Theoretical foundation: Strategy as Practice

Strategy as Practice HandbookIn our last post on theoretical foundations we described dynamic capabilities. While the dynamic capability perspective can be regarded as the main-stream view in strategic management research, we want to present today an emerging stream: strategy as practice.

The dynamic-capabilities perspective takes a bird’s-eye view on how firms renew and drive dynamic adaptation processes. It is assumed that firms possess and can exercise certain capabilities. Much critique on the dynamic-capabilities view circles around the issue that too little is known about the micro foundations of these capabilities.

Strategy as practice as a promising research approach to uncover those micro foundation. The strategy-as-practice perspective deals with what actors within organizations do, it deals with (bounded) rationality, action, interaction and habituation. Strategy as practice is also more open about the outcome. While the traditional strategic management research is ultimately always after organizational performance the strategy-as-practice view recognizes also other achievements such as creation of common goals or change of mental models as outcomes in their own right. It is also informed by the behavioral theory of the firm.

We therefore think that strategy-as-practice view could be more appropriate for research on organizational future orientation and also produce insights that are more actionable and that have higher practical relevance.

For further reading we have extended our reader of underlying theories with a section on conceptural and empirical work with a strategy-as-practice perspective.

Further reading: D. Golsorkhi et al. (2011) Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice, Cambridge University Press.

3 Responses to “Theoretical foundation: Strategy as Practice”

  1. AOM Annual Meeting 2011 | Organizational Future Orientation

    […] addition there is also a a secial interest group working on strategy as practice which we will follow […]

  2. Operationalization of Dynamic Capabilities | Organizational Future Orientation

    […] us that means that we will try to use strategy-as-practice methods (such as ethnographic studies , observations of board meetings and analysis of decision […]

  3. Firm long-livety and future orientation – two sides of one coin | Organizational Future Orientation

    […] process on a micro level. This would need a different research approach as it is followed by the strategy-as-practice school. But his book provides plenty of interesting and sometimes counter-intuitive insights into […]

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