Week 7 - Strategy Process and Strategy Work

Question 1

Burgelman et al (2018)

Answer 1

• Strategy content: strategic positions and competitive advantage
• Strategy process: how strategic decisions are made and implemented
• Process researchers: longitudinal studies, complemented by simulations and mathematical modelling
• Practice researchers: inside firm-level processes, or macro-level practices
• Complementary view: practice adds a complementary view to processual approaches
• Critical view: process research misses the critical activities or added value of practitioners
• Combinatory perspective: Strategy as Process and Practice (SAPP)

Question 2

Golsorkhi et al (2015)

Answer 2

• SAP: focuses on the micro-level social activities, processes and practices that characterise organisational strategy and strategizing
• Micro-activities make up strategizing, which needs to be considered in a wider social context
• Existing research focused on ways in which strategy work is conducted in specific organisational settings + formal routines
• Other factors: Materiality and tools, roles and identities of managers, power dynamics

Question 3

Kaplan (2011)

Answer 3

• Strategy making is composed of two interrelated discursive practices:
  o Collaboration to negotiate meaning
  o Cartography to adjudicate interests
• PowerPoint enhances this process
• Helps to understand SAP: PP is a primary tool

Question 4

Barthelemy (2006)

Answer 4

• Logical incrementalism: strategic management practices show little resemblance to the rational and analytic approach to strategic planning
• Strategy formulation is often fragmented, evolutionary and largely intuitive
• Story of IKEA (told by CEO Kamprad):
  o First selling all sorts of items by mail delivery – copying a competitor successfully by including furniture – discontinuing all other items
  o Incremental steps and experimentation – e.g. flat packaging, assembly at home
  o Sourcing from Poland during communism – unique adaptation to circumstances
  o The company was forced by the cartel to design its own furniture
  o Opening up warehouses to customers to handle large demand
• Lessons:
  o Start with a clear vision that can be improved over time
  o Constant experimentation, learning from mistakes
  o Turn problems into opportunities
  o Make the most of other’s ideas

Question 5

Floyd & Woolridge (1992)

Answer 5

• Strategy-making (deciding on the right course of action) is easy
• The hard part is to implement it, and make the organisation behave in certain ways
• “implementation Gap”: middle managers do not know the strategic goals (or just think they know but do not fully understand them), or do not agree with them
• Shared understanding and commitment: strategic consensus