Making sense of the strategic thinking literature to help build a new model of this mysterious construct

There is a significant gap in the literature defining and putting some ‘flesh on the bone’ of the often misunderstood concept of strategic thinking. The aim of this paper is to provide a review and synthesis of the literature on strategic thinking to provide some insight into this mysterious, often talked about but rarely defined or modeled construct. A definition and model of strategic thinking is developed and linked to strategic planning to provide the theoretical foundation for a major empirical research project. The model has five elements: flexible inputs, entrepreneurial, strategic intent, participative and thinking in time.