Published
Methodology
Quantitative content analysis of 312 published strategic plans spanning 2012 to 2024
Co-Authors
Prof. Daniel Okonkwo
Dr. Mei Lin Chua
Robert Ainsley
Sofia Marchetti
Paper Length
44 pages
Cite as
Ellery, J., Okonkwo, D., Chua, M. L., Ainsley, R., & Marchetti, S. (2025). The half-life of strategy. Strategic Management Papers, 41(1), 77–120.
Copy citation
Strategic plans are written for a horizon and used for a season. Analysing twelve years of published strategies, this paper estimates how quickly their central assumptions lose validity, and argues for review cycles set by evidence rather than calendar.
How long plans stay true
Analysing 312 published strategic plans from 2012 to 2024, the median plan remained a fair description of the organisation’s priorities for roughly fourteen months, while its stated horizon averaged four years.
“
A four-year plan with a fourteen-month half-life is not a strategy. It is a document that will be quietly contradicted before it is formally replaced.
What decays first
Targets aged fastest, followed by structural commitments. Statements of purpose aged slowest and were also, unsurprisingly, the least useful for deciding anything.
Designing for revision
The most durable plans in the sample separated the parts intended to last from the parts expected to change, and named the date on which the second set would be reopened. Revision became scheduled maintenance rather than an admission of error.
