Strategy-as-Practice

Fundamentals

Strategy-as-practice takes its inspiration from a larger intellectual movement in the social sciences known as the “practice turn.” This practice turn considers what people actually do in various social contexts as scientifically important because it provides insights into how individual agency links with social institutions. Strategy, as seen from a strategy-as-practice perspective, is thus conceptualized as a situated and socially accomplished flow of activity that occurs over time. Strategy-as-practice offers a novel lens for looking at the social phenomenon of developing strategy in organizations, one that promises distinctive advances in strategic management knowledge. Because it stays close to what strategists [Page 804]do on a day-to-day basis, its outputs tend to be more pragmatic and immediately relevant to practitioners than research at the organizational level. Strategy-as-practice directly addresses the managerial skills and tools involved in strategy rather than abstracting to the level of organizational performance. Because it recognizes the institutionalization of certain tools throughout society, it offers the possibility of critique and reform of strategy practices that may have widespread and sometimes unexpected consequences. Thus strategy-as-practice links day-to-day strategy work with key outcomes at multiple levels—personal, organizational, and societal.

The strategy-as-practice perspective emerged in the early 2000s out of a growing frustration with the mainstream strategy literature and its primary emphasis on organizational-level strategy. Strategy research was seen as focusing on what organizations have (e.g., strategies, market positions, or resources) and as limiting its concern to implications for organizational performance. Within this mainstream perspective, very little attention was given to the individuals who proposed, planned, organized, debated, and otherwise participated in the conception and implementation of strategies. These individuals were marginalized even though their skills and emotions had considerable impact on how successful any given strategy effort was likely to be. Scholars interested in the new strategy-as-practice perspective felt a need to refocus research on strategy practitioners, their tools, and their interactions, to better understand how the myriad activities associated with the “doing” of strategy are consequential both for organizations and for others with a stake in strategy outcomes.

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