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This paper takes a strategy-as-practice perspective on the study of strategy tools and the theory-practice gap in strategic management research. Based on a case study, the paper argues that differences in epistemic culture may complicate communication and co-operation between academics and practitioners. These differences may also result in management scholars producing knowledge and strategy tools that lack practical pertinence for corporate actors, particularly in the context of modernist management scholars and contemporary post-bureaucratic knowledge organizations (PBOs). In PBOs, where flexibility, participative management style and consensus building dialogue are emphasized, modernist strategy tools designed for rational problem solving by individual decision-makers may be inadequate. In PBOs, practical strategy work calls for tools that support collective knowledge production, promote dialogue and trust, and function as learning tools. Overall, the paper concludes that the development of strategy tools that actually support practical strategizing calls for a more social model of knowledge and strategy work.

This study investigates the influence of a decision aid on decision makers' model-based choices, emotions during the use of the model, and attitudes towards the model. A time allocation decision model was biased to purposefully provide optimistic or pessimistic criterion levels, on which subjects based their allocations. The results of our experiment indicate that the degree of ''optimism'' and ''pessimism'' inherent in the decision model had a significant impact on the decision maker's choices of criterion values, with optimism leading to higher criterion level choices and pessimism to lower levels. Furthermore, compared to pessimistic models, optimistic models significantly improved the decision makers' emotional states and, to some degree, their attitudes towards the decision aid. The implications of these conscious and sub-conscious influences on decision makers' choices, emotions, and attitudes are discussed and the need for model-builders and users to be aware of them is highlighted.

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Toisen maailmansodan aikana syntyi operaatiotutkimuksen nimeä kantava tieteenhaara, jossa akateemiset tutkijat kytkeytyivät sotatoimien suunnitteluun. Nyt tällaisia operaatiotutkimusta opetetaan yksin Suomessa 14 yliopistossa ja OR-menetelmiä kehitellään palvelemaan yritysten operatiivisten toimintojen optimointia ja strategista päätöksentekoa. Mutta miten nämä kaksi tiedontuottamisen kulttuuria soveltuvat yhteen, yritysmaailma – tai oppivat organisaatiot – toisaalta ja akateeminen maailma toisaalta? Tutkimme yhtä tapausta.