Review of the Strategic Management Society Website

¶ … Strategic Management Society Website http://www.smsweb.org/Index.html

Review of the Strategic Management Society Website

Summary Description

The Strategic Management Society's (SMS) aim is to bring together academicians, business practitioners and consultants who have an interest in the strategic management, planning, and execution processes in organizations. While there are no localized chapters of the SMS, the site claims there is participation in 50 nations globally. The organization itself is chaired with academicians who have specialized in the development, fine-tuning and broad acceptance of strategic planning principles. There is a heavy component of the site dedicated to the areas of journal publications and the partnership with book publisher Blackwell, an academic press.

Overall Look and Feel and Apparent Target Audience

The overall look and feel of the site is aimed at academicians, and there is less of a design approach to attract and retain corporate-level executives interested in gaining greater insights into the organizations' work. The organization of the menus is obtuse and shows amateurish design principles, and the lack of links in the "Other Conferences" tab also shows that this website is a part-time endeavor probably for one of its members. The site looks as if it needs a make-over.

What the site does and does not give you

The site does deliver the background of how the SMS came together, what its goals are, and the background of the key trustees. There is also an abundance of external links the site makes available as well. Finally, for academicians who must publish continually, there are several useful links to external societies and research organizations.

The site does not quickly provide a sense of the value it can deliver to visitors. On the front page of the site is a request for volunteers and a series of short bullets regarding consulting companies the SMS has worked with. In short, there is no real "hook" from a content perspective to keep the reader looking at the site and going through it.

Why the site will or will not be used as part of a professional resources list

The site will be most likely not used on the majority of professional resource lists as the content is somewhat stale, the navigation is difficult and appears amateurish, and the site does not quickly deliver value from the front page. One gets the impression the site merely reflects an organization that communicates with one another in other ways besides through the website itself.

Reasons to return back to the site

There aren't that many reasons to return back to the site, the only exception would be if the site included presentations from previous conferences, a feature not supported at present.

What information was expected to be found and was not there expected to find much more on this site than is present today. To begin with, the SMS is a highly academically focused organization, and as a result its members are continually working on research projects, presenting papers, and also working through many academic calendars and teaching schedules. As a result of the richness of this research one would expect to find at least a trace of these materials on the site, and in fact there are none. This is disturbing. Further, the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal and Strategic Management Journal aren't offered on a trial basis, and content is not even available from them. Instead there are links to subscribe to these publications. This makes the entire site look like an organization of academicians also promoting these two journals.

Links from the site that are helpful

The site does include an excellent set of links for external publications including the link for the International Journal of Strategic Management.

Additional Notes Regarding the Site