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Strategy as Discourse - Reconstructing a Social Practice
Type
fundamental research project
Start Date
01 June 2008
End Date
31 May 2012
Status
completed
Keywords
Strategy
Discourse
Rhetoric
Metaphor
Narrative
Description
Strategy, initially a military practice, has nowadays penetrated various domains of social life beyond the immediate realm of business firms. Its discourse and practices have entered adjacent academic disciplines; have spread from the private to the public sector and have also impacted not only on organizations but on their employees' professional identities (Whittington et al., 2003). Strategy of organizations and strategic activities of their members are mainly incarnated in discursive dynamics that seem poorly understood to date. Thus, we need a subtler understanding how strategy is discursively constructed and constituted as a social practice.
The purpose of this study is to develop a discursive view on the formation and development of strategy. The need for a subtler, micro-level understanding of the social processes in strategy is demonstrated and the evolutionary view on strategy is employed as an initial heuristic to observe the phenomenon. The practice-based view suggests strategy as a situated, socially accomplished activity. It provides three central analytical foci for understanding the development of strategy over time, namely concept of strategy; identity of strategists and their activities. Since a discursive view conceives of strategy as a discursively constructed object, studying strategy as discourse means to reconstruct the practices through which strategy as a discursive object is produced and how it in turn constructs and constitutes organizational realities.
The primary purpose of this study is to develop a theory of strategy as discourse and intends to make the following theoretical contributions. Such theory will supplement and extend the practice-based view on strategy by systematically investigating the discursive practices of organizational actors in processes of strategizing in a longitudinal multi-case study design and by examining discourse of strategy through three key foci (concept, identity, activities). Also, the findings of the study will have implications in terms of specifying "disaggregated outcomes', rather than the grand concept of organizational performance, such as individual and collective ability to understand strategic issues and influence strategic decisions; group dynamics, collective skills and conversational qualities as well as effective forms of strategy development and use of strategy tools. With respect to strategy process research in general, a discursive view of strategy re-introduces organizational actors and their discursive activities in the formation of strategy. The study will also critically reflect on the heuristic usefulness of the evolutionary model for interpretive studies of strategy process. Finally, a discursive view will also inform the resource-based view of strategy by providing an analysis of interactive, discursive behavior, i.e. so-called "micro-assets' that in turn might explain sustained competitive advantage.
The purpose of this study is to develop a discursive view on the formation and development of strategy. The need for a subtler, micro-level understanding of the social processes in strategy is demonstrated and the evolutionary view on strategy is employed as an initial heuristic to observe the phenomenon. The practice-based view suggests strategy as a situated, socially accomplished activity. It provides three central analytical foci for understanding the development of strategy over time, namely concept of strategy; identity of strategists and their activities. Since a discursive view conceives of strategy as a discursively constructed object, studying strategy as discourse means to reconstruct the practices through which strategy as a discursive object is produced and how it in turn constructs and constitutes organizational realities.
The primary purpose of this study is to develop a theory of strategy as discourse and intends to make the following theoretical contributions. Such theory will supplement and extend the practice-based view on strategy by systematically investigating the discursive practices of organizational actors in processes of strategizing in a longitudinal multi-case study design and by examining discourse of strategy through three key foci (concept, identity, activities). Also, the findings of the study will have implications in terms of specifying "disaggregated outcomes', rather than the grand concept of organizational performance, such as individual and collective ability to understand strategic issues and influence strategic decisions; group dynamics, collective skills and conversational qualities as well as effective forms of strategy development and use of strategy tools. With respect to strategy process research in general, a discursive view of strategy re-introduces organizational actors and their discursive activities in the formation of strategy. The study will also critically reflect on the heuristic usefulness of the evolutionary model for interpretive studies of strategy process. Finally, a discursive view will also inform the resource-based view of strategy by providing an analysis of interactive, discursive behavior, i.e. so-called "micro-assets' that in turn might explain sustained competitive advantage.
Leader contributor(s)
Member contributor(s)
Funder(s)
Topic(s)
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Method(s)
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Range
Institute/School
Range (De)
Institut/School
Division(s)
Eprints ID
48148
16 results
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1 - 10 of 16
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PublicationPractices of Legitimizing Interorganizational Relationships under Institutional Complexity(EGOS - European Group for Organizational Studies, 2010-07-01)Type: conference paper
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PublicationType: conference paper
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PublicationType: presentation
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PublicationType: habilitation
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PublicationDiscursive Practices Of Organizational Identity Negotiations(EGOS European Group for Organizational Studies, 2010-07-01)
;Kreutzer, KarinJaeger, UrsHow do organizations discursively negotiate organizational identity? In a longitudinal interpretive case study, we investigate the discursive practices of identity negotiations in a non-profit organization. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, documents and participant observations, and in applying a discourse analytical framework, we first identify three distinct discourses that provide the discursive resources for three different identity propositions. Then and in order to understand how these discursive resources are activated and utilized, we reconstruct four distinct discursive practices of organizational identity negotiations: (1) external comparison and differentiation (2) denial of trade-offs and harmonization (3) historization, and (4) moralization. We discuss how this structure relates to other similarly pluralistic organizational contexts.Type: conference paper -
PublicationType: conference paperVolume: Session Paper 1679
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PublicationType: conference paper
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PublicationType: conference paper
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PublicationType: journal articleJournal: Academy of Management - Best Paper ProceedingsIssue: .
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PublicationThe concept of dialogue before and after the linguistic turnThis article inquires whether the linguistic turn matters for how the concept of dialogue is conceptualized and practiced in change contexts. Therefore, we revisit the concept of dialogue in the work of Edgar Schein by connecting his prototypical article with some of its theoretical and practical allies and by setting up an intertextual comparision with a Bakhtinian-inspired strand of thinking dialogue which equally set off with an exemplary article in the same year. We argue that it is the different intertextual resources which are privileged in a specific understanding of dialogue that can help us to frame the controversial side of this concept and help us inquire whether investigating language itself is crucial to practice dialogue. We consider how the high expectations that are projected on how the concept of dialogue can be practiced, might be more fruitfully combined by relating both strands of conceiving dialogue. We conclude by suggesting that the Scheinian conception of dialogue can be valued by inscribing its emphasis on emotions in the linguistic-political conception of dialogue.Type: conference paper