Kaplan (2008) Framing contests: strategy making under uncertainty

Question 1

Key message:

Answer 1

Framing practices are constrained by the cognitive frames of the individuals engaged in them. Thus, the framing contests model finds a middle ground between cognitive and political models of strategy making, one in which frames are both constraints and resources, and outcomes are shaped by purposeful action and interaction.

Making strategy under uncertainty can therefore be comprehended as a product of contests over which frame should guide the understanding of an ambiguous environment and of choices about how to respond to it

Question 2

Strategy making, frames and politics

Answer 2

During periods of high uncertainty, cognitive frames are central to strategy-making processes as actors attempt to make sense of ambiguous signals from the environment.

The existence of these multiple, often conflicting, views opens up the possibility for actors’ agentic engagement in contests to control which meanings become legitimated. Such political action is about the pursuit of interests, but actors’ motives depend on the frame applied to the situation and, reciprocally, interests help select which frame will be applied.

Question 3

Framing contests

Answer 3

• Frames: Individual and particular dispositions that influence how they interpreted information, and informed their subsequent actions.
• Framing: making their cognitive frame resonate at the collective level

Question 4

Two kinds of framing practices:

Answer 4

• Legitimacy battles: legitimating accounts and rhetoric as means for individual actors and coalitions to reinforce their position.
• Frame realignment: bridging, amplifying, extending, and transforming. Aimed at changing the frame to gain support of neutral actors or counteract opponents.

Question 5

Conclusion

Answer 5

Information ambiguity is the downfall of strategy making in periods of uncertainty, and framing is key to explaining how actors cope with it. The resolution of framing contests allows managers to move forward in the face of uncertainty. Strategic response is therefore constructed through the conflicts in frames and the purposeful action of managers seeking to make their own frames triumph over others.