AN ANALYSIS OF STRATEGIC PLANNING ACTIVITIES APPLIED IN FOOTBALL SECTOR

Purpose: One of the most common sets of activities in strategic management is planning. All strategic planning deals with at least one of three key questions (Bradford and Duncan, 2000): 1. What we do 2. For whom do we do it 3. How do we excel As research has pointed out, strategic planning is widely used by organizations in order to confront with a great number of changes, and respond effectively to their new situations (Kriemadis, 1997; Kriemadis & Theakou, 2007; Mintzberg, 1994; Wit & Meyer, 1998). Strategic planning refers to the process of determining the mission, major objectives, strategies, and policies that govern the acquisition and allocation of resources to achieve organizational aims (Johnson & Scholes, 1999). However, strategic planning is not a static product (Stopford, 2001). This study aims at partly contributing to the theoretical discussion concerning the ability of football clubs to integrate and employ strategic planning. The primary purposes of this research were: a) to determine whether strategic planning activities exist in Greek football sector, (b) to identify the extent to which the strategic plan is applied in real terms, (c) to identify the differences in strategic planning activities between under research football clubs.