Conclusion
In addition to the criticism of the strategic models that has been summarised throughout this paper, Hamel and Prahalad also argue that most models are premised on a strategy hierarchy in which corporate goals guide business unit strategies and business unit strategies guide functional tactics. The role of senior management is to make strategy while lower level management is responsible for the execution, but the result is according to the authors a hierarchy that undermines competitiveness by fostering an elitist view of management. The result of the latter is that the organisation becomes disenfranchised, and employees may fail to involve themselves in the work of becoming more competitive or to identify with corporate goals.
This certainly is an intriguing argument, and the authors elaborate further that a hierarchical structure of this nature will result in unsatisfactory communication channels. Western companies attempt to address the latter issue by changing from bureaucratic to organic organisational structures. Similarly, managers prefer to be described as transformational rather than transactional leaders. Hamel and Prahalad appear to insinuate that the idea of strategic intent relies on a more egalitarian organisational structure than more traditional models, but it is tempting to argue that is rather a question of implementation. While the authors argue that "strategic intent gives employees the only goal that is worthy of commitment: to unseat the best or remain the best, world-wide", it is evident that alternative models can play complimentary roles on a short-term basis. Stimulating passion for an organisation's long-term goals on all levels of the organisation requires high managerial skill, and it probably is not easier to convoke enthusiasm for a strategic intent than it is for a strategy based on for instance the experience curve. Although it is doubtful that Japanese organisations consciously applied models as the experience curve to overtake their Western competitors, a study of the experience curve will certainly provide an interesting analysis for Honda's entry into the motorcycle industry. The main contribution of Hamel and Prahalad is to show that the success of Japanese companies can not be copied by simply applying any relevant strategic model, but that the competitive advantage enjoyed by Japanese corporations up until 1989 was derived from a much more complex background.
Not long after the publication of "Strategic Intent" in The Harvard Journal, Japan entered a severe recession that still has not reached a conclusion. The fascination with the Japanese economy had thus also reached its peak, and the world's second largest economy is presently offered no other attention than ridicule. Hamel and Prahalad certainly showed that Western companies would need to go through radical changes in order to adopt Japanese business practices, and that the issue was not simply to understand the experience curve. Western companies have therefore found it to be less of a challenge to increase efficiency by other means, for instance by the use of stock-options for both employees and managers. Although this form of remuneration has received part of the blame for the Enron bankruptcy, it is one of many Western business practices that many Japanese firms are struggling to adopt. Very likely, it will soon be shown that implementation of for example stock options will demand more fundamental organisational changes, and perhaps Japanese companies will find this as difficult as Western companies did in the 1980s. Moreover, all strategists should bear in mind the words of Bruce Henderson, who accurately pointed out that competition existed long before strategy: "If the animals were of different species, they could survive and persist together. If they were of the same species, they could not". While the Wall Street Journal will not be able to test the performance of monkeys to that of consultants, it would certainly constitute great progress if the latter could derive the same knowledge from nature as Henderson once did. An understanding of the nature of competition should be considered a prerequisite to the implementation of any strategic model.