It’s Practice. But is it Strategy? Reinvigorating strategy-as-practice by rethinking consequentiality

In this essay we revisit the radical agenda proposed by strategy-as-practice scholars to study strategy as it emerges within people’s practices. We show that, while much progress has been made, there is still a dominant focus on articulated strategies, which has implications for what is seen as strategic. We anchor our argument in the notion of consequentiality – a guiding yet, ironically, constraining principle of the strategy-as-practice agenda. Our paper proposes a deeper understanding of the notion of strategy as ‘consequential’ in terms of both what is important to a wider range of actors and also following the consequences of these actors’ practices through the patterns of action that they construct. In doing so, we offer a conceptual and an empirical approach to reinvigorating the strategy-as-practice agenda by inviting scholars to take a more active role in field sites, in deciding and explaining what practices are strategic.

Fringe Benefits

By fusing land-use theory from urban and rural development, this work builds a new theory based on the urban perimeter as a functional interface important to the health of both urban and rural lands. This new theory has its antecedents in biophysical sciences where studies on structural complexity offer insight into metabolism, growth, and resilience. For example, the structural complexity of a coral reef’s surface is an important indicator of growth and resilience for the reef itself as well as the many organisms that depend upon it. This work concludes with a research and practice agenda allied with the field of ecology.