.

The independent variable is strategic planning here with three

dimensions. The dependent variable is individual performance with

three dimensions.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The method of study includes the methods for carrying out the

research. We will begin by analyzing different types of data and

categorize it accordingly; identify methods of collecting data;

tools to be used for the research and set an appropriate scale

for analysis.

We have decided to consider quantitative data for the research

and we will be emphasizing our study on the basis of both primary

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Strategic PlanningOrganizing resources to planCollecting contextual informationCreating a culture of cooperation

Individual PerformanceSense of IdentityDesire to learnHas an Impact on

and secondary data. Out of the many methods to collect data, the

primary data will be collected through questionnaires

administered directly to the respondents and the secondary data

would come from various research papers on the topic in question

as it perfectly fits-in to our study’s requirements.

The tools used for the research methodology include

questionnaires. Our questions will mostly be using the 5 level

likert scale – starting from strongly agree, agree, neutral,

disagree and strongly disagree. Using the likert scales will

allow us to asses and control all possible gray areas while

obtaining appropriate information from respondents.

The sample being chosen to conduct the research study includes

50-60 employees from various public and private sector

organizations. (Better mention the no. of firms being surveyed or

any particular sector)

EXPECTED OUTCOME OF THE RESEARCH:

We expect that the findings of this study would re-emphasize the

importance of a formal strategic management process in firms.

This research study would be an addition to the existing body of

knowledge on this particular topic with the shared goal of

increasing the use of formal strategic management process by

firms so as to increase the individual performance. Finally as a

result of the strategic management efforts, we expect a

considerable increase in the individual performance.

TIMELINESS

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This Research Project is expected to be completed by the end of

spring semester 2011.

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REFERENCES

Hayes, R.H. (1985). Strategic planning - forward in reverse. Harvard Business Review; Volume: 63:6.

John E. Lawlor (2005). The Importance of Strategic Planning. Practical decisions. Retrieved from: http://www.practicaldecisions.com/strategic-planning.pdf.

Rodrigo Copony Valadares. (2006). The Influence Of Performance Management System Into Individual Commitment In The Organization. Maxwell ,Brazil.

Robert M. Bushman, Raffi J. Indjejikian and Abbie Smith. (1996). CEO compensation: The role of individual performance evaluation. Journal of Accounting and EconomicsVolume 21, Issue 2, April 1996, Pages 161-193.

Teresa Marchant. (1999). Strategies for improving individual performance and job satisfaction at Meadowvale health. Journal of Management Practice, 2(3), 63-70.

Wilson, Ian. (1994). Strategic Planning Isn’t Dead - It Changed. Long Range Planning, 27 (4).

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