Strategic Plan Quality, Implementation Capability, And Firm Performance‪.‬

INTRODUCTION While implementation of strategy is critical to firm success, most strategic management models inadequately emphasize the relationship between strategy formulation, quality, and implementation (Day and Wensley, 1983; White, 2008). This lack of emphasis is significant as the capability of an implementation effort is important to the achievement of superior performance (Crittenden and Crittenden, 2008; Noble, 1999; Singer, 2008). Despite this relationship between implementation and performance, often strategic planning becomes a formality as opposed to a vital and implemented process (O'Regan and Ghobadian, 2007). While a sizeable body of literature exists in the area of strategy formulation (Borch, Huse, and Senneseth, 1999; Campbell-Hunt, 2000; Dess and Davis, 1984; Porter, 1980, 1985; Miles and Snow, 1978; Mintzberg, 1988; Robinson and Pearce, 1988), limited research attention has been given to implementation's role in strategic planning success (Chebot, 1999; El-Ansary, 2006; Khalil, Kim, and Shin, 2006; Noble, 1999; Tsai, Fan, Leu, Chou, and Yang, 2007).