the mourning of the deliberate strategy for the arising of the emergent strategy

TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – July 2015, Special Issue 1 for IETC 2015

Copyright ¤ The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 547

The Mourning Of The Deliberate Strategy For The Arising Of The Emergent Strategy Juan Esteban Hernández Betancur Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia [email protected] Iván Alonso Montoya Restrepo Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Colombia [email protected] Luz Alexandra Montoya Restrepo Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia [email protected] ABSTRACT This document aims to propose a theoretical relation between the psychological mourning and the process stages described by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross for dying patients with the process of strategy formation. According to Henry Mintzberg, the process of strategy formation is composed initially of two types of strategies: intended strategies and realized strategy, and when a strategy is intended and realized, is matched a deliberate strategy; equally there are strategies that were not intended but were realized, these are emergent strategies. According to Montoya there is a cycle between emergent and deliberate strategies. When the deliberate strategy is applied, it may be affected by a limiting element that deconstructs the development of the strategy; in this situation it is proposed the agent enters in a psychological process of mourning over the loss of its plan, due to breaking the link between the agent and the deliberate strategy. This article contributes to understand how the agent passes through the stages of mourning (denial, anger, bargain, depression and acceptance) and how after it realization, the agent ignores the deliberate strategy and enables the arising of the emergent ones to continue viable in the system. For these stages take place will design a pilot test performed with a workshop in the classroom with students of Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellin, with an age range between 17 and 23 years old. This exploration concludes mainly that the agent has a link with the deliberate strategy and when a deconstruction happens, the agent enters in the mourning process as a natural response to this rupture between the agent and the deliberate strategy, and it has to go through all the stages of the mourning process up to the acceptance of failure for deliberate strategy. Finally, this acceptance will let the arising of the emergent strategy that allows continue being viable in the system for decision making.

KEYWORDS: Deliberate strategy, emergent strategy, mourning, process of mourning

1. INTRODUCTION For several years, the concept of strategy has been discussed and one of the most important inputs has been explained by Henry Mintzberg (1987) regarding the process of strategy formation, where he explains the concept initially from the existence of two types of strategies: the pretended and the realized ones. When a pretended strategy gets to be a realized one, it becomes a deliberated strategy and if the strategy is realized but not pretended, it is called an emergent strategy. Additionally, he defines the strategy as a pattern in a stream of decisions and argues that decisions are a commitment to action. Montoya (2010) takes up the idea outlined by Mintzberg, related to the cycle that may occur between the deliberated and the emergent strategies, allowing an initial answer to the process of strategy formation, where there is an intertemporal connection between the pretended and the realized strategies. Through the cycle between the deliberated and the emergent strategies, the agent learns, because it is subjected to learning-recycling processes, combined with the development of possibilities. This is evident, when a comparison is carried out, between the behaviors of the agent before the beginning of the cycle and after it is finished for decision making; this leads the agent to maintain a condition that allows it to remain viable inside a system (Montoya & Montoya, 2013).

When the agent is passing through the planning process of the deliberated strategy, it generates a link with it, which might be broken when the agent begins the execution process and a deconstructive situation appears; that is an event that stops the execution of the plan, which pretends to take the agent to the accomplishment of the goal; this leads to the meditation of the beginning of a psychological mourning process. The mourning explains the behavior of the agent in front of the failure of the deliberated strategy, given that from the definition of Freud (1917), cited by Zaragoza (2007), it is determined that mourning is the answer to the loss of a loving one or some similar representation, such as the homeland, ideals, among others. Kübler-Ross (1993) sets the mourning process



and divides it in five stages that, in order, are determined by a sense of denial, then anger, followed by bargain and at the same time, the agent enters in a depression to finally go through the acceptance of the loss. It is important to point out the fact that the studies developed by the author are related to death and dying persons.

Taking into account the effect that the deconstruction of the deliberated strategy causes to the agent, it may be considered that the agent carries a psychological mourning process to the deliberated strategy, which will permit the beginning of the search of an emergent strategy that maintains the cycle and the viability of the agent in the system. For that reason, this article helps to understand how the agent passes through this process and its different stages.

The first part of this article will describe the process of strategy formation, the concepts of deliberated and emergent strategies and the cycle between them. The second part will show some definitions of mourning and the stages of the process, said by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross for dying patients. The third part will contribute to understanding how the agent faces its rupture of the link with the deliberated strategy, from the stages of the psychological mourning process. Finally, the fourth part will perform a “Beer Game” as a pilot test to validate the stages of the mourning process at the moment of the rupture of a link between the agent and the deliberated strategy.

2. STRATEGY FORMATION The strategy arises formally in the ‘50s, at the Business school in Harvard, with the Business Policy course, where the question “why are some organizations more successful than others, despite the fact that they share the same context?” was debated. To answer it, relevant aspects on how companies such as General Motors, Estandar Oil, Duppont and Sears, Honda and Toyota are directed, were studied (Rivera & Malaver, 2011). From the military perspective, the strategy was already seen as an important position, compared to its adversaries, in fact, the most accepted stream about strategy, holds that its meaning lays on having a group of activities, related, but hardly imitated, so that it leads to a valuable, unique position, in comparison to the opponents (Porter, 2011). This perspective of the strategy formation is part of a positioning approach, framed with planning and design approaches, in a rational conception of the process of strategy formation. Talking about the positioning approach, the most relevant author cited by Porter, focuses on the search of the reason why some organizations are successful and some others are not, concluding that the difference that guarantees success is a competitive position that, as consequence, has a financial and sustainable development through time, in a global environment (Montoya, 2010).

Porter (1991) holds that the reason why there is a privileged position to generate a positively different financial performance, is in one of the following possibilities: first of all, through understanding the strategy from its integrative function of the activities of the organization. Secondly, through seeing the strategy as the search of correspondence between the opportunities and the politics defined on the market, with the organization’s internal goals and rules well established, to direction, on the same way, the organization with the environment. Or thirdly, to understand the strategy as the generation of distinctive competencies, that leads to a competitive position of the organization, from the strengthening techniques, processes and distinctive products (Porter, 1991).

Regarding the approach of Porter, there are some important criticisms about his conception of a firm, as a set of discrete activities and the operational view of the value chain, seen on the activities, ignoring a full conception of the organization as a whole. Another criticism is focused on the consideration of some central assumptions of the five forces model. According to Montoya (2010), these were questioned by the demonstrations made by Coyne & Subramanian (1996), were they assure that there are some alliances between the agents of an industry, which has a certain degree of mutual dependency.

The strategy formation approach, as an adaptive process, unlike the rational one, highlights the activities that the agent or the organization does to get an adaptive harmony with the environment and with themselves; which suggests a long term evaluation and focuses on reaching some economic efficiency goal and adaptive problem-situations solutions, through the domination of the “production network”. This last one is considered the social structure of the organization, which are: institutions, combinations and routines, and political coalitions between interest groups (Montoya, 2010). The adaptive approach understands that the agents are known for their bounded rationality (restrictions to get full information, costs and time invested on the exploration of the solution, constant changes of the environment and psychological limitations) at the moment of decisions making they are submerged in the reaching of an satisfactory solution to the problem, but more than optimal, where the model is closer to reality, in comparison to a decisions making model, where the agent has full rationality and the organization is a closed system, known by its rational approach (Montoya, 2010). In fact, the adaptive approach, with the resources and capacities school (RBV) and the rational approach with the positioning school, has created the opposite limits of the formation and strategy theories and has separated the investigators from the conception of a strategy as a



stream pattern of decisions, which is Mintzberg’s input, that contributes to the understanding of the strategy concept and turns him in one the most cited authors (Montoya, 2010).

Mintzberg explored the strategy concept from several allusions, the first one comes from the concept of plan, highlighting as the plan’s characteristics, the fact that they are consciously generated and with a determined purpose. That way, he explains the plan as a set of action courses consciously pre-established as a guide, which interacts or intervenes over certain situation that lays on the base of a defined purpose (Mintzberg, 1987). The second allusion is the concept of strategy as a position, where the organization avoids the competitors on a “product-market” structure and reaches a “niche” that generates a remarkable economic rent in comparison to the competitors; at this point, the organization stays away from the competition. The third allusion of the strategy concept is like a pattern, that contains a persistent behavior and that determination comes from a conception of the organization in the environment (Mintzberg, 1987).

Mintzberg criticizes the conception of the strategy just from its explicit part, in terms of Montoya (2010), “it is not enough for the organization and it is not operational for the investigator […] the investigator is forced to study the conformation of the strategy as a perceptual phenomenon, which leads to abstract normative generalizations” (Montoya, 2010). The relation directed by the strategy, between the organization and the environment cannot be developed in a passive way, before the opportunities and threats offered by it, but there must be an active and continuous attitude that allows it to be adapted in a changing environment (Hax & Majluf, 1988).

On the approach introduced by Mintzberg, it is suggested that a big part of the work done on the strategy direction is the approach of the consequences of the strategy, without consensus of the authors about the relation with the concept of strategy. Montoya (2010) also stands out, from Tsoukas (1994) work, that it is considered that after the inputs made by Mintzberg, there is an evidence of the conformation of the strategy concept, from the reconstruction of facts after the application, or as something beyond plans over a claim base. Finally, the intention of Mintzberg is to promote the studying of the strategy problem from an evolutional strategy perspective that uses the feedback as a learning mechanism in the method of trial and error and additionally the use of future conceptions, to be anticipated. (Montoya, 2010).

Summing up, for Mintzberg, the strategy must be seen as a stream pattern of decisions, pointing out that a decision is defined as a commitment to the action. Additionally, it contributes to clear up the concept of strategy through the inputs made by the definition of the deliberated and emergent strategies. On the following section both strategy concepts are going to be widened.

2.1.1. DELIBERATE AND EMERGENT STRATEGIES On the search of understanding the concept of strategy, Mintzberg identifies that some plans may be intentional or intended and could be made or not. From there arises the concept of pretended strategies, that also arises from an anticipated conception of the situation for the consecution of a target and the strategies that are just realized ones. From the realized strategies, Mintzberg (1987) identifies that some strategies were realized and pretended, which concludes in a deliberated effort from the agent and leads to the consecution of a deliberated strategy. Also, there are unrealized strategies that are basically the strategies that were pretended but were never executed. Finally, there are strategies that were realized ones, but the agent never had the intention of making that happen, which indicates that it is an emergent strategy, as the result of the consecution of patterns and a clear absence of claim (See Figure 1). The pretended strategies that were not realized, for some internal or external reason to the organization, might pass through classification processes, where it is evaluated the relevance and effectiveness in the future, to be stored and modified, if necessary, to execute just in emergency situations and to turn it into a tool for the strategist or to be disposed because of its obsolescence (Montoya & Montoya, 2005).



Figure 1: Deliberate and emergent strategies.

Source: Taken from Mintzberg, 1987, p. 14.

For the strategies to be strictly defined as deliberated ones, they must have an exact formation of the realized strategy, from the pretended strategy and accomplish successfully three conditions (Mintzberg & Waters, 1985 cited by Montoya, 2010):

A. There must be an intention, which does not allow any ambiguities from the organization, with an established level of detail that does not show any doubt before the action is generated. B. The intentions must be common for every member of the organization, because it is conceived as a collective action. C. The collective actions must not be affected by any external force and, as consequence, the pretended strategy got to be a realized one, executing itself as it was supposed to. This leads to a completely predictable, benign and malleable atmosphere.

Montoya (2010) shows that Mintzberg highlights about the emergent strategies, the feature of arising from the learning and from the maneuvering processes, based on Quinn’s (1980) work of “logical incrementalism” and on the other hand, the feature of feedback between the agents that generates a collaborative adjust seen on Lindblom (1959) and Braybrooke and Lindblom (1963). The deliberated strategies are necessary for the organization, because they generate a sense of right direction and at the same time, emergent strategies are not a synonym of absence of administration, on the contrary, they implicate learning from what is functional; they look for a pattern consistently viable (Mintzberg & Waters, 1985 cited by Hax & Majluf, 1988).

According to Montoya (2010), Mintzberg makes an outstanding proposal related to the investigation of the shaping process of the deliberated and emergent strategies and the interaction of the realized strategies with elements from the organization such as structure and context. He emphasizes the strategy formation studied as continuous or perhaps as the formation of a cycle between deliberated and emergent strategies (Montoya, 2010).

2.1.2. CYCLE BETWEEN DELIBERATE AND EMERGENT STRATEGIES Mintzberg proposes a idea of a cycle between the strategies from his definition of pretended and realized strategies; the realized strategies nowadays have an intertemporal relation with the pretended strategies in a later period (Montoya, 2010). The notion of the conception of strategy as a cycle facilitates the combination of experiences, seen as the use of learning, with the expectations, seen as the collaboration of possibilities. This notion allows to get initial responses to the problem of conformation of the strategy (Montoya & Montoya, 2009). To Montoya (2010), the cycle is “a matter of repeated events and it is different from the feedbacks, because it links aspects of different natures between them”. Additionally completes the characteristics of the cycle with the time factor related to its periodic behavior, which allows the generation of a contrast and the conformation of a whole which is coherent and related to evolution. Montoya (2010) makes the following statements related to the cycle (See Table 1):



Table 1: The relation between an entity to another and the adaptations in their evolutionary process allude to various levels

(I) An agent seeks for its variability and while it possesses internal models, it exhibits intentionality; (II) The agents carry their own evolution and selection conditions, through the constant modifications of their environment, according to their intentionality; (III) The agents are also other’s agents (environments); (IV) For that reason, agents constantly generate decisions and actions. The actions end up in challenges that must be faced by other agents, which translated order in disorder trends; (V) The action of a higher agent, that acts as the environment, induces modifications, which can lead several variations; (VI) The operation of the agent that acts as environment for other agents, on the population level, creates pressure of selection imposed by external conditions; (VII) When there are mismatches while there are selection pressures and dynamics on the accommodation of niches, for the competition of local resources, the agent that operates as the environment, which is fulfilled with big generative potential and facilitates several streams of energy and materials, makes possible processes of self-organization and cycles of thermodynamic works that affect the production of agents inside its border. It is all about the appearance of the order, from chaos; (VIII) The elaboration of internal models is affected and the internal models compete and cooperate because of the appearance of new elements in the environment. This influence originates a new representation of reality; (IX) The cycle is closed when a reorientation of the intentionality appears.

Source: Compiled from Montoya (2010).

Montoya & Montoya (2013) assure that the entities (seen as agents, organizations or the environment) that belong to a group of cycles obtain resources and energy, which can be used later. The author outlines a comparison to that, which was said by Holland (2004) about the natural selection that must be seen as a cyclic recycling, where the evolution increases compared to the diversity. Also the autors assure that the same cycle applies a “self-organizational” process, which leads to the accumulation of loops in the gap between deliberated and emergent strategies, which allows the entities to move forward novelties in which there is not previous configuration. From the cycle, it could also be measured the levels of understanding of the situation from the entity (agent or organization); which can be evaluated before the beginning of a new cycle and after it is finished: to make a comparison of the perception of the situations at the two moments, where it is evident the potential cognitive enrichment from the agent, through its own experience (Montoya & Montoya, 2013).

Summing up, the cycle between deliberated and emergent strategies allows the evolution of the agent through the learning recycling process, this combined with the elaboration of possibilities. The progress shows up when comparing the performance before beginning the cycle and after it is finished. This evolution allows the agent to stay viable inside the niche in which it is, or at least have the possibility of staying in another niche that permits it to remain viable.

3. MOURNING Citing the Real Academia Española dictionary, which is available online, the word “mourning” comes from the Latin dŏlus which means pain, pity, affliction or feeling. It is also related to an expression before the death of a loving one and associates it with the act of waiting up a dead (Real Academia Española, 2014). On the other hand, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) - 5 written by the American Psychiatric Association, the mourning is the natural consequence of the loss of something meaningful, that is usually linked to the death of someone close, economic ruin, medical condition or complex disability, where some sadness, loss of appetite and sleeplessness conditions may appear, but it is perfectly normal in a depressive episode. (Americam Psychiatric Association, 2014).

John Bowbly, one of the most outstanding authors and pioneer of the Affective Theory (Fonseca, 2010), analogically defines “mourning” using the term “inflammation” in the physiology and pathology, to connote the consequence of certain physical processes inside the human body, which also happens with the mourning, because it is the response to the loss, linked with processes and states that are interrelated (Bolwby, 1993). Then Bowlby (1993) defines the mourning as “a wide set of psychological processes that start working as soon as the loss of a loving one happens, no matter the result”. Additionally, the author shows an annexed use for the term mourning, which is traditionally from the Anthropology, where the concept falls to the demonstration of physical pain, shame or sadness in a public way; this to compare with the term of affliction, although the author defends the use of the term mourning in cases where a psychological process is activated consciously or not, from a loss. Another relevant concept mentioned by Bowlby (1993) cited by Freud (1960) is about the “Mourning Work”, which is textually



“the effort that makes the individual to accept an occurred fact in the external world (the loss of a cathected object) and to carry out the corresponding changes in the inter world (withdrawal of the libido from the lost object, identification with the lost object)”.

Meanwhile, Zaragoza (2007) compiles the most outstanding definitions around the concept of mourning; citing Freud (1917) who textually defines mourning as “the reaction before the loss of a loving one or of an abstraction that plays the same role, such as the homeland, the freedom, an ideal, etc”. Additionally cites Steen (1988), who assures that the mourning, can make a person grow and lead to maladaptive behavior by the mourner (Zaragoza, 2007). On the same way, the author holds that the mourning may be considered as the lack of capacity from the individual, to face particular situations because of a temporal personality chaos, linked to a crisis or disorder associated to the loss (Zaragoza, 2007).

3.1. PROCESS OF MOURNING Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, in her studies about death and dying persons, determined five stages that an individual who is close to death or suffers a palliative process, experiments. These stages are also identified as a mourning process:

Denial stage: It is very common on patients who have been informed that they suffer a medical condition that is going to lead to death on a short period of time, to have an initial reaction of denial, arguing that it is not possible to be affected by such pathology. This denial is followed by the desire of consulting different medical opinions, looking for a new diagnosis, a more positive one, completely opposite from the original one (Kübler-Ross, 1993).

Kübler-Ross (1993) assures that denial is generally a provisional defense mechanism before the actual situation, which, in a short period of time, will be replaced by the partial acceptance. She expresses that in some rare cases, patients maintain the feeling of denial until the end, to cover up the real situation and contextualizes it with the case of a patient who suffered from breast cancer, who presented a persistent denial of her medical condition and kept it that way until moments before passing away; the patient wore make up every time brighter and more colorful dresses; besides, she referred to her condition as a simple wound.

Anger stage: After the stage where the patient faces the denial to the actual situation and begins to question reality, then passes to understand it and accept it on a partial way, admitting that is suffering from a disease that is going to take the life away. This sense of acceptance translates the patient to recognize how sick and near death it actually is, which makes it look for the answer to “why is it the person chosen to suffer from such horrible medical condition and not someone else? The person questions its productivity before the world and everyone else; this stage is harder for the patient’s close ones, because the dying expresses its anger through every near element. In addition, glimpses of pain, tears, guilt and shame show up, by avoiding contact with the nearest ones. The anger comes from the sudden rupture of everyday activities developed by the patient and, at the same time, seeing future projects interrupted (Kübler-Ross, 1993).

Bargain stage: Kübler-Ross (1993) mentions that this stage is neither so common nor identifiable during the process, but it emerges as a similar behavior to kids when they order something and then ask it in a docile way; generally they can make a tantrum search to what they want, but when they realize they are not going to get it that way, then they look for a bargain space, where, for instance, they offer a domestic service in exchange for their demands. Same thing happens with a patient who is in a palliative situation. It knows, because of past experiences, that from a good behavior, it can achieve the desired benefits (Kübler-Ross, 1993). This occurs in every environment situations, such as the relation with a superior being, in which it enters in a bargain of the acceptance of the disease in exchange of it to be easier to carry it until the end.

Depression stage: On this stage enter those patients who have been undergoing several surgical procedures that affected their look, as well as those who lose a lot of weight because of strict diets; then they cannot keep a positive attitude before death. This stage is based on a sense of loss, same feeling that, for instance, a woman gets when one of her breasts or perhaps her uterus is removed, and she feels that she is not a woman anymore (Kübler-Ross, 1993). There are two types of depression: reactive and preparatory depression, where the first one is the answer from the patient to all the consequences of a degenerative medical condition, such as medical procedures to which it is subjected and the effects over the physical appearance. On the other hand, the second type of depression is related to economically facing the disease that usually has high costs and leads to the loss of the patient’s goods, leaving them without a job and unable to make their dreams come true, which consequently leaves to the end, death (Kübler-Ross, 1993).



Acceptance stage: After passing through the previous stages, the patient leaves behind many of the feelings that it was carrying; it stops feeling angry with those who do not suffer from its disease and are not aware of how close their end is, and they stop feeling depressed about their situation. This stage must not be conceived as a happy stage, because it is a feelings-free stage, in fact, the professional help from psychologists must be directed mostly to the patient’s relatives and friends. Patients remain on a face of forgetting the external world and do not want to be disturbed with news from it; they accomplish a peace, acceptance and tranquility state, in which the only hope is to expect the inevitable (Kübler-Ross, 1993).

On this stage the patient realizes that death in inevitable and that it may occur at any moment, although some patients fight against their disease until the very end and keep the hope of overcoming it, this type of patients do not get to the stage of acceptance. These stages described during the mourning process by Kübler-Ross (1993), have been validated and reinforced by several authors. Sánchez & Martínez (2014) made a recollection of authors that, for link ruptures, were there is a more emotional than physical breakdown, they validate each one of the mourning stages described by the theory of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (Sánchez & Martínez, 2014). (See Table 2).

The following section of this article will combine the mourning stage explained by Kübler-Ross (1993) and the concept of conformation of strategy, to explain the behavior of the agent, while facing the failure of a deliberated strategy.

Table 2: Authors who support the stages of mourining proposed by Kübler – Ross Mourning

stage Authors that propose stage

Denial Kubler-Ross (1969), Suiza (1974, en Zaragoza Toscano, 2007), Horowitz (1976), Clark (1984), Staudacher (1991), Robinson (1996), Cabo de Villa (2007).

Hostile reactions (Anger)

Kubler-Ross (1969), Caruso (1989), Horowitz (1976), Backer, Hannon, y Russell (1982), D’Angelico, (1990), Staudacher (1991), Robinson (1996), Cabo de Villa (2007).

Bargain Kubler-Ross (1969), Bowlby (1980), Backer, Hannon y Russell (1982), Suiza (1974, en Zaragoza Toscano, 2007) Clark (1984), D'Angelico (1990), Staudacher (1991), Robinson (1996), Roccatagliata (2000) y Cabodevilla (2007)

Hopelessness (Depression)

Lindemann (1944), Kubler-Ross (1969), Davidson (1979), Backer et al. (1982), D’Angelico (1990), Staudacher (1991), Worden (2004) y Robinson (1996).

Acceptance Kubler-Ross (1969), Caruso (1989), Prigerson et al. (1980), Backer et al. (1982), Clark (1984), D’Angelico (1990) y Staudacher (1991). Source: Compiled with information from Sanchez and Martinez (2014).

4. THE MOURNING OF DELIBERATE STRATEGY FOR THE RISE OF EMERGENET STRATEGY

Bowlby (1993) holds the discussion about the terminology used with the word “mourning”, where he highlights that some critics have attacked him for the excessive use of the term, assuring textually that “the mourning accomplishes a very precise psychic task: its function is to separate the dead from the memories and hopes from the remaining ones” using the term “mourning” as something restrictive, that only applies on the consecution of the result. The author points out that the restrictive use of the term is contrary to the investigative thought and from the typecasting of the world vision, it does not contribute to the evolution of the definition. It is referenced the discussion presented by Bowlby (1993), to use the term mourning to name the process that the agent passes through when the deliberated strategy is deconstructed. The explanation of this process will be based on the stages exposed previously, developed by Kübler-Ross and her whole theory about the process of mourning that a dying patient passes through, closer to death.

When an agent generates a deliberated strategy to accomplish a goal, it passes through the respective planning process and determines all the stages of a plan to reach that goal; calculating costs related to the execution and determining what the financial sources are, to turn the pretend strategy in a realized one, creating a link between the agent and the deliberated strategy. But for some reason related to the environment, or some consideration skipped by the agent during the process of planning for the execution of the deliberated strategy, there is a possibility that it might be affected and becomes useless to reach the realized strategy. The rupture of the link between the agent and the deliberated strategy and the deconstruction of the link with the whole process of planning and dedication in the pretention of its faithful execution, generates on the agent a process of mourning described by the psychological mourning stages. The agent will feel a sense of loss, where the deliberated strategy will be



unfocused on the reality and is not going to be applicable. The rupture of the link and the sense of loss, activates the process of mourning, because on its definition, the mourning is a normal response to the loss (Bowlby, 1993).

According to Kübler-Ross (1993), the first stage of the mourning is the denial one. At the moment of the appearance of an obstacle that indicates that the deliberated strategy is not going to be applied, the agent is going to face the stage of denial, in which it initially questions whether the deliberated strategy truncator element exists or not, then ignores it and looks for the way to move on with the plan; the agent, just like the dying patients, will use bargain as a defense method to the real world, reaching the continuance of its pretentions. Additionally, the agent on the denial stage stands out its deliberated strategy perfection and the impossibility of its failure, because it highlights its skills as a planner and how strict were all the phases, to achieve the realized strategy. On the same way, it will look for different concepts from the impeding object, all of its time and space features and how it, directly or indirectly, affects the deliberated plan.

After passing through denial, where the agent does not consider the failure of its plan, the next stage is the anger, where the agent begins to recognize that its plan is failing and tries to look for the impeding element of its deliberated strategy and discharges the anger and the frustration feelings, coming from the loss of the plan. This first two stages of the mourning of the deliberated strategy are exacerbated by the fear that the agent might feel for the turbulence of the future, because it does not know for sure what is going to happen after the rise of the impeding element, that highly disturbs the temporality and the harmony of the activities placed on the plan, to extent that it may become obsolete and leads to a total drop of the deliberated strategy. At that point, the agent would be completely exposed to the environment, without any strategy with which it could face it and reach for the goal. This would lead it to begin the next stage, the bargain one, where the agent will look for the meditation of the situation of its plan and somehow save it, even though some changes must be made. On this stage, the agent questions itself and its environment, in relation of what does it do from the present obstacle on its plan. Equally, it will realize that its deliberated strategy has failed and will start to consider new alternatives to save the situation; just like with dying patients, the agent will look for alternative past experiences that work to accomplish the goal or that at least help carrying with the situation.

The next stage is depression, in which the agent feels sad about its imminent loss and begins the recognition of its plan’s failure before the consecution of the goal, that might be bordered by a reactive depression and the preparatory depression might be related with the placement of the resources, so that the agent remains viable before the goal. Last stage is the acceptance, where the agent definitely accepts that its deliberated strategy did not work and that it is not viable that it becomes a realized strategy. On this stage, the agent leaves the feelings it has for its plan behind and the effort dedicated for its development. Similarly, the agent has to pass through the rest of the stages to get to accept the death of its deliberated strategy (See Table 3).

Table 3: Stages of mourming deliberate strategy Stage Characteristics

Negation - The agent defends itself from the reality. - Emphasizes its skills as planner. - Questions the impossibility of failure of its plan.

Anger - Partial acceptance of a truncator element affecting its deliberate strategy. - Anger comes from the breakdown of the plan. - Releases its anger against its surroundings.

Bargain - Preliminary alternatives questioning to continue with the plan. - Makes considerations regarding the continuity of its plan. - Consults on past experiences to find a solution.

Depression - The agent feels sadness for the loss of its plan. - Stops having a positive attitude to the plan.

Acceptance

- Puts aside fellings. - Definitely accepts the deconstruction of the deliberate strategy. - It´s necessary to go through the other stages to reach to accept the link

breakdown between the deliberate strategy and the agent. Source: Authors.

Possibly if an agent does not pass through the mourning process for its deliberated strategy, perhaps for pride or fear, the consecution of the goal will completely fail. It may happen that the entity passes through some of the stages, but do not achieve the acceptance. The agent might stay on the denial stage and preserve its deliberated



strategy, insisting that its plan is perfect and applicable, turning it in unviable. Similarly on the anger stage, if the agent stays there, reproaching the environment and itself for the failure of the plan, it is not going to be able to accomplish the goal. Also if it gets to an awareness state that allows it to understand that it is failing, but do not pact an agreement with the bargain process between the plan and the environment. At the same time, it may happen that the agent blocks itself because it remained fussing about the failure of the plan. If the agent does not get to the acceptance of the failure of the plan, it will not be able to open the door of the arising of a new emergent strategy that allows it to remain viable in the system.

5. A BEER GAME APPLICATION Previously, it was developed a theorist relation between the mourning process and process formation of the strategy, where it was shown how the agent passes through the mourning stages at the moment of suffering a rupture of the link with the deliberated strategies and how it is presumed that when the agent overcomes the mourning process, a new emergent strategy would be born. This part of the document will describe the use of the “Beer Game” as a pilot test that proves the existence of the mourning process when a deliberated strategy deconstruction occurs and afterwards, the rupture of the relation between the agent and the plan.

The “Beer Game” is a didactic activity, developed by the Sloan School of Management of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT in the early ‘60s, where the reality is abstracted in a lab game, in which it is possible to visualize the dynamic of a production and distribution system of an organization that produces beer; each one of the players is free to make decisions towards maximizing its earnings in its spot on the distribution chain (Senge, 1995). Just like Senge (1995) describes it, the game counts with the following roles from the distribution chain: the first one is the retailer, the second one is the wholesaler and the third one is the producer. Each one of these roles makes purchase operations of the following role. During the process, the retailer orders something from the wholesaler, the wholesaler orders something from the factory and the factory programs its production, according to the demand from the wholesaler. On each one of this process’s stages, there is a deadline of four weeks (Senge, 1995).

The demand at first, maintains a constant behavior during each one of the stages of the process, but from the release of a musical video that involves the main product of this distribution chain, “the in love people beer”, the sales increase; which leads that from the retailer, there is a bigger amount of product required. Just as out of the blue as the demand increased, it was stabilized and, again, the amount of the required product changed in each one of the stages. It is important to stand out that there is an opportunity cost associated with the costumers that were not served satisfactorily and there is an inventory cost when it exceeds the capacity of the warehouse

According to Senge (1995), the general result of the game is that each one of the contestants ends up with high inventories, which is related to a behavior pattern that surpasses the individual and, as the author suggests, it is inherent to the game and the way its structure was conceived. An explanation to this situation is associated with the result of the decisions that people make inside a system, regardless whether they think differently or not; the individuals are influenced by the behavior of the system. Each one of the players is forming a strategy from the stream of decisions’s pattern, that it is generating with each one of the orders, which is happening on a planned way and turns that strategy in a deliberated one, a pretended one, looking for a realized strategy.

Towards giving the desired effect of deconstruction to the strategy that was planned, it is proposed a sudden close up to the game, which, as consequence, will allow the evaluation of the feeling the agent gets at the moment of the rupture of the link with the deliberated strategy (See Table 4). To test that sense, a poll was designed, to try to identify the impact that the rupture of a plan has and to establish the emotions of the agent within the process. Also, the contestants are questioned about the link sensation that they may have with the plan, if the deconstruction of the deliberated strategy worries them, how much do the feelings from the mourning process participate by the time the game is suddenly finished and if they consider that getting rid of the deliberated strategy earlier, facilitates the arising of an emergent strategy (See Appendix A).



Table 4: Survey variables. Research Objective Variable Description

Identify the impact of the breakdown of a plan and establish the emotions felt by the agent in this process

Link Identify the perception that those involved in the beer game in relation to the link they have when developing a plan.

Deconstructor element

Identify the perception of the agent in relation to the sudden ending of beer game as deconstructive element of the plan.

Stages of the mourning process

Identify the assessment that gives the agent to the stages of mourning (denial, anger, bargain, depression and acceptance) at the moment of deconstruction of deliberate strategy.

Source: Authors. 6. CONCLUSIONS During the strategy formation process, if the deliberated strategy is truncated by a deconstructive element, the agent initiates a psychological mourning process, which is the natural response to the rupture of a link between the agent and its plan and will lead it to face the rest of the stages of the mourning process.

The agent must pass through all the stages of the mourning process of the deliberated strategy, to consider the arising of an emergent strategy and if the agent do not get to the final stage of the process (acceptance), it will not be able to admit the failure of the deliberated strategy. Possibly the agent would not pass through the mourning process of the deliberated strategy for two reasons: the first one, the pride, which leads it to think that its plan is perfect and that the time and resources invested on the plan cannot be disposed so easily, even though it is evident that the plan is not viable. The second one is fear; through recognizing that its plan is failing, the agent would not quit its deliberated strategy, because it is not possible to predict the future and perhaps it would not count with the elements to face it, that is the reason why the agent remains linked with its plan, in spite of having a blurry vision of the situation. References Americam Psychiatric Association. (2014). DSM-5. (Americam Psychiatric Association, Ed.) (5th ed., p. 438).

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the mourning of the deliberate strategy for the arising of the emergent strategy

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