EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
An opportunity and threat in strategy making
Asst. Professor Ole Friis
[email protected]
Work in progress
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EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
Abstract
Strategic openness can be seen as the use of inclusive socio-material practices in strategy work
creating more transparency, and openness shall here be understood as a process rather than a final
state. The use of specific socio-material practices foster openness in organizations and creates
commitment, integration of sub-unit goals and collective sensemaking. But it is not to be taken for
granted, there are more challenges and pitfalls in opening up the organizations strategy, and
especially the context of the organizations environment and the organizational bricolage have
tremendous impact of the open strategy. A case study in a Danish textile company shows how
openness unfolds in a strategy process and creates commitment, integration of sub-unit goals and
collective sensemaking by using socio-material practices. Further the case show, that the employees
becomes strategy formulator, strategy translator and strategy implementer. But the process was not
just a golden paved road to embark. Many challenges followed the process with unplanned and
unintended events. Both as a consequence of the use of specific socio-material practices but also
relates to “openness”, meaning that the traditional decision makers are challenged in such an open
strategy process. Openness is both an opportunity and a threat to the strategy making.
Introduction
Development in the global economy has changed the traditional balance between costumer and
supplier. Every day, companies are confronted with intensive competition, turbulence and change,
which means that (Danish) companies are facing new types of complex tasks, including innovation
pressure, high levels of uncertainty, geographic diffusion, networking, self-managing employees,
digitalisation, shorter strategic lifecycles and skydiving communications cost (Mønsted and
Poulfelt, 2007; Hamel, 2007). The need for improving the strategy has long been acknowledged,
and the key to creating and sustaining success is the ability to generate effective and innovative
strategies (Baden-Fuller and Pitt, 1996). Since the finance crisis in 2008 much focus has been cost
savings and cost cutting in order to create fit with the environment, but this cannot secure long term
competitive advantage with the still changing environment coursing strategic drift (DeWitt and
Meyer, 2014). In trying to keep up or adapt to the global changes in the environment one approach
is more openness to strategy to keep the company competitive. Openness is associated with
innovation, open innovation (Chesbrough, 2003), where new way of innovate product and business
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EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
models is taken in use, for example open space workshop (Owen, 2008) and crowdsourcing (Steiger
et al. 2012). And strategy work has become more open over the last half-century (Whittington et al.
2011), both internal and external. Internal, by informing the organization more open about strategic
choices and even involving more actors in the strategy making (Friis, 2012). External, by informing
more open about strategic choices to the shareholders. Opening up the strategy calls for new and
different tools and practices creating new and different spaces for strategizing, challenging the
strategy profession. The use of specific sociomaterial practices foster openness in organizations and
creates commitment (Guth and MacMillan, 1986; Kim and Mauborgne, 1998), integration of subunit goals (Ketokivi and Castañer, 2004) and collective sensemaking (Gioia and Chittipeddi, 1991).
Opening up strategy “is not an unalloyed good for organizations. For many, greater openness
comes willy-nilly and unwelcome” (Whittington et al., 2011: 531). “Traditional business strategy
has guided firms to develop defensible positions against the forces of competition and power in the
value chain, implying the importance of constructing barriers to competition, rather than
promoting openness” (Chesbrough and Appleyard, 2007: 57).
The field of strategy has historically been a business for top management focusing on planning in
the 1950ties moving to strategic planning in the 1960ties and ahead. The economic research
tradition entered heavily in the 1980ties lensing in the analytical focus, where most of the traditional
strategy research contributes with abstract contributions explaining mostly the “what and why”
questions. In the traditional approach it has been taken for granted that strategy is merely for the top
management, and first in the 1990ties (Floyd and Wooldridge, 1996) middle managers are taken in
to considerations. Still most strategy research has been done to argue for a counter point or
astonishment to existing strategy research, as for example the strategy content or strategy process,
deliberate or emergent strategy, strategy as an external position or internal resource base
((Mintzberg and Waters, 1985; Chakravarthy and Doz, 1992; De Wit and Meyer, 2010). This
clearly indicates that strategy is a complex phenomenon with many different definitions. Most
definitions leave out some important aspect of strategy, as for example the position approach
neglects the company’s recourses and vice versa. But most critical, most approaches leave out the
humans, and the actual doings (Jarzabkowski and Spee, 2009). Strategy can be defined as “the
creation of a unique and valuable position, involving a different set of activities” (Porter, 1996: 68).
This indicates that strategy is both content by the means that there needs to be unique and valuable
position, and process by the means that strategy involves a set of (different) activities. This
definition can be extended by the Strategy as practice (SAP) approach, where strategy is
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EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
conceptualised as “a situated, socially accomplished activity constructed through the interactions
of multiple actors” (Jarzabkowski, 2005: 7). Thus, strategy is usually not understood merely as a
fixed property (in a document or PowerPoint presentation) of organisations, i.e. something they
have. It is also something people do. This ‘doing strategy’ or ‘strategising’ raises questions about
how multiple actors strategise and which practices they draw upon to create a unique and valuable
position. This opens up for looking at the actual way a company is changing its business model to
stay competitive. The SAP approach saw the light in the late 1990ties and gained momentum in the
2000s. The SAP approach moved the focus to the sociological aspects of strategy bringing back the
human actors to the center-stage of strategy arguing that it is the actors there is doing strategy. This
turns the focus to the micro level analysis of the phenomenon strategy. SAP centralizes the focus
around praxis, practice and practitioner (Reckwitz, 2002; Whittington, 2006). The three individual
elements help explain the phenomenon of strategy; there is the actual people (strategy practitioners)
doing strategy, second there are the strategy tools and practices used to do strategy and third, the
actual “stream of activity in which strategy is accomplished over time” (Jarzabkowski and Spee,
2009:73). Still, this needs to be combined with strategy content (the creation of a unique and
valuable position), which mean that the strategy activity is about creating a unique and valuable
position in the environment and is done combining the use of practitioners and practices. This is
addressed by Whittington (2007) arguing that strategy is a profession like for example law or
medicine. This mean that he adds a P, so there is 4 P’s. “This profession, or institutional field,
involves consulting firms, business schools, business media, academic journals, professional
societies, enterprises and managers in a joint endeavour that all recognize as somehow strategic”
(Whittington, 2007:1580).
In the next section, a framework is developed to study how openness in an organization is changed
through the use of strategy tools and socio-material (strategy) practices in strategy making.
Theoretical framework
To lensing in on the strategy profession and the strategy work the sociological approach focus on
the specific tools or actors and at the “rich interaction actions within which people and things are
engaged in doing strategy work” (Jarzabkowski and Kaplan, 2015: 537). In developing the
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EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
theoretical framework, the four individual elements, praxis, practitioners, practice and profession
will be developed one by one.
Praxis
What the strategy practitioners actually do is strategy praxis; the flow of work, the many various
activities done when these practitioner deliberate and emergent formulate and implement strategy.
Praxis refers to, board meetings, meetings, number-crunching, analyzing, projects and simple talks
(Jarzabkowski et al., 2013; Whittington, 2006).
Practitioners
The strategy practitioners are the ones who do the strategy work, making, shaping and executing the
various strategies, and Jarzabkowski and Whittington have put a face on strategy practitioners,
saying that: “Strategy’s practitioners are defined widely, to include both those directly involved in
making strategy – most prominently managers and consultants – and those with indirect influence –
the policy-makers, the media, the gurus and the business schools who shape legitimate praxis and
practices” (2008:101-102). And Jarzabkowski et al. define them as “managers at a range of levels,
not simple top managers, as well as actors outside the firm, such as consultants, board members
and guru’s” (2013: 42). Traditionally there had been a fixed interest on actors, primarily top
management and later middle management, with very little focus on consultants (Whittington,
2007) and even less focus on employees (Friis, 2012) in strategy making. With the lens is on
different actors doing strategy with different practices and tools strategy can be investigated as a
profession, an institutionalized field of “consulting firms, business schools, business media,
academic journals, professional societies, enterprises and managers in a joint endeavor that all
recognize as somehow “strategic”” (Whittington, 2007: 1580). These different actors’ draws on
many different practices and tools, but as indicated above much strategy work has excluded most
actors in the organization and further the strategy has been a secret (closed) to the external
environment.
When opening up strategy traditional strategy actors will be stretched in their
approach to strategy and strategy work.
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EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
Profession - Inclusion and transparency
Open strategy is a bundle of different practices varying across context, and open innovation and
open strategy are close intertwined, fundamentally open innovation is a subset of (open) strategy,
meaning that innovation is one important strategy issue as sale and production etc. Whittington et
al. (2011) argue that there are several overlaps between open innovation and open strategy, still they
argue that open strategy differs from open innovation by including internal employees from outside
the corporate elite, and further across many kind of sectors. On a broad term “openness involves
exposure to consumer or regulatory pressure and threats to the viability of traditional strategies
and sources of competitive advantage” Whittington et al., 2011: 535). Further, Whittington et al.
(2011) argue that open strategy challenges the traditional strategy thinking in to elements, strategy
is for the corporate elite (Andrews, 1971; Montgomery, 2008), and therefore it also is shrouded in
mystery and secrets. This indicates that strategy traditionally is exclusive and only for the few
“invited to the party”. And it is easier to keep a secret the less there have information and this of
course will obstruct rivals to imitate the strategy (Makadok and Barney, 2001). Both are challenges
by open strategy and are about inclusion and transparency. Following Whittington et al. “inclusion
refers to participation in an organizations’ strategic conversation. Transparency refers to the
visibility of information about an organizations’ strategy potentially during the formulation
process” (2011: 536). Inclusion and transparency can both be internal by incorporate more internal
actors and external by incorporate external actors in the strategy work. Inclusion and transparency
calls for specific or new social material practices in strategy work. But how can this inclusion be
done and how transparent can this inclusion be? And how can strategy work be done to enhance
inclusion and transparency. Which practices and tools can be used and are there pittfalls? Further,
as mentioned in the above section the clear benefit of open strategy makes us look for the obvious
opportunities, but are there also threats in opening up the strategy work?
Practices, materiality and arenas
“Practices involve the various routines, discourses, concepts and technologies through which this
strategy labor is made possible – not just obvious ones such as strategy reviews and off-sites, but
also those embedded in academic and consulting tools (Porter analysis, hypothesis testing etc.) and
more materiel technologies and artefacts (Power Points, flip-charts etc.)” (Jarzabkowski and
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EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
Whittington 2008:101). Thus, “practices refer to the routines and norms of strategy work”
(Whittington, 2007: 1579). Practices are addressed broad as for example forming strategy project
teams and strategy away-days or as analytical techniques as SWOT, or as technologies as flipcharts
and computers. “These routines and tools are the stuff of strategy, without which strategy work
could hardly happen” (Whittington, 2007: 1579). The practices of strategy are multilevel. It can be
organizational specific, embodied in a routine, local procedures and cultures that shape strategizing.
This means that practices are somehow material.
Materiality
Dameron et al. (2015) have identified five categories of materials used in strategy work. Strategy
tools are a formalized way to do strategy analysis and decision making, as for example SWOT,
portfolio planning, scenario planning. Strategy objects and artefacts are tangible, visible or audible
residue of past acts of meaning, and is the stuff of strategy. Strategy technologies as computer
software are integrated into work practices in organizations and it is important to know how they
encourage or inhibit strategy practice. Built spaces are physical locations as boardrooms, meeting
rooms, offices. Each location has physical properties like colors of the walls and floor covering,
further they are decorated with different furniture’s. Human bodies in strategy is very important,
but has been overlooked by scholars, for example the physical dominance of managers relative of
other participant in workshops, or the temporary nomination changing the power structure by
labelling of for example project managers, or participant controlling a whiteboard and pen to curtail
or regulate the strategic debate and recap. All five categories are present in strategy work, and
indicate that “materiality lies at the heart of strategy work” (Dameron et al., 2015:5), meaning that
the view on materiality needs to be foregrounded. Here I will foreground the strategy tools, strategy
objects and artefacts, the built spaces, and the human bodies in strategy.
Here I use the term tools as Jarzabkowski and Kaplan (2015), a generic name for frameworks,
concepts, models or methods. Different strategy tools come with different affordance enabling and
constraining their use. The concept of affordance was made by Gibson (1977) arguing that agency
resides in both subject and object. Actors observe how an object favors and invites or constrains a
set of specific uses. The use of a tool depends of the material use, the intended design of the tool,
the context of the tool and the interpretation of actors’ use of the tool. The actors select and use the
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EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
tools to cope with uncertainty in the environment (Jarzabkowski and Kaplan, 2015). The actor can
select tools they know how to use, further they can select tools based on their position and their
expert power. That means that a strategy tool has material and conceptual affordance. Strategy tools
are built on a “model of the world” creating predetermined choice of solutions, and helps actors to
focus on what strategically to analyze for example Porters five forces. In the tool there are five
predetermined strategic themes to analyze (buyers, suppliers, barriers to entry, substitutes and
rivalry) and focus is on existing industry and it can be argued that the tool drives focus away from
exploring other industry dynamics (Brandenburger and Nalebuff, 1996). So a strategy tool is not
neutral it has embedded choices built into the concept, and is properly selected for its affordance.
Strategy tools are used to accompanied the social interaction creating meaning by making (strategy)
objects (for example a PowerPoint with strategy themes), and it can be difficult to separate agency.
And in this social interaction the human bodies also play an important role, for example by
controlling different resources as a whiteboard and pen in a strategy activity, and how does such
arrangement affect the outcome of a strategy activity. And the orchestration of tools, practices and
practitioners are done in a specific place in time, such to as physical locations are referred to as
spaces or arenas.
Staging of strategy arenas
Strategy tools and socio-material practice have an aspect of creating certain opportunities and
spaces for strategising. According to Nordquist “the strategic arena represents a platform, or a
venue, for communication and strategic dialogue”, and it is defined “through the dialogues around
issues that are strategic to the individual organization” (2012:26). ‘Staging’ is here understood as a
construction of a physical arena and occasion for an act (Goffman, 1959; Clausen and Ushinaka,
2007). This emerges through interaction and often involves team performance (Van Praet, 2009).
Staging of strategy arenas is conceptualised as a performative becoming of a collaborative sociomaterial agency (Clausen and Ushinaka, 2007). Importantly, as noted by Pinch (2010), staging
involves the construction of performers (on stage) and audience, spectators to the events on stage. It
also involves agent tactics of performing front stage as well as back stage, and finally, but
importantly, socio-materiality is part and parcel of these staging processes. Materiality can enable
or disable these practices directly by, for example, acting as separators between front and back
stage, by acting as properties, stage requisites, but it may also constrain the performance of agency
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EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
(Pinch, 2010). Practices and agency are mutually constitutive (Vaara and Whittington, 2012) and
inherent in bodies and artefacts (Whittington, 2011); practice is a nexus of doings and material
entities influence these doings (Schatzki 2012). Human agency and material agency are distinct, but
when practitioners conduct strategy making, the two kinds of agency become interlocked in a
particular sequence and form a socio-material practice (Leonardi 2012), and with the notion of
“agency stew” Pentland and Singh (2012) remind us that it is rather difficult to make out where the
agency is for which reason we should focus on the consequences of doings to understand strategy
making.
Methodology
The current paper takes an interpretivist approach (Johnson et al., 2007), adopting a SAP
understanding. This is extended by using a socio-material understanding of the interplay of
practices and practitioners (Orlikowski & Scott, 2008; Pinch, 2010). It has been an iterative process.
I have chosen a longitudinal single case to gain in-depth, contextual insights (on practitioners and
practices) (Stake, 2005), looking for characteristics to be compared with existing empirical findings
and theoretical contributions in the SAP literature. The case study relies on ethnography (Johnson et
al., 2010). I had access to joint information meetings, management meetings, project group
meetings and ad hoc meetings at all levels. All meetings and interviews have been recorded. These
included 31 open-ended interviews and 4 open-ended focus group interviews. Non-participant
observations (Bryman and Bell, 2007) included 25 project meetings, 8 management meetings and 3
joint information meetings.
The case
The case company is a mid-sized Danish textile company. It produces labels, hangtags and
packaging, the clothing industry being its primary customer. The case company started in 1991 as
an entrepreneurial company consisting of the founder, one employee, a good idea and a few
customers. The company has developed significantly over the past 10 years, from gross revenue of
7.4 million euro and 26 employees in 1999 to 59.7 million euro and 420 employees in 2011. 105 of
the employees work in Denmark, 315 abroad, and the increase in employees has primarily been
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EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
abroad. There are many strategy activities in the timeline of the strategy process with entanglement
of socio-material practices and strategy practitioners, but there is some kind of natural flow. The
activities take place in the period February–October 2009. The involved practitioners include the
top management, external consultants, middle management and employees. The strategy activities
can be organized in three strategy episodes (Hendry and Siedl, 2003) in which there are some
natural shifts in the use of social strategy practices and practitioner. The first episode is a strategy
workshop for the top management group. The workshops are facilitated by external consultants,
using familiar and new strategy process and content practices together. The external consultants,
who were known in the company, presented how they could drive a strategy process in which the
management group had to ‘work with the strategy in a new manner’, using new strategy tools and
involving the Danish part of the company in the strategy work. At the strategy workshop, the
management group defined the company’s strategic challenges: having a clear strategy, keeping
focus on the strategy, conveying the strategy, evaluating and adjusting according to the strategy; the
criteria for success were that the employees understand and assume the responsibility for the
strategy. The outcome of the strategy episode was a rough-grained corporate strategy. Facilitated by
consultants, the management group worked out a mission, a vision and a strategy, which are
depicted in table 5.1.
Table 1. Mission, vision and strategy developed by the management group
Mission
By development, worldwide sourcing and distribution of trim products – we take responsibility
for the whole value chain – from idea to the final product, delivered to the customer.
Vision
Create value for our customers by improved branding of their collections.
Strategy
X will be the largest trim supplier for leading textile brands in Europe before 2015.
Source: Presentation from strategy workshop.
The second episode is a workshop revolved around a new social strategy practice with the purpose
to develop objective in relation to the rough grained corporate strategy. Decision was made to
involve both middle managers and employees in the strategy process. By combining strategy
content, the strategy challenges and the success criteria, the external consultants came up with three
themes to work with at the next strategy activity: the open space workshop based on open space
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EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
principles (Owen, 2008) and the input from the first strategy workshop. The corporate strategy was
initially presented by the CEO, after which the consultant took over and facilitated the strategy
workshop by asking three strategic questions:
1. What can we do to make the customers perceive the company as the most complete
contractor with special focus on overall solutions and service?
2. What can we do to develop the most competent and responsible organisation in the market?
3. What can we do to develop our projects and customer handling?
In each of the three rounds, many groups were formed, contributing with 70-100 proposals for the
strategy. The strategy tool helped organise the workshop so that each group made a condensation of
each of the discussions containing the following points: Initiator, theme, participants, conclusions
and actions to be taken. The condensations varied greatly depending on the different themes, but all
groups came to some sort of conclusion based on the discussion. The following table 2 shows two
examples of the output of group work in two groups:
Table 2. Output of two open space groups developed in episode two
1st example
2nd example
Initiator
Kim Vestergaard
Helle T
Theme
Development of employees
Value for the customer
Participants
Kim, Claus, Gitte, Per O., Kurt
Annemette E., Lisbet, Jan, Henrik, Dorte, Gitte,
Kasper, Lone J., Lene B., Rasmus R., Helle C.
Conclusions




Primary education in other areas than
product knowledge
Negotiation technique
Knowledge regarding cultural
differences






Action to be
taken
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Make visible to the customer when we, in the
normal run of things, do something for them
which they would not be able to do themselves
Meetings regarding matching of expectations
with customers in terms of the daily cooperation
(head of sales)
The customer actually buys a part of our
company
Cooperating with us is easy, simple, a good
experience, saves resources
Communicate more over the telephone +
meetings. Create common relations –
differentiate ourselves from our competitors
More meetings
Communication over the telephone + meetings
EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
The input was translated into nine strategy themes by the management group extended by the
middle manager at a follow up meeting. Next, the nine projects were presented to all employees by
the CEO and the external consultant at a joint information meeting where the employees had time to
talk about and discuss each project. The employees were each invited to prioritise which projects
they would like to be part of, and the HR manager formed project groups based on these
prioritisations.
The third episode was based on was the strategy project work. All projects were initiated by a startup meeting with a fixed agenda; 1) The CEO presented the sub strategies, the role of the project
manager, the role of the participants, important deadlines, the corporate strategy and the strategic
objectives of the project; 2) This was followed by a “round-the-table” giving each of the employees
the opportunity to express his or her immediate reflections regarding the challenges of the project;
This was summarised by the CEO who used the flip chart to thematise the general suggestions in
clustered input so it could be related to the objectives. The summation ended in a framing of the
strategy task for each strategy group phrased in strategy themes. Two examples can be seen in table
2; 3) Last the project manager was appointed.
Table 3. Outcome of “Round-the-table”
Round-the-
Outcome from strategy group 1
Outcome from strategy group 2
table activity
Producing
strategy themes
Organizing
strategy themes









To many stocks
To many old stock
Prognosis
Punctuality
Better planning
Contracts
Many resources
Critical mass
Allocation to logistic centre




Better contract and communication
Making the cost visible
Better stock lists
More consequence (specify the
responsibility)
 Better objectives (size of inventory,
lifetime, production, due date)
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 Education – processes, systems, procedures
 Optimisation of knowledge sharing
 Teambuilding/team spirit – cross-sectional
and cross-national
 Concept sale – qualify the organisation
 Standardisation
 Competence assessment – especially where
vulnerable
 Career opportunities – good reputation,
wish to make decisions and take on
responsibility
 Control and follow-up
 Responsibility – sender, receiver
 Direct communication
 Celebrate our victories
 Optimising social network
 Career opportunities
EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
The strategy groups were working from May to June and many strategy activities took place, both
formal doings in the planned process and unplanned doings as they emerged. The overall strategy
activities in this third episode followed more or less the same templates and use the same strategy
tools (containing many artefacts). All groups of course have their own specific characteristics and
experiences, and the strategy work in each strategy group followed a pattern. All strategy groups
used a process tools to organise the project meetings, and in general there exist embedded routines
of doing project work; for example, project meetings start at the agreed time, and respect surrounds
the roles of the different participants. All strategy groups had employees not saying much to the
frustration of the management level in particular (group interview, HR manager and CFO). But as
expressed by Anne: “It is difficult and I am sitting with some concrete daily tasks…The others is
raising all the relevant issues, and I don’t have more to supplement with…” (interview, employee).
One group began to discuss the culture of the company. The discussion was narrowed down to
address what should be improved or what should the company do to make a better culture (i.e. work
environment). The dialogue comes to a standstill, and the project manager suggests to turn the
question around, and instead try to answer what the company should stop doing or change because
of potential demotivating effects. This gives rise to the following discussion: “You know that you
are trusted in what you are doing, freedom with responsibility, but I don’t think that everybody feels
that… (Lotte): According to the employee manual, you are allowed to surf for up to 30 minutes a
day, and still the social sites are closed…that is a taboo nobody dares address… (Bjarne): It is
sending mixed signals…(project manager): We have many taboos…shall we try to get them out in
the open…(HR manager): What are those taboos?...(Bjarne): The dismissal of Keld, for example.
We heard several different rumors, but I can read between the lines; the information given was just
‘in mutual understanding, Keld has decided to stop’… (observation, meeting, strategy group). The
discussion continues and ends up by the project manager saying: “We would like some better
explanations for the decisions…and then we will accept the decisions without a grumpy
countenance!” (observation, meeting, strategy group).
And this strategy group’s presentation also led to more discussion than the other eight projects. For
example, the group argued that denying the employees access to Facebook during working hours
was out of sync with the value ‘freedom with responsibility’. This is referred to as taboos, and they
are presented by the project manager as follows: “I will warn you before the next slide, because you
may think that this [working environment] is okay, and it is okay to a certain degree...freedom with
responsibility... we think that there should be more freedom with responsibility...here Oluf [the
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EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
project manager’s manager] is the perfect example; I come and go as I please, he never asks or
restrict me...A second example is openness regarding the company, but sometimes ambiguous
information is given...this creates much talk...(CEO): what could that be?...(project manager): I
will give an example involving Keld, who stopped working with us...we were informed that he
stopped after mutual agreement; however, we know that there is more to it than that, and then we
start thinking about what has happened...(CEO):what should we have said?...(project manager):
the truth, that a project went wrong and that he got the opportunity to do it over, but he had lost the
motivation and would like to be dismissed...When I was presented for that side of the situation, I
thought that it was okay that he stopped... The founder and the CDO become irritated and comment
on the examples; the CEO tries to smooth the situation, saying: “have you discussed further what to
do about it?... (project manager): yes, we have talked about what to do” and then she continues the
presentation (observation, strategy presentation). Other examples are presented, and the
management respond, still irritated, and does not agree to the examples.
During this third episode two project managers were replaced. The first project manager was absent
on account of stress, and she stopped working in the company during the process. Management’s
wish to see her in action as project manager had fatal consequences. She had indicated that her daily
work was conflicting with the strategy project work, and in hindsight it is easy to say that
something should have been done differently; this is a ‘casualty of war’, so to speak. The second
project manager withdraws after the second presentation, arguing that he had difficulties keeping an
overview and maintaining control of the project, but he chose to stay on as a participant in the
project group. The overall corporate strategy was presented to all of the employees at a joint
information meeting in the beginning of November and at the local country offices in November
2008.
Implementation started in January 2009. The strategies were prioritised according to resources
(tangible/intangible, financial, time, etc.) needed. Only one project was postponed to achieve better
alignment with other projects, primarily IT projects. The seven other projects started in the period
after the last presentation. Most strategy groups continued, however with fewer participants. One
group was closed because all of its objectives were contained in other projects. So, all projects have
more or less been implemented, with a few exceptions. But more importantly, in the organisation,
an understanding of the strategy shift that the company is undergoing is building, manifesting itself
in the statements of three new Swedish employees visiting Denmark. They were impressed by the
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EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
fact that all employees seemed to have a common understand of the strategic challenges, entailing
that they were not given different answers depending on who they asked (interview, CEO).
Findings
The social practices used in the strategy process changed in the three episodes, with heavily
employee participation opening up the strategy process in the second and third episodes. And in
particular in the third episode the social practices caused dispersed outcome. This outcome can be
related to the practices in use, and the actual doings. Mostly the outcome of the strategy activities
went on as planned, but more unplanned event occurred as for example a strategy group taken an
unexpected turn, replacement of more project managers, planning along the way in the process etc.
More strategy arenas are staged entangled by praxis, practitioner, practices and tools. The formal
ones are the two workshops and the strategy group work, the strategy workshop with management;
the management group worked out a mission and a vision and developed the rough-cut version of
the company’s corporate strategy via the entangled use of socio-material practices and tools. The
Porterian-based tool was a survey with questions regarding the three generic strategies, which
produced the strategy ‘solution’. The tool was selected by the CEO for it’s the content affordance.
The second staged arena, the open space workshop, was staged in such a manner, so as to raise
questions and issues, thus opening up for employee participation. As an arena, the open space
workshop was restricted and controlled, because it took place after management had formulated the
main elements in the strategy and before the strategy projects were launched. This arena paved the
way for improvements in the entire organisation by asking questions about well-known issues. The
workshop created motivation, energy, cross-sectional discussions and a feeling of ownership, just as
expressed by the COO above. This was the first critical point in the process given that as the
employees were invited into the workshop as active performers. This tool is entangled with sociomaterial practices creating an arena with actors from different organizational levels contributing to
the strategy making. The tool and socio-material practices were selected for it’s the process
affordance.
The third arena covers more arenas than the nine strategy groups. There are the strategy
presentations; there is project management meetings and management meetings. These can all be
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EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
categorized as a strategy arena. This is categorized as part of the more generic arena strategy group
work, and is a clear indication of the challenge of separating tools, practices and actors. Next the
third episode will be addressed as one strategy arena. In the strategy group work, all groups had a
tendency to look for solutions and actions to be taken; maintaining a focus on producing ideas and
objectives proved complicated and challenging. This has several reasons: “We are action-oriented,
we are used to and good at following a good idea, and we are used to solve problems along the
way” (interview, HR manager).
Most employees have expressed their appreciation to be a part of the strategy process, creating
ownership to the process, here exemplified by Pamela: “Sometimes you are more aligned/tuned in
when it comes from the whole organisation that we have to change than if it had come from the
top...there is a greater chance for success because we are involved, and I am more committed, and I
would like to be part of making the [sales] presentation...and because you are part of it, you have a
sense of it, more than if it was decided from the top down...this kind of involvement has a positive
impact on the understanding, it creates a better understand of what we have to do” (interview,
employee). More employees have indicated that they found it difficult to contribute, because of the
abstract nature of the task (compared to the more tangible daily tasks). It was the first time the
employees were involved in projects where they were asked to create objectives and not solutions.
Between the strategy meetings, the participants in the strategy groups worked with the agreed-upon
tasks. This went on as traditionally project work with the twist that the groups were doing strategy.
The strategy groups presented their strategy themes and had constructive feedback and were to
work out an action plan for execution. One project group raised taboo issues. These taboos became
an important part of the group’s milestone presentation in relation to employee satisfaction. This
caused an emotional discussion at the presentation, were two from the management team had
difficulties of accepting the critiques (observation first strategy presentation) and became more or
less angry with the presentation, culminating in the CEO stopping the discussion, concluding that
the examples were taken into consideration and the HR manager suggesting that the CEO attended
the next meeting in the project group. At the next meeting, the taboos were presented by the group
and a discussion followed. First, the CEO thanked the group for raising the taboos and went on to
provide explanations for the decisions regarding each taboo. This changed the atmosphere in the
group, and the work became more constructive. At the next joint information meeting, the CEO
presented the taboos raised by the strategy group, gave an explanation for each taboo and declared
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EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
that the management group would be more aware and change praxis regarding the taboos. These
events were the result of a need of constant realignment of common meaning. This unbalance was
very visible at the first presentation and was handled by the CEO attending a group meeting and
subsequently bringing up the matter at a joint information meeting. The mutual intelligibility was
restored.
Two project groups had their project manager replaced; one because of absent on account of stress,
and she stopped working in the company during the process. The second were coursed by arguing
that he had difficulties keeping an overview and maintaining control of the project. Accordingly, the
consequences were not as paramount as in the situation with the first project manager. Here, an
important point is that the focus on the project manager role is vital and might prove consequential.
The project manager successors were all middle managers, which indicate that it is a challenging
task and an important role to fulfil.
In the final stage, all strategy groups worked to become ready for the final presentation. Several of
the strategy groups were reduced, as group members felt that they had nothing left to contribute.
The work became more operational in the sense that action plans and resource budgets were made
and that future project managers and group participants were appointed. The work in the strategy
groups needed differentiated involvement from the remaining organisation, but all groups were
working on a background of remarkable quietness in the organisation. After the final presentation,
all strategy groups received a green light; some, however, still had to improve on different aspects
and some projects were shelved because of a lack of resources. Managers and middle managers are
connected to all strategy projects from this point. Two groups were closed because they had already
implemented their objectives. Furthermore, as a surprise (to management), the employees displayed
high levels of engagement, working hard to make strategy objectives, and against that background,
management decided that all strategy groups were to get the green light; of course, moderations of
the strategy objectives and action plans could occur. The tools and socio-material practices were
selected CEO for its process affordance.
Discussion and concluding remarks
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EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
By more participation in the strategy making, in this case internal practitioners, confidentiality are
more difficult, as a threat but on the opportunity side it shows that commitment, integration of subunit goals and collective sensemaking creates fast implementation. Involving the employees in part
of the strategy making, by letting them make strategy objectives (In the second episode) and action
plans (in the third episode), has proven to be an effective way to open up the strategy process and
let more actors, here the employees be part of the strategy making. In this way, employees become
strategy makers (in second episode), strategy translators (in third episode) and finally strategy
implementers. Distributing strategy work to communities of practice, in this case groups of
employees (Jarzabkowski, 2004), creates a feeling of psychological ownership of the strategy,
“because distributed control means more control to individuals over strategy [and] freedom to make
sense of strategy also leads to more intimate knowledge of strategic issues for an individual, as the
strategy content is personalized through individual sensemaking” (Mantere, 2005: 175). Even if the
strategy groups are not communities of practice, ownership were observed and identified in the
strategy activities mediated by the adaptive strategy practices in episode B and C. The feeling of
ownership is observed in the project work and expressed by more employees and project managers;
here exemplified by Pamela: “Sometimes you are more aligned/tuned in when it comes from the
whole organisation that we have to change than if it had come from the top...there is a greater
chance for success because we are involved, and I am more committed, and I would like to be part
of making the [sales] presentation...and because you are part of it, you have a sense of it, more than
if it was decided from the top down...this kind of involvement has a positive impact on the
understanding, it creates a better understand of what we have to do” (interview, employee).
The strategy process was expressed as a success in the overall, but as indicates in the above
analysis, behind the overall success, more activities and outcomes turned out negative; this indicates
that in an open strategy process both the threats and opportunities mentioned Whittington et al.
(2011) come in play and in this in the particular case study even though it was termed as a success
by the management and most employees, this has to be mentioned that a strategy process is more
blurred and filled with power struggles, conflicting goals, and discrepant or unplanned events. This
has to be taken with consideration, and a process opening up strategy seen from a SAP perspective
can then be seen as a bundle of successes and a bundle of failures.
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EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction
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