The rapid change of world and interactions between education environments, the evolution of technology, scientific innovation and economic development have always been important issues in quality management of university systems.  This is due to the fact that universities have been increasingly held accountability for measurable outputs, and outcomes (Khampirat, 2013).  Furthermore, the impact of global ranking systems and growing competition in higher education institutions (Hazelkorn, 2009; Bagley & Portnoi, 2014), universities have been demanded to demonstrate their productivities, effectiveness, and efficiencies, and have to respond with varieties of measurements and evaluations (Khampirat, 2008).  One of the factors ensuring good governance, and quality management is strategic planning (Yelken, Kilic, & Ozdemir, 2012).

The concept of strategic planning began in the context of military, and was applied in business organizations in the 1950s (Lerner, 1999; Yelken, Kilic, & Ozdemir, 2012).  By the mid-1960s to mid-1970s, strategic planning was very popular, and widespread in most international enterprises (Mintzberg, 1994; Lerner, 1999). It was originated in university after 1970s, and in other educational institutions since 1980s (Reiger, 1993, as cited in Yelken, Kilic, & Ozdemir, 2012).  Chandler (1962) defined strategy as “the determination of the basic long-term goals and objectives of an enterprise, and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources for carrying out these goals.”  While Mintzberg (1994) indicated that strategy is a plan, ploy, pattern, position, and perspective; strategy is a process of sensing, analyzing, choosing and acting.  Bryson (2004) described strategy as a pattern of purposes, policies, programs, actions, decisions, or resource allocations that define what an organization is, what it does, and why it does it.

Nowadays, strategic planning has become more important (Bryson, 2004) for higher education for its development (Yelken, Kilic, & Ozdemir, 2012), and has been accepted as one of the most important indicators to ensure good governance, and quality assurance activities, within transparency, and based on the results.  Also, strategic planing is a management tool and guideline to lead an organization do a better job (Allison & Kaye, 2005) from where it is now to where it would like to be in the next five or ten years (Yelken, Kilic, & Ozdemir, 2012; Bryson, 2004).  Strategic planning process is generally associated with a variety of university environments, and can help prepare a university to face emerging challenges such as: increasing demand for higher education concurrent with a decline in government funding, changing student demographics, and a need to compete with the emerging models of higher education while keeping the essence of a traditional comprehensive university (Lerner, 1999). 

Therefore, evaluation of strategic planning based on the perceptions of stakeholders is an important issue.  The objectives of this study were to compare the perceptions of administrators, faculty members, and supporting staffs toward strategic planning, and to assess the construct validity of the measurement model of the quality of strategic planning, as measured by Baldrige, when applied in an autonomous university in Thailand. 

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