Discourse revisited: Dimensions and employment of first-order strategy discourse during institutional adoption

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Paroutis, Sotirios; Heracleous, Loizos
• 署名单位: University of Warwick
• 刊物名称: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0143-2095
• DOI: 10.1002/smj.2052
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 935-956
• 关键词: DISCOURSE; INSTITUTIONAL THEORY; STRATEGIC CHANGE; STRATEGY-AS-PRACTICE; multibusiness firms

摘要

Despite decades of research on strategy, we still know little about what the concept of strategy means to actual strategists and how they use it in practice. Working at the intersections of institutional and practice theories, we use exploratory interviews with strategy directors and a longitudinal case study to uncover four dimensions of first-order strategy discourse: functional, contextual, identity, and metaphorical. We also reveal three phases in the interrelation between first-order strategy discourse and institutional work: shaping, settling, and selling and a differential emphasis (selective focusing) on dimensions of the first-order strategy discourse during the institutional adoption process. We contribute to a deeper understanding of the concept of strategy in practice, the process of institutional adoption, and of the role of discourse in this process. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.