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North Arkansas Community/Technical College (NACTC) was formed in July 1993 by the consolidation of a community and technical college in the community of Harrison, Arkansas, but used the mission statement, goals, and institutional objectives developed by the community college. A project was undertaken to develop a process for reviewing and revising NACTC's mission statement, goals, and institutional objectives, focusing on the type of process that should be developed and the activities and participants to be included in the process. Sources of data included a review of the literature, input from a committee formed to discuss issues and practical requirements, and sample processes obtained from their colleges. The first draft of the process was completed March 2, 1995 and distributed to a summative evaluation committee for revisions. Copies of the final draft were presented to the NACTC president. The process developed included environmental scanning activities; a campus-wide planning process; provisions for community input and evaluation of the process; and the opportunity for other planning documents, such as vision or values statements, to be considered during the development of mission, goals, and institutional objectives. (Contains 33 references.) (Appendixes include criteria used in developing the planning process, information on members of formative and summative evaluation committees formed for the project, and the final planning process.) (KP)

The number of the Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has grown substantially in recent years. As the sector has expanded it has experienced a high level of internal competition especially due to scarce donor resources and their requirements such as greater financial accountability and clearer evidence of program influence. Therefore strategic thinking and the use of strategic management approaches are very much needed. While the volume of research on strategic management in large corporations is extensive research on strategic management in SMEs is relatively limited and the research on strategic management in NGOs is very limited. Therefore, following the recommendations of the prior researchers for further studies, this research is an attempt to shed light on the top mangers` perception of the importance of strategic management processes in NGOs in Palestine. This research discovered that more than half of the NGOs surveyed have strategic management systems indicating that a significant proportion of NGOs view strategic management as crucial. Managers of the studied NGOs perceived a strategic management approach as an important factor for increasing the quality of service delivery, achieving goals and increasing overall organizational performance. Regarding the internal organizational factors managers believed that employing strategic management techniques helped significantly in sorting out organizational problems, reducing organizational conflicts and aiding organizational development. The NGOs that have set a strategic management approach are more adjustable to environmental factors. The environmental awareness of managers in NGOs is very important. The managers` strategic awareness and their perception of the III benefits coming from a formal strategic planning approach within the NGO considerably impacts upon the success of the organisation. They perceived environmental scanning as a very important factor for NGO success. Environmental scanning is also perceived as a significant factor in the strategic management process and its impact upon performance. The studied NGOs placed most emphasis on a mission statement followed by evaluating and assessing and developing a vision statement and yearly goals. The respondents considered flexibility, adjustability and organizational development as important elements in implementing strategies. As the size of the NGOs increased their use of strategic management approaches such as developing a mission statement and objectives, annual and long term goals and employing formal strategic planning techniques increased. Managers of NGOs perceived the - value of leadership presented by managers' as the first priority in the factors which are significant for future success. This emphasises the significance of leadership as a crucial factor for success in all organizations in general and in NGOs in particular. In this research it has been recommended that donors from the international community, the Islamic and the Arab world should continue to support Palestinian NGOs. Indeed they have the right to ask the Palestinian NGOs to show transparency, accountability and to be moderate and well managed. On the other hand they should respect the Palestinian national agendas and priorities and not use the assistance being given as a political tool. The Palestinian National Authority should allow NGOs the freedom to operate effectively and ensure that the relationship between NGOs and Palestinian National Authority is a cooperative one.

Most professionals working within a non-profit organization, whether subconsciously or purposefully, are continuously thinking of ways they can contribute to the “health” of their organizations. Often, these thoughts are focused on communicating the organization’s mission and work to others, while also thinking strategically about the future. This report describes the use of an open-systems business approach, including the practice of environmental scanning as methods for successful non-profit management and sustainment. It chronicles my experiences while interning with Ohio’s Evaluation & Assessment Center during Summer 2012, and explains how I was able to mingle my MTSC coursework with my responsibilities as an E & A Center employee over the course of my time in the MTSC Program. Throughout the report, I provide evidence of my growth as a non-profit and technical communications professional, as well as the ways in which my MTSC work has benefited the E & A Center.

This study describes and implements a necessary preliminary strategic planning procedure, the Internal Environmental Scanning (IES), and discusses its relevance to strategic planning and university-sponsored lifelong learning program model selection. Employing a qualitative research methodology, a proposed lifelong learning-centric IES process based on Bryson's (2004) strategic planning model was tested at a large public university in the American Southwest with the intention of both refining the IES process for general use in the field as well as providing a set of useable reference documents for strategic planners at that university. The prototype lifelong learning IES process as tested proved to be highly effective in identifying and categorizing previously unrecognized lifelong learning programming and organizational structures and, was reasonably efficient in process execution. Lessons learned from the application of the prototype lifelong learning IES procedure led to the development of a revised scanning procedure. This revised procedure is considered more reliable and can be accomplished by a single investigator in as little as 35 production hours, providing a detailed snapshot of the total university lifelong learning system and a point of departure for the larger strategic planning effort.

The importance of environmental analysis in the strategic management process and the effects of economic value drivers on firm or industry performance have been discussed conceptually and empirically by researchers in corporate failure, and in the areas of finance, accounting, strategic management, and the hospitality industry in the past. The belief is that the more systematic and frequent the scanning performed by managers the higher the chances of improving the firm's or industry's performance. The present study is an attempt to identify economic value drivers that impact the casual theme sector of the restaurant industry and to ascertain the degree of the impact during the period 1994-2003. The statistical analysis was based on time series data, using Cross Correlation, Granger Causality, and Multivariate Regression. An exhaustive range of economic value drivers within ten categories were tested: commodity market; foreign currency market; labor market; inflation; stock market; national income and output; interest rate; government revenue, spending, debt, and taxes; money supply; and consumer spending. The unit of analysis was done at the industry level, and an index of operational cash flows of the casual theme sector of the restaurant industry was developed. Economic value drivers within the categories of commodity markets, labor markets, inflation, stock market, national input/output, government revenue/spending/debt/taxes, money markets, and consumer spending indicated co-movements with and causality to the index of operational cash flows per unit in the casual theme restaurant industry. A high variance in the operational cash flows in the casual theme restaurant industry was explained by a set of economic value drivers within commodity markets, inflation, and labor markets. In broad, practical terms, the study intends to support the importance of assessing the economic environment for better performance of the restaurant industry and to provide food service managers with a conceptual model to understand the unanticipated effects on the performance of existing or new strategies. In real terms, the model and set of economic value drivers in the model would help them decide what kinds of action or investment in a firm or industry's weakness should be taken to buffer future operational risks against value drivers within economic environment.

A case study was conducted to document the changes in the attitudes of academic administrators at Langston University with regards to the use of various types of information sources for strategic planning. Environmental scanning of external factors was accomplished for six months by the use of a selective dissemination of information (SDI) service. Pre- and post-assessments of the perceived reliance on, satisfaction with and adequacy of personal and library-type information sources were conducted. Findings indicated the continued reliance on personal sources. No statistically significant changes were found in perceived adequacy levels in the use of library-type materials. The overall satisfaction level for the use of library-type information sources and retrieval methods showed a significant increase. Further study is recommended that will utilize additional information technology and other academic institutions.

The purpose of this study was to examine scanning practices in a developing country by looking at the scanning behavior of executives of Nigerian manufacturing firms. Specifically, this study examined the decision maker's perception of environmental uncertainty (PEU), the frequency and degree of interest with which decision makers scan each sector of the environment, the frequency of use of various sources of information, the number of organizational adjustments made in response to actions of environmental groups, and the obstacles encountered in collecting information from the environment.