Strategy as Practice
For many years now the dominant academic perspective on strategic management has looked at strategy as something that organisations have. The strategy as practice perspective, on the other hand, looks at strategy as something people do. It is concerned with the practice of strategising, encompassing both the formulation of strategy and how strategies are put into action to deliver strategic renewal and change. It therefore asks questions such as: what do people do to develop strategies in organisations; how do they translate their strategies into strategic action and change in organisations; what competences are required for this; how do they actually use the concepts and tools that are advocated for strategic management; what is good practice in managing strategy?
Strange as it may seem this question of what managers actually do in managing strategy is a neglected academic question. It has gone missing as academics have increasingly concentrated on the economics of strategy. Yet it is not just academic opportunism that leads to this interest. It is also because of the belief that if academics really are to help managers manage strategy better then the sensible starting point is a deeper understanding of what they actually do.
For more information see publications by Julia Balogun and Gerry Johnson in the area:
- Strategizing: the Challenges of a practice perspective, a special issue of Human Relations (2007) edited by Julia Balogun, Paula Jarzabkowski & David Seidl.
- Strategy as Practice, a book by Gerry Johnson, Ann Langley, Leif Melin and Richard Whittington, published by Cambridge University Press in 2007.
- Discourse in Strategic Management: The Potential, Challenges and Future Directions, a special issue of Journal of Management Studies broadly in the area of Strategy as Practice and Discourse (with a call for papers currently open) edited by Julia Balogun, Claus Jacobs, Paula Jarzabkowski, Saku Mantere and Eero Vaara.
