Interdiscursive struggles: Managing the co-existence of the conventional and open strategy discourse

Research Summary “Open strategy” is a new macro discourse on strategy that differs fundamentally from the conventional strategy discourse. In this paper, we examine how actors deal with the co-existence of the two discourses, given their conflicting nature. For this purpose, we draw on a longitudinal, in-depth case study of an international finance firm that introduced open strategy alongside the conventional strategy discourse that had shaped their strategy work in the past. We find that strategy actors deal with interdiscursive tensions by enacting meta-discursive practices that regulate the mobilization of the two strategy discourses. Furthermore, we identify power as an important driver and necessary resource in enacting these practices. With these findings, we contribute to the open strategy literature and the literature on organization and strategy discourse. Managerial Summary There is a recent trend for opening up the strategy process to actors outside the upper echelons, which is referred to as “open strategy.” This new approach is based on a fundamentally different logic than the conventional approach to strategy making; while the latter highlights exclusivity and secrecy, the former stresses inclusivity and transparency. This empirical study examines how managers deal with tensions that arise from the co-existence of these approaches. We find that managers try to resolve these tensions by regulating where and when each approach can be applied. We also show that the switch from one way of regulating the application of approaches to another depends on the power and interests of the participants

Getting heard? How employees learn to gain senior management attention in inclusive strategy processes

Research Summary Recent trends toward inclusive strategy processes raise the issue of how employees acquire the discursive competence necessary to gain senior management attention. Building on the emergent dynamic attention-based view's (DABV) emphasis on communicative interaction, we ethnographically track an inclusive strategy process in a large insurance company. We find that employees typically failed to gain CEO attention because they lacked the discursive competence to integrate their operational knowledge with the CEO's corporate themes. Employees acquired this competence by both experiential and vicarious learning. The CEO promoted employee learning more effectively by specific coaching than by generic coaching. We contribute primarily to the DABV by showing how interactions are sites for learning as well as communications and that communication channels can be both expandable and transparent. Managerial Summary The benefits of increased employee inclusion in strategy processes depend upon participants being truly heard. This study of an inclusive strategy process in a large insurance company shows that top management attention to employee contributions cannot be assumed. Employees often fail to pitch ideas in a manner that top managers can work with. Employees learn to pitch ideas effectively both by receiving direct feedback from top management and by observing feedback on other employees' contributions. Top managers must also learn how to coach effectively, engaging with the specifics of employees' contributions rather than offering general advice. Designs for new inclusive strategy processes should include opportunities for top managers to improve their coaching and for employees to learn from both direct feedback and indirect observation

Moving from the business case towards an equity-based approach: Theorizing diversity and inclusion in Open Strategy

A growing number of organizations open their strategy processes by including a more diverse set of actors. This has drawn scholarly interest and led to a field of research known as open strategy. In this paper, we problematize how open strategy research deploys diversity and inclusion without engaging with the diversity and inclusion literature that offers a more differentiated understanding of these concepts. We build on this literature to elucidate how most open strategy studies follow a business case approach wherein inclusion, and implicitly also diversity, are theorized based on their impact on strategy outcomes. We show how engaging with the diversity and inclusion literature allows open strategy scholars to move from the business case towards an alternative, equity-based approach. Adopting an equity-based approach widens the themes addressed in open strategy research to the reproduction of power relations and sustained inequalities in strategy making and thus contributes to a more societally meaningful and relevant understanding of diversity and inclusion in the strategy field

Balancing continuity and novelty: The practical relevance of management research from the practitioners' perspective

In management research, the literature on practical relevance holds that practitioners actively construct practical relevance. However, the practitioners' perspective on relevance has received very little scholarly attention to date. This paper puts forward a theoretical model for examining how practitioners construct academic knowledge as practically relevant based on interviews with practitioners enrolled on executive MBA (EMBA) courses. The model shows that practitioners construct academic knowledge as relevant by (1) perceiving it as congruent with their context, experiences and intuition, (2) extending their knowledge by new instruments, constructs, and means of scientific framing and (3) reconnecting it to their contexts and professional practices. This model extends the literature by showing that, in order to be considered practically relevant, academic knowledge needs to balance novelty and continuity. Additionally, the paper shows that practitioners are unlikely to perceive as relevant ambiguous academic knowledge that is 'action expansive', i.e. that presents them with an overwhelming range of possible actions

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Are practice-based approaches to strategy relevant to practitioners? Implications of a Bourdieusian perspective on the relation between management research and management practice

It has variously been argued that by focussing on ‘what people do in relation to strategy’ strategy research would become relevant to practitioners. This paper puts forth the argument that the gap between strategy research and management practice cannot be resolved just by paying more attention to what strategists really do. Drawing on a Bourdieusian perspective we argue that practice-based scholars who put forward such a view might lack an awareness for their necessarily ‘scholastic view’. This leads to two related fallacies: the fallacy of epistemic doxa (i.e. the unawareness of the scholastic logic) and the fallacy of scholastic ethnocentrism (i.e. the projection of the scholastic logic into the object of research). As a consequence, such research is in danger of producing knowledge that might neither be practically relevant nor even contribute to the advancement of management science. In order to avoid these fallacies researchers need to develop a particular kind of reflexivity by engaging in so-called ‘participant objectivation’. Research based on this reflexivity also has greater chances of having an impact on management praxis as it is likely to resonate with the practical logic of the practitioners. Yet, the actual transformation of academic knowledge into practical knowledge has to be treated as the accomplishment of the practitioner, which is beyond the reach and control of the academic field

Theorizing the ‘social’ in social media: The role of productive dialogs for collaborative knowledge creation

Knowledge creation is particularly important for organizations in order to innovate and secure their existence over time (e.g., Mount & Garcia Martinez, 2014; Nonaka & von Krogh, 2009; Von Krogh, 2012). Recently, organizations typically strive to create new knowledge by setting up social media platforms (Razmerita, Kirchner, & Nabeth, 2014). Hence, there is growing scholarly interest in the role of social media, i.e. digital technologies of the Web 2.0 generation (Leonardi & Vaast, 2017) in collaborative knowledge endeavors (Hemsley & Mason, 2013; Kallinikos & Tempini, 2014; Leonardi & Vaast, 2016; Neeley & Leonardi, 2018; Voigt & Ernst, 2010; Wagner, Vollmar, & Wagner, 2014). Yet, the majority of social media studies focuses on knowledge sharing (e.g., Majchrzak, Faraj, Kane, & Azad, 2013; for recent overviews, see Leonardi & Vaast, 2016; Panahi, Watson, & Partridge, 2013). In particular, scholars highlight that social media facilitate knowledge sharing behavior in organizations in a unique manner due to their unique affordances, i.e., the “perceptions of an objects’ utility” (Treem & Leonardi, 2012, p. 145), which cover visibility, editability, persistence, and association for the ‘object’ social media (Leonardi & Vaast, 2015; Treem & Leonardi, 2012). These scholars further speculate that the affordances of social media might also contribute to knowledge creation (Leonardi & Vaast, 2017)

Practical relevance of practice-based research on strategy

In this chapter we review practice-based studies that have examined the ontological and epistemological conditions for producing strategy research that proves relevant to management practice. Drawing on these works, we argue that researchers inevitably adopt a scholastic point of view, which makes it impossible to capture directly the logic of strategy practice. However, scholars can increase the practical relevance of their research by developing theories based on practical logic. We have outlined three approaches to capture the logic of management practice (1) theorizing through practical rationality, (2) the application of ‘participant objectivation’, and (3) the consideration of the dissociation process. We argue that if strategy-as-practice research builds on these insights, it can prove a particularly fruitful approach to generate knowledge that is of conceptual relevance to strategy practice