Strategy Implementation Versus the Concept of Strategy Letycja Soloducho-Pelc Abstract The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the form of the strategy, its time horizon, the update frequency and the degree of the strategy implementation. The studies concerning the strategic management process, i.e. the process of continuous development and implementation of the strategy, pay special attention to the importance of preparing a formalized strategy known to the company’s management and employees, extending the time horizon for planning, and performing frequent updates in response to the speed and intensity of changes occurring in the environment. The paper presents the results of the studies concerning the problems associated with the strategy implementation, which were conducted on a sample of 200 Polish companies. The Paper and Pencil Interview research method was used for the needs of the study. The results can be interpreted as an indication that success in the strategy implementation does not depend on the degree of the strategy formalization or the frequency of changes in the strategic plan. It seems that the successful companies participating in the survey implement the strategy to a considerable degree, despite the fact that they represent different approaches to the form, time horizon and frequency of updates of the strategy. Keywords Strategy • Strategy implementation • Concept of strategy • Time horizon • Update of the strategy • Degree of the strategy implementation 1 Introduction In the literature on strategic management a significant emphasis is put on the need to develop a strategy. A number of theoretical studies and research relating to company practices that concern the form of the strategy, its time horizon and the need of updating it have been developed thus far. Much less attention is paid to the implementation of the strategic management process, while theoretical consider- ations are not often taken. As compared with other studies related to the area of strategic management, the studies on the practice of the strategy implementation L. Soloducho-Pelc (*) Strategic Management Department, Wroclaw University of Economics, Wroclaw, Poland e-mail: letycja.soloducho@gmail.com © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 M.H. Bilgin et al. (eds.), Business Challenges in the Changing Economic Landscape - Vol. 2, Eurasian Studies in Business and Economics 2/2, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-22593-7_30 411