Strategy review has always been a role of the board as have their other compliance, oversight, director and CEO selection responsibilties. Whether they do it well or not is another matter entirely.

The need to review/develop strategy varies within companies, industries and economies. One school of thought argues that the strategy process is linea and programmable (i.e first you analyse, then you develop the strategy and then you implement it - in that order).

The other school of thought argues that strategy is "emergent", that is, it needs to change with context and circumstance. Therefore the frequency that you review/develop strategy will constantly change with changing circumstance. Also you may review one part of your strategy while you are implementaing another part.

To add another complexity, the term "strategy" is a generic term. A successful strategy is never merely a high level statement of direction. It necessarily must be accompanied by a clarifying statement explaining how the elements of the organisation are going to be afected by the higher-level strategy.

As an example, to move into a new sector, a company must explain how that will impact its market definition, products and services, channel to market, support mechanism, communication to market, HR, IT and systems, management structure, and its KPOs.

Without such a statement, management will guess (inevitably incorrectly) the way the new strategy is to be applied. What happens therefore, is that each of these "sub-elements" of the corporation represent a level of strategy too.

Many boards are focussed on the initial strategy without a lot of thought about the critical supporting strategies or their implications.

There is no right or wrong - it's a matter which best works for your company in its context. In reality, most organisations fall between the two extremes.