Scenarios of successful issue sustaining

Abstract

This paper’s primary aim is to uncover three scenarios of successful Strategic Issue Sustaining and related activities for senior managers to achieve these. Beyond using abstract categories such as ‘politicking’, I delve into nitty-gritty reality of their practice – for example, controlling meeting agendas and minutes or adapting flight schedules to get CEO time. Building on evidence from 26 issues from five longitudinal case studies, this paper has begun to elucidate the activities particularly associated with successful Strategic Issue Sustaining. Three categories of activity, namely, organizing, boostering, and agenda management are associated with protecting, augmenting and recovering resources. In each case, consistent with the practice perspective, this paper has explored the level of detailed, real activity in order to discover what managers actually do