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

Jarzabkowski, Paula; Kavas, Mustafa; Krull, Elisabeth

doi:10.1177/26317877211029665

Cited by 35 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…An agenda-expanding article by Jarzabkowski et al (2021) addresses a different legacy issue. This legacy arises from early SAP efforts to speak to traditional strategy work through reference to existing performance and process definitions of what types of activities are strategically ‘consequential’ (e.g.…”

Section: Where Is Sap Heading? the Contours Of An Emerging New Phase ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Limiting the scope of SAP study to those activities already defined as strategic prevents SAP scholars from developing the truly novel findings that will enable the field to grow. To embrace the radical agenda of a SAP perspective, Jarzabkowski et al (2021) empower SAP scholars to define mundane, everyday practices as strategic and to explain their consequentiality both in situ and for strategy theory.…”

Section: Where Is Sap Heading? the Contours Of An Emerging New Phase ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These three articles arising at the end of two decades of SAP research have commonalities in pointing the way forward for propagation of the field. While acknowledging the enormous work done, they emphasize the need to both establish more robust points of differentiation that are grounded in the radical agenda of practice theory (Jarzabkowski et al, 2021; MacKay et al, 2021), while also ensuring cross-pollination among the sub-communities that have arisen (Kohtamäki et al, 2021). We now reflect on the implications of these articles for the future agenda of SAP.…”

Section: Where Is Sap Heading? the Contours Of An Emerging New Phase ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The differentiated sub-communities found by Kohtamäki et al (2021), and others that may emerge, could be the grounds for future propagation, as scholars reach across communities to explore new SAP phenomena. The theoretical apparatus from such communities may provide the means for scholars to study strategy as it emerges (MacKay et al, 2021) within actors and activities not typically defined as strategic (Jarzabkowski et al, 2021). Beyond our suggestions here, for example, we note that recent conference tracks have begun to look at the relationships between SAP and other phenomena, such as grand challenges (EGOS, 2019).…”

Section: Where Is Sap Heading? the Contours Of An Emerging New Phase ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, SAP might learn from Routine Dynamics how the dynamic enactment of mundane operational routines could inadvertently shape the direction of the organization (e.g. Rerup and Feldman, 2011); a topic that has been on the SAP agenda from the beginning, but which scholars have struggled to explain (Jarzabkowski et al, 2021; MacKay et al, 2021). Routine Dynamics research might also help SAP researchers in better capturing the non-discursive aspects of strategy work.…”

Section: Where Is Sap Heading? the Contours Of An Emerging New Phase ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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From germination to propagation: Two decades of Strategy-as-Practice research and potential future directions

2022

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Over the last two decades, Strategy as Practice (SAP) has developed from an embryonic, fringe perspective on strategy to a consolidated field of strategy research. The 2007 special issue of Human Relations on ‘Strategizing: The challenges of a practice perspective’ played a pivotal role in bringing this field to fruition. Reflecting on the broad SAP aim to ‘let a thousand flowers bloom’, we employ a plant-based metaphor, to distinguish three phases in the development of SAP, each associated with different types of agenda work. In an initial Germination Phase, scholars did agenda-seeking work of establishing new concepts and differentiating SAP from other fields of strategy research. A Blossoming Phase of agenda-setting work followed, establishing a community of scholars and articles that identified as SAP, and establishing and defending the boundaries of the new field. As the field became established, it entered a Harvesting Phase, characterized by agenda-confirming work of using SAP lenses to explain core strategy and organization. Based on these reflections, and considering the many public critiques of SAP, we note that the field appears to be in transition to a new Propagating Phase that offers exciting potential to cross-pollinate within the SAP field and across other areas.

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Section: Where Is Sap Heading? the Contours Of An Emerging New Phase ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Where Is Sap Heading? the Contours Of An Emerging New Phase ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Where Is Sap Heading? the Contours Of An Emerging New Phase ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Where Is Sap Heading? the Contours Of An Emerging New Phase ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Where Is Sap Heading? the Contours Of An Emerging New Phase ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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From germination to propagation: Two decades of Strategy-as-Practice research and potential future directions

2022

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What makes activities strategic: Toward a new framework for strategy‐as‐practice research

Seidl,

Ma,

Splitter

2024

Strategic Management Journal

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Research AbstractStrategy as practice is one of the most vibrant approaches to strategy research. Yet, there is significant ambiguity around what characterizes an activity as strategic and thus as falling into the domain of strategy as practice. In this article, we address this fundamental concern by differentiating four distinctive views of what qualifies activities as strategic: (1) activities that have important consequences, (2) activities that are labeled strategic, (3) activities carried out by strategists, and (4) activities that perform an important recurrent pattern. Each of these views is associated with different research questions resulting in different research insights. We discuss how the four views together form a new research framework that expands the notion of strategy and thereby the research domain of strategic management.Managerial SummaryStrategy as practice is an important approach to studying strategic management that focuses on strategic activities. However, there is significant ambiguity around what characterizes activities as strategic. In this article, we identify four different views on this question: (1) activities that have important consequences, (2) activities that are labeled strategic, (3) activities carried out by strategists, and (4) activities that perform an important recurrent pattern of activities. Each of these views is associated with different questions and thus with different types of insights. We suggest that the four views together form a research framework that reveals distinctive links between strategy as practice and other lines of strategy research and that expands our notion of strategy and thereby the domain of strategic management.

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A behavioural system of strategy‐as‐practice for grant acquisition in nonprofits: An investigation through the sensemaking theory and systems theory

Panda

2022

Syst Res Behav Sci

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The extant literature in strategy‐as‐practice (SAP) has examined it from the sensemaking theory but did not look at it from the system's standpoint. This exploratory study examines the SAP of nonprofits for grant acquisition from a systems perspective by integrating systems theory and sensemaking theory. The grounded theory approach was adopted to gather information and process data, and examine three cases over 3 years. Following the systems approach, the study found sense‐as‐stimuli as the input, sense‐as‐cognitive and behavioural interplay as the process and sense‐as‐strategizing as the output in the sensemaking of strategy‐making in nonprofits for grant acquisition. Sense‐as‐strategizing was also influenced by sense‐as‐cognitive and behavioural interplay in the feedback loop. The strategy‐making system was influenced by (1) the competitive environment for the organization and (2) social environment of the organization. Sense‐as‐cognitive and behavioural interplay influenced the social environment of the organization in a feedback loop.

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

Cited by 35 publications

References 84 publications

From germination to propagation: Two decades of Strategy-as-Practice research and potential future directions

From germination to propagation: Two decades of Strategy-as-Practice research and potential future directions

What makes activities strategic: Toward a new framework for strategy‐as‐practice research

A behavioural system of strategy‐as‐practice for grant acquisition in nonprofits: An investigation through the sensemaking theory and systems theory

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