Book contents
- Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice
- Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Boxes
- Contributors
- Preface to the Third Edition
- Introduction: What Is Strategy as Practice?
- Part I Ontological and Epistemological Questions
- Chapter 1 Epistemological Alternatives for Researching Strategy as Practice: Building and Dwelling Worldviews
- Chapter 2 How Is Strategy Made? A Heideggerian Onto-Epistemological Framework for Studying Strategy as Practice
- Chapter 3 Constructivist Paradigms and Their Relevance for Strategy-as-Practice Research
- Chapter 4 The Ongoing Challenge of Developing Cumulative Knowledge about Strategy as Practice
- Chapter 5 Practical Relevance of Practice-Theoretical Research on Strategy
- Part II Theoretical Resources: Social Theory
- Part III Theoretical Resources: Organization and Management Theories
- Part IV Methodological Resources
- Part V Substantive Topic Areas
- Index
- References
Chapter 1 - Epistemological Alternatives for Researching Strategy as Practice: Building and Dwelling Worldviews
from Part I - Ontological and Epistemological Questions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 March 2025
Book contents
- Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice
- Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Boxes
- Contributors
- Preface to the Third Edition
- Introduction: What Is Strategy as Practice?
- Part I Ontological and Epistemological Questions
- Chapter 1 Epistemological Alternatives for Researching Strategy as Practice: Building and Dwelling Worldviews
- Chapter 2 How Is Strategy Made? A Heideggerian Onto-Epistemological Framework for Studying Strategy as Practice
- Chapter 3 Constructivist Paradigms and Their Relevance for Strategy-as-Practice Research
- Chapter 4 The Ongoing Challenge of Developing Cumulative Knowledge about Strategy as Practice
- Chapter 5 Practical Relevance of Practice-Theoretical Research on Strategy
- Part II Theoretical Resources: Social Theory
- Part III Theoretical Resources: Organization and Management Theories
- Part IV Methodological Resources
- Part V Substantive Topic Areas
- Index
- References
Summary
Robert Chia and Andreas Rasche elaborate on the challenges of capturing the actual doing of strategy, which requires researchers to adopt a new worldview. They argue that the traditional ways of studying strategy work have led to an explanatory rupture between research accounts of strategy practice and the practice itself, which is intimately linked to the adoption of a set of epistemological premises that they term the building worldview. This view is characterized by two basic assumptions: (1) individuals are treated as discretely bounded entities; and (2) there is a clear split between the mental and physical realm; cognition and mental representation of the world necessarily precede any meaningful action. Accordingly, strategic action is explained through recourse to the intention of actors. They contrast this with what they refer to as dwelling world-view, which allows getting close to the actual doing of strategy because it does away with the assumption that identities and personal characteristics pre-exist social practice. Within this view, vocial practices are given primacy over individual agency and intention. Thus, strategic actions are explained not on the basis of individual intentions but as the product of particular, historically situated practices. Chia and Rasche discuss the epistemological consequences of these two worldviews showing how research findings depend on the chosen worldview.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice , pp. 25 - 41Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
References
Balogun, J. and Johnson, G. (2005), ‘From intended strategy to unintended outcomes: the impact of change recipient sensemaking’, Organization Studies, 26/11: 1573–601.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balogun, J., Huff, A. S. and Johnson, P. (2003), ‘Three responses to methodological challenges of studying strategizing’, Journal of Management Studies, 40/1: 197–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bencherki, N., Sergi, V., Cooren, F. and Vásquez, C. (2019), ‘How strategy comes to matter: strategizing as the communicative materialization of matters of concern’, Strategic Organization, 19/4: 608–35.Google Scholar
Bennis, W. G. and O’Toole, J. (2005), ‘How business schools lost their way’, Harvard Business Review, 83/5: 96–105.Google ScholarPubMed
Bourdieu, P. (1977), Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chia, R. (2004), ‘Strategy-as-practice: reflections on the research agenda’, European Management Review, 1/1: 29–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chia, R. and Holt, R. (2006), ‘Strategy as practical coping: a Heideggerian perspective’, Organization Studies, 27/5: 635–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chia, R. and Holt, R. (2009), Strategy without Design: The Silent Efficacy of Indirect Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chia, R. and MacKay, B. (2007), ‘Post-processual challenges for the emerging strategy-as-practice perspective: discovering strategy in the logic of practice’, Human Relations, 60/1: 217–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Certeau, M. (1984), The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Denis, J.-L., Langley, A. and Rouleau, L. (2007), ‘Strategizing in pluralistic contexts: rethinking theoretical frames’, Human Relations, 60/1: 179–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Detienne, M. and Vernant, J. P. (1978), Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society. Brighton: Harvester Press.Google Scholar
Dreyfus, H. L. (1988), ‘The Socratic and Platonic basis of cognitivism’, AI & Society, 2/2: 99–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreyfus, H. L. (1991), Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Division 1. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Dunne, J. (1993), Back to the Rough Ground: ‘Phronesis’ and ‘Techné’ in Modern Philosophy and in Aristotle. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Ezzamel, M. and Willmott, H. (2008), ‘Strategy as discourse in a global retailer: a supplement to rationalist and interpretive accounts’, Organization Studies, 29/2: 191–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ezzamel, M. and Willmott, H. (2010), ‘Strategy and strategizing: a poststructuralist perspective’, in Baum, J. A. C., and Lampel, J. (eds), Advances in Strategic Management, vol. XXVII, The Globalization of Strategy Research: 75–109. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foucault, M. (1984), ‘Truth and power’, in Rabinow, P. (ed.), The Foucault Reader: 51–75. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Hammersley, M. and Atkinson, P. (1983). Ethnography: Principles and Practice. London: Travistock.Google Scholar
Hendry, J. and Seidl, D. (2003), ‘The structure and significance of strategic episodes: social systems theory and the routine practices of strategic change’, Journal of Management Studies, 40/1: 175–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. (2003), ‘Strategic practices: an activity theory perspective on continuity and change’, Journal of Management Studies, 40/1: 23–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. (2004), ‘Strategy as practice: recursiveness, adaptation, and practices-in-use’, Organization Studies, 25/4: 529–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. (2005), Strategy as Practice: An Activity-Based Approach. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P., Balogun, J. and Seidl, D. (2007), ‘Strategizing: the challenges of a practice perspective’, Human Relations, 60/1: 5–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, G., Melin, L. and Whittington, R. (2003), ‘Guest editors’ introduction: Micro strategy and strategizing: towards an activity-based view’, Journal of Management Studies, 40/1: 3–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jullien, F. (2000), Detour and Access: Strategies of Meaning in China and Greece. New York: Zone Books.Google Scholar
Jullien, F. (2004), A Treatise on Efficacy: Between Western and Chinese Thinking, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Kohtamäki, M., Whittington, R., Vaara, E. and Rabetino, R. (2022), Making connections: harnessing the diversity of strategy-as-practice research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 24: 210–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laine, P.-M. and Vaara, E. (2007), ‘Struggling over subjectivity: a discursive analysis of strategic development in an engineering group’, Human Relations, 60/1: 29–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindblom, C. (1959), ‘The science of muddling through’, Public Administration Review, 19/2: 79–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKay, B., Chia, R. and Nair, A. (2020), ‘Strategy-in-Practices: a process-philosophical approach to understanding strategy emergence and organizational outcomes’, Human Relations, 74/9: 1337–69.Google Scholar
Mantere, S. (2005), ‘Strategic practices as enablers and disablers of championing activity’, Strategic Organization, 3/2: 157–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
March, J. G. (1972), ‘Model bias in social action’, Review of Educational Research, 42/4: 413–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCabe, D. (2010), ‘Strategy-as-power: ambiguity, contradiction and the exercise of power in a UK building society’, Organization, 17/2: 151–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mintzberg, H. (2004), Managers Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.Google Scholar
Mintzberg, H. and Waters, J. A. (1985), ‘Of strategies, deliberate and emergent’, Strategic Management Journal, 6: 257–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nonaka, I. and Toyama, R. (2007), ‘Strategic management as distributed practical wisdom (phronesis)’, Industrial and Corporate Change, 16/3: 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, M. C. (1986), The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Paroutis, S. and Heracleous, L. (2013), ‘Discourse revisited: dimensions and employment of first-order strategy discourse during institutional adoption’, Strategic Management Journal, 34/8: 935–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pfeffer, J. and Fong, C. T. (2002), ‘The end of business schools? Less success than meets the eye’, Academy of Management Learning and Education, 1/1: 78–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raphals, L. (1992), Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rasche, A. (2008), The Paradoxical Foundation of Strategic Management. Heidelberg: Physica-Verlag.Google Scholar
Rasche, A. and Chia, R. (2009), ‘Researching strategy practices: a genealogical social theory perspective’, Organization Studies, 30(7): 713–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Regnér, P. (2003), ‘Strategy creation in the periphery: inductive versus deductive strategy making’, Journal of Management Studies, 40/1: 57–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schatzki, T. R. (2005), ‘The sites of organizations’, Organization Studies, 26(3): 465–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, J. (1998), Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Stacey, R. (2007), Strategic Management and Organizational Dynamics. London: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Starkey, K. and Tempest, S. (2009), ‘The winter of our discontent – the design challenge for business schools’, Academy of Management Learning and Education, 8/4: 576–86.Google Scholar
Tsoukas, H. (2010), ‘Practice, strategy making and intentionality: a Heideggerian onto-epistemology for strategy as practice’, in Golsorkhi, D., Rouleau, L., Seidl, D., and Vaara, E. (eds), Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice: 47–62. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Mises, L. (1998 [1949]). Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (Scholar’s edn.). Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute.Google Scholar
Werle, F. and Seidl, D. (2015), ‘The layered materiality of strategizing: epistemic objects and the interplay between material artefacts in the exploration of strategic topics’, British Journal of Management, 26(S1): S67–S89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittington, R. (1996), ‘Strategy as practice’, Long Range Planning, 29/5: 731–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittington, R. (2003), ‘The work of strategizing and organizing: for a practice perspective’, Strategic Organization, 1/1: 117–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittington, R. (2006), ‘Completing the practice turn in strategy research’, Organization Studies, 27/5: 613–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittle, A., Gilchrist, A., Mueller, F. and Lenney, P. (2021), ‘The art of stage-craft: a dramaturgical perspective on strategic change’, Strategic Organization, 19/4: 636–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar