THE TREE OF SCIENCE OF DELIBERATE AND EMERGENT STRATEGIES

The purpose of this article is to build a tree of science for the concept of deliberate and emergent strategies. It makes use of graph theory, identifying the knowledge networks built by citing academic documents. The tool that allows the construction of these networks is the Tree of Science (ToS) platform, which builds the tree of science by identifying roots, trunks and leaves of the concept. As a main result, the fundamental root of the concept of deliberate and emergent strategies is centred on the contributions of Mintzberg and his co-authors. There are fundamental developments within the trunk of the concept such as decision-making, the role of the middle manager, the supply chain, and organisational performance. As for the leaves, new relationships emerge with innovation, entrepreneurship and chaos theory, among others. By way of conclusion, the evolution of the concept of deliberate and emergent strategies can be seen. Starting from the roots, through an initial bifurcation of the strategy concept, it can be considered not only as a purely deliberate problem, but also in terms of non-deliberate (emergent) situations. At the core, we develop a primary understanding of some connections between deliberate and emergent strategies; this allows us to move to a process perspective, developed from the methodological contributions and influences of the context. Finally, in the leaves, the concept deepens, through the same substantial lines found in the trunk. A preliminary systemic connotation can be given to the formation of the strategy, but the weakness of the concept lies in the evolutionary explanation within the system, since there is not enough clarity in its functioning to understand the relationship between the decisions of the agents and the formation of the strategy. As a limitation of the research, it is noted that the ToS is restricted to the Web of Science database.