New Study Reveals Strategy Execution Gap in Business Education


SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 16, 2022 / PRNewswire /  —  Today the MBA Roundtable and Business Architecture Guild released an analysis of findings from a survey to examine how strategy execution is taught in graduate business education and provide recommendations into the future role of business architecture in both academia and strategy implementation.

“Research shows that a vast majority of strategies fail to be fully executed. This issue is most often not the strategy, but poor execution. We conducted this study to assess the state of strategy execution education in graduate business curriculums and suggest possible reasons why strategy execution remains elusive in so many organizations today.”

— Brian Cameron, Associate Dean, Smeal College of Business at the Pennsylvania State University

In July 2021, the MBA Roundtable and Business Architecture Guild partnered to develop a survey of administrative leads of graduate programs from a broad cross section of colleges and universities. Key findings suggest that 1) strategy execution is often taught in a cursory manner in graduate business curriculums, (2) the incomplete picture we see in higher education could be contributing to the strategy execution gap so many organizations face, and 3) business architecture offers an ideal counterpart to strategy execution education and addresses a gap in graduate business curriculums.

“The need for business architecture is a critical, but often missing link between strategy and execution. Business architecture offers a needed complement to business curriculum that prepares business and IT leaders with the foundation and in-demand skills needed to execute strategic change.”

— Whynde Kuehn, Chair of the Business Architecture Guild’s Academic Program

The summary of findings and formal analysis are available in the new white paper, “Strategy Execution: An Incomplete Component of Business Education?”.

The MBA Roundtable and Business Architecture Guild® plan to develop future white papers and webinars that further explore the possibilities business architecture brings to graduate business education and best practices for teaching and integrating business architecture into graduate business courses and curriculums.