It is increasingly common for the top management of organisations to take themselves off to distant hotels for brainstorming sessions to deliberate on the longer-term direction of their organisation, yet surprisingly little is known about these strategy workshops. Basic details such as who is involved, how often these workshops occur, to what end(s) they are organised and what effects they have are little documented.

This article presents the first substantial exploration of the role of workshops in strategy development through a survey of managerial experience of these events. The findings show that: strategy workshops play an important part in enduring formal strategic planning processes; they rely on discursive rather than analytical approaches to strategy formation; and they typically do not include middle managers and other stakeholders in formal strategy-making. There is also evidence of personal development and improved working relationships with peers.

The findings also point to some potential negative outcomes, namely that because strategy workshops tend to be organised by top management for top management, they can demotivate and dent the morale of the excluded employees. Overall, the authors conclude that strategy workshops are important vehicles for the planned emergence of strategy, although they suggest that their effectiveness could be heightened by being directed by external facilitators. They also suggest that workshop discussion could be enriched if participation was broadened to include middle and line managers, as well as external stakeholders.
 
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