Impact of Strategic Planning on Financial Performance of Companies in Turkey

Strategic planning is important for strategic management of companies. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of strategic planning on financial performance of major industrial enterprises of Turkey. Our findings show that many domestic and foreign firms in our sample have a strategic process in place. It is an annual process and considered a very important organizational activity. This paper is one of the few studies to examine the strategic planning process in a sample of firms from a transitional economy. It can be considered a longitudinal study because it examines a set of institutions to identify changes in their performance over time, as they incorporate the use of strategic tools in a dynamic competitive environment. The findings of this study provide a contribution to our understanding of the nature and practice of strategic planning in Turkish companies and possibilities of correlations between their efforts and performance.