Strategy as Practice Research Directions and Resources

Research in strategy has shifted significantly towards strategy as something organizations have, rather than strategy as something that managers do. The activities of the people who actually manage and develop organizational strategy have become marginalized. Strategy as Practice argues the reverse: that research on strategy needs to take seriously what strategists do and the effects of what they do. Written by a distinguished team of researchers and educators, this book sets out a research agenda, provides guidelines on theoretical perspectives and alternative methodologies for research on practice as well as commentaries on published illustrative papers that exemplify the practice perspective. Strategy as Practice will be essential reading for doctoral students, researchers and academics who wish to understand or undertake research in this important field of management research.

Preface; Part I: 1. Introducing the Strategy as Practice Perspective: 2. Practical theories; 3. Doing research on doing strategy; Part II. Introduction to the Papers: 4. Technology as an occasion for structuring: evidence from observations of CT scanners and the social order of radiology departments Stephen R. Barley; 5. Making fast strategic decisions in high-velocity environments Kathleen M. Eisenhardt; 6. In search of rationality: the purposes behind the use of formal analysis in organizations Ann Langley; 7. Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation Dennis A. Gioia and Kumar Chittipeddi; 8. Business planning as pedagogy: language and control in a changing institutional field Leslie S. Oakes, Barbara Townley and David J. Cooper; 9. Strategizing as lived experience and strategists' everyday efforts to shape strategic direction Dalvir Samra-Fredericks; 10. Organizational restructuring and middle manager sensemaking Julia Balogun and Gerry Johnson; 11. From metaphor to practice in the crafting of strategy Peter T. Bürgi, Claus D. Jacobs and Johan Roos; Part III: 12. Reflections; References.

Research in strategy has largely migrated to a concern with strategy as that which organizations have, rather than strategy as that which managers do. Strategy as Practice, first published in 2007, reverses this trend by analyzing what people do in relation to the development of strategy in organizations.

Gerry Johnson is Sir Roland Smith Professor of Strategic Management at the School of Management, University of Lancaster.
Ann Langley is Professor of Strategic Management and Research Methods at HEC Montréal.
Leif Melin is Professor of Strategy and Organization at the Department of Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Management, Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping University.
Richard Whittington is Professor of Strategic Management at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.