Q has been appointed as the Commercial Director of a medium-sized publishing company that is...

The rational approach takes up significant organisational resources, can be very expensive, time consuming and complicated.

The rational process can end up as a bureaucratic, top-down process focusing on plans, systems and targets, leading to a loss of entrepreneurial spirit.

Given an uncertain business environment, it is impossible for rational strategy makers to make reliable assumptions about the future.

An emergent approach encourages managers to take a longer term view of the development of the business, rather than being short-term and reactive.

From a stakeholder perspective, the emergent approach could be viewed as demonstrating that the organisation has a very clear sense of where it is going.