Strategy Practice and Strategy Process: Family Differences and the Sociological Eye

2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (10) ◽  
pp. 1575-1586 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Whittington
Keyword(s):  
Social Connections ◽  
Practice Research ◽  
Potential Range ◽  
Research Topics ◽  
Strategy Process ◽  
Strategy As Practice ◽  
Traditional Process ◽  
Institutional Field ◽  
Process Strategy

This Essai argues for the distinctive position of Strategy-as-Practice research outside the immediate family of Strategy Process. Strategy-as-Practice's fascination with the phenomenon of strategy itself takes it beyond traditional Process perspectives. Relying on the `sociological eye', Strategy-as-Practice treats strategy like any other practice in society, capable of being studied from many different angles. Under the four themes of praxis, practices, practitioners and the profession of strategy as an institutional field, the Essai demonstrates the potential range of research topics, performance notions and methodologies within Strategy-as-Practice. It concludes by proposing five implications of the sociological eye for the conduct of Strategy-as-Practice research, highlighting particularly social connections and relationships, embeddedness, irony, problematized notions of performance and a respect for continuity.

scholarly journals Strategy and virtue: Developing strategy-as-practice through virtue ethics

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haridimos Tsoukas
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Social Embeddedness ◽  
Practice Research ◽  
Developing Strategy ◽  
Moral Dimension ◽  
Articulation Work ◽  
Institutional Practice ◽  
Strategy Process ◽  
The Social ◽  
Strategy As Practice

Strategy-as-practice research has usefully built on earlier strategy process research by taking into account the social embeddedness of strategy making. While such an approach has generated valuable insights, it has curiously left unexplored the moral dimension of practice. In this article, we show how the potential of strategy-as-practice research may be more fully realized if the moral dimension of practice is conceptualized through virtue ethics (especially MacIntyre’s version). Specifically, we first reconceptualize, through virtue ethics, the three main concepts of strategy-as-practice—practice, praxis, and practitioners—underscoring the inherently moral constitution of actions undertaken in strategy-related work. Moreover, we suggest that strategic management is viewed as a particular kind of practice (what we call “competitive institutional practice”), charged with “values articulation work” and “balancing work.” While the former articulates a good purpose for the organization, the latter seeks to care for both excellence and success through balancing “capabilities development work” with “differentiation work.” Illustrations are provided to support this argument, and several suggestions for further research are offered.

scholarly journals Strategy Processes and Practices

2021 ◽  
pp. 503-524
Author(s):  
Robert A. Burgelman ◽  
Steven W. Floyd ◽  
Tomi Laamanen ◽  
Saku Mantere ◽  
Eero Vaara ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Process Research ◽  
Practice Research ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Strategy Formation ◽  
Strategy Process ◽  
Strategy As Practice

Strategy process research has yielded a richer understanding of the emergence of strategies from throughout the organization and over extended periods of time; strategy-as-practice research has helped us understand the range of actors involved in strategy and the tools they draw on in their strategy work. The purpose of this chapter is to encourage research that combines insights from these two traditions. First, the chapter offers brief overviews of process and practice research. Then, the chapter reviews the most recent work from 2018 onward. Most of the text, however, goes to discussing future research that combines process and practice perspectives and that focuses on four themes: temporality and spatiality, actors and agency, cognition and emotionality, and language and meaning. These themes are woven together by two “red threads”—strategy digitalization and strategy inclusion—that we expect will have significant impact on strategy formation.

scholarly journals How Can Pluralistic Organizations Proceed with Strategic Change? A Processual Account of Rhetorical Contestation, Convergence, and Partial Agreement in a Nordic City Organization

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 839-864
Author(s):  
Virpi Sorsa ◽  
Eero Vaara
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Strategic Change ◽  
Case Analysis ◽  
Practice Research ◽  
Partial Agreement ◽  
Strategy Process ◽  
Strategy Making

This study examines how pluralistic organizations confronting fundamental differences in values can proceed with strategic change. By drawing on a longitudinal case analysis of strategic change in a Nordic city organization, we show how the proponents and challengers play a “rhetorical game” in which they simultaneously promote their own value-based interests and ideas and seek ways to enable change. In particular, we identify a pattern in which the discussion moved from initial contestation through gradual convergence to increasing agreement. In addition, we elaborate on four rhetorical practices used in this rhetorical game: voicing own arguments, appropriation of others’ arguments, consensus argumentation, and collective we argumentation. By so doing, our study contributes to research on strategic change in pluralistic organizations by offering a nuanced account of the use of rhetoric when moving from contestation to convergence and partial agreement. Furthermore, by detailing specific types of rhetorical practices that play a crucial role in strategy making, our study advances research on the role of rhetoric in strategy process and practice research more generally.

Co-existing institutional logics and agency among top-level public servants: A praxeological approach

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toke Bjerregaard
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Logics ◽  
Practice Research ◽  
Public Servants ◽  
Institutional Organization ◽  
Passive Strategies ◽  
Action Strategies ◽  
Strategy As Practice ◽  
Policy Work ◽  
Combining Logics

AbstractWhile institutional organization research to some extent has neglected the micro agency of organization members, parts of the strategy-as-practice research have tended to bracket off wider societal environments shaping the practices-in-use of top-level strategy practitioners. This article attempts to address parts of this void. This study examines the agency exerted by top-level public servants through their everyday strategy and policy work in face of co-existing logics of public administration. The findings illustrate how their action strategies span from more passive strategies of coping with coexisting logics of administration to more skilled agency of combining logics aimed at enhancing their opportunity and action space. The study suggests that the interplay between co-existing institutional logics, action strategies and the practical skills of top-level public servants provides the basis for both coping and more proactive strategies in pluralistic public administrations. Findings illustrate the role of public servants' practical sense of realizable opportunities that inform such strategies of handling co-existing institutional logics. Implications for institutional studies of organizations are outlined.

Quantitative methods in strategy-as-practice research

2015 ◽  
pp. 520-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomi Laamanen ◽  
Emmanuelle Reuter ◽  
Markus Schimmer ◽  
Florian Ueberbacher ◽  
Xena Welch Guerra
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Practice Research ◽  
Strategy As Practice
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