Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-hxdxx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-13T15:32:18.507Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 41 - The Role of Play in Strategizing

from Part V - Substantive Topic Areas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2025

By
Claus D. Jacobs  and
Jane K. Lê
Edited by
Damon Golsorkhi ,
Linda Rouleau ,
David Seidl  and
Eero Vaara
Damon Golsorkhi
Affiliation:
emlyon Business School
Linda Rouleau
Affiliation:
HEC Montréal
David Seidl
Affiliation:
Universität Zürich
Eero Vaara
Affiliation:
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Get access

Summary

Claus Jacobs and Jane Lê discuss the role of play in strategizing. While play and games have been linked with strategy for quite some time, it is only very recently that strategy scholars have focused explicit attention on the role of play. The authors start with a discussion about different approaches to play. This leads them to identify and elaborate on four purposes of using play can be used for in strategizing: achieving novelty, improving understanding of complexity, suspending norms and inviting experimentation, and skill development. They conclude with a discussion about three potential areas for future research on play in strategizing: enriching our conceptual repertoire of play, extending our empirical repertoire of play, and exploring play across all parts of the strategy process.

Keywords

strategy as practicepractice approachplaygames
Type
Chapter
Information
Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice , pp. 740 - 754
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ackroyd, S. and Thompson, P. (1999), Organisational Misbehaviour. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Attardo, S. (2010),Linguistic Theories of Humor. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, M. M. (1984), Rabelais and His World. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Balogun, J. and Johnson, G. (2004), ‘Organizational restructuring and middle manager sensemaking’, Academy of Management Journal, 47: 523–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balogun, J. and Johnson, G. (2005), ‘From intended strategy to unintended outcomes: the impact of change recipient sensemaking’, Organization Studies, 26: 1573–602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balogun, J., Best, K. and Lê, J. (2015), ‘Selling the object of strategy: how frontline workers realize strategy through their daily work’, Organization Studies, 36/10: 1285–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beech, N., Burns, H., de Caestecker, L., MacIntosh, R. and MacLean, D. (2004), ‘Paradox as invitation to act in problematic change situations’, Human Relations, 57: 1313–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, M. (1962), Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy. Madrid: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, M. (1993), ‘More about metaphor’, in Ortony, A. (ed.), Metaphor and Thought: 19–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, R. N. (1993), ‘Metaphor and theory change’, in Ortony, A. (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Burgelman, R. A., Floyd, S. W., Laamanen, T., Mantere, S., Vaara, E. and Whittington, R. (2018), ‘Strategy processes and practices: dialogues and intersections’, Strategic Management Journal, 39/3: 531–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bürgi, P. T. and Roos, J. (2003), ‘Images of strategy’, European Management Journal, 21/1: 69–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bürgi, P. T., Jacobs, C. D. and Roos, J. (2005), ‘From metaphor to practice: in the crafting of strategy’, Journal of Management Inquiry, 14/1: 78–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, A. (2008), Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coveney, P. J. and Highfield, J. R. L. (1995), Frontiers of Complexity: The Search for Order in a Chaotic World. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Dameron, S., Lê, J. K. and LeBaron, C. (2015), ‘Materializing strategy and strategizing materials: why matter matters’, British Journal of Management, 26/S1: 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Felten, E., Raj, M. and Seamans, R. (2021), ‘Occupational, industry, and geographic exposure to artificial intelligence: a novel dataset and its potential uses’, Strategic Management Journal, 42/12: 2195–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freud, S. (1922 [1920]), Beyond the Pleasure Principle. New York: Norton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geertz, C. (1973), The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gergen, K. J. (1992), The Saturated Self. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gergen, K. J. (2009), Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Groys, B. (2014), On the New. London: Verso Books.Google Scholar
Heracleous, L. and Jacobs, C. (2008), ‘Understanding organizations through embodied metaphors’, Organization Studies, 29/1: 45–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holliday, G., Statler, M. and Flanders, M. (2007), ‘Developing practically wise leaders through serious play’, Consulting Psychology Journal, 59: 126–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huizinga, J. (1955), Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. Boston, MA: The Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Inhelder, B. and Piaget, J. (1958), The Growth of Logical Thinking from Childhood to Adolescence: An Essay on the Construction of Formal Operational Structures, vol. 22. Psychology Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, C. and Heracleous, L. (2005), ‘Answers for questions to come: reflective dialogue as an enabler of strategic innovation’, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 18: 338–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, C. and Statler, M. (2005), ‘Strategy creation as serious play’, in Floyd, S., Roos, J., Jacobs, C., and Kellerman, F. (eds), Innovating Strategy Process: 47–55. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Jacobs, C. and Statler, M. (2006), ‘Toward a technology of foolishness: developing scenarios through serious play’, International Studies of Management and Organization, 36/3: 77–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. (2005), Strategy as Practice: An Activity Based Approach. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. and Kaplan, S. (2015), ‘Strategy tools‐in‐use: a framework for understanding “technologies of rationality” in practice’, Strategic Management Journal, 36/4: 537–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. and Lê, J. K. (2017), ‘We have to do this and that? You must be joking: constructing and responding to paradox through humor’, Organization Studies, 38/3–4: 433–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P., Seidl, D. and Balogun, J. (2022), ‘From germination to propagation: two decades of strategy-as-practice research and potential future directions’, Human Relations, 75/8: 1533–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, M. (1987), The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, G., Langley, A., Melin, L. and Whittington, R. (2007), Strategy as Practice: Research and Resources. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, I. (1950), Critique of Judgment. Translated by Pluhar, W. S.. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Kiron, D. and Schrage, M. (2019), ‘Strategy for and with AI’, MIT Sloan Management Review, 60/4: 30–5.Google Scholar
Krakowski, S., Luger, J. and Raisch, S. (2023), ‘Artificial intelligence and the changing sources of competitive advantage’, Strategic Management Journal, 44/6, 1425–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kwon, W., Clarke, I., Vaara, E., Mackay, R. and Wodak, R. (2020), ‘Using verbal irony to move on with controversial issues’, Organization Science, 31/4: 797–1051.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G. (1993), ‘The contemporary theory of metaphor’, in A Ortony, A. (ed.), Metaphor and Thought: 202–51. 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980), Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1999), Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Lehtonen, M. J., Vesa, M. and Harviainen, J. T. (2022), ‘Games-as-a-Disservice: emergent value co-destruction in platform business models’, Journal of Business Research, 141: 564–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovas, B. and Ghoshal, S. (2000), ‘Strategy as guided evolution’, Strategic Management Journal, 21/9: 875–96.3.0.CO;2-P>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, O. (2010), ‘Cooking with humor: in-group humor as social organization’, Humor, 23: 127–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacIntosh, R. and MacLean, D. (1999), ‘Conditioned emergence: a dissipative structures approach to transformation’, Strategic Management Journal, 20/4: 297–316.3.0.CO;2-Q>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Makadok, R., Burton, R. and Barney, J. (2018), ‘A practical guide for making theory contributions in strategic management’, Strategic Management Journal, 39/6:1530–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mainemelis, C. and Ronson, S. (2006), ‘Ideas are born in fields of play: towards a theory of play and creativity in organizational settings’, Research in Organizational Behavior, 27: 81–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
March, J. G. (1976), ‘The technology of foolishness’, in March, J. G., and Olsen, J. P. (eds), Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations: 69–81. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget.Google Scholar
March, J.G. (1987), ‘Ambiguity and accounting: the elusive link between information and decision making’, Accounting, Organizations and Society, 12/2: 153–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
March, J.G. (2006), ‘Rationality, foolishness, and adaptive intelligence’, Strategic Management Journal, 27/3: 201–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mead, G. H. (1999), Play, School and Society (edited and Introduced by Deegan, Mary Jo). New York: Peter Lang Publishing.Google Scholar
Meyer, J. C. (2000), ‘Humor as a double-edged sword: four functions of humor in communication’, Communication Theory, 10/3: 310–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mintzberg, H. (1987), ‘Crafting strategy’, Harvard Business Review, 65/4: 66–75.Google Scholar
Morgan, G. (1986), Images of Organization, Beverley Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Nicolini, D. (2009), ‘Zooming in and out: studying practices by switching theoretical lenses and trailing connections’, Organization Studies, 30: 1391–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oliver, D. and Roos, J. (2000), Striking a Balance: Complexity and Knowledge Landscapes. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Ortony, A. (ed.) (1993), Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petelczyc, C. A., Capezio, A., Wang, L., Restubog, S. L. D. and Aquino, K. (2018), ‘Play at work: an integrative review and agenda for future research’, Journal of Management, 44/1: 161–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piaget, J. (2001), The Language and Thought of the Child. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Plato, (1991), The Republic of Plato. Translated by Bloom, A. D.. 2nd edn. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Roos, J. and Victor, B. (1999), ‘Toward a new model of strategy-making as serious play’, European Management Journal, 17/4: 348–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roos, J., Victor, B. and Statler, M. (2004), ‘Playing seriously with strategy’, Long Range Planning, 37: 549–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rorty, R. (1989), Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rouleau, L. (2005), ‘Micro-practices of strategic sensemaking and sensegiving: how middle managers interpret and sell change every day’, Journal of Management Studies, 42: 1413–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rouleau, L. and Balogun, J. (2011), ‘Middle managers, strategic sensemaking, and discursive competence’, Journal of Management Studies, 48/5: 953–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schatzki, T. (2001), ‘Practice theory’, in Schatzki, T. R., Knorr-Cetina, K., and von Savigny, E. (eds), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory: 1–14. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schatzki, T. R. (2010), Site of the Social: A Philosophical Account of the Constitution of Social Life and Change. Philadelphia, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Schrage, M. (2000), Serious Play: How the World’s Best Companies Simulate to Innovate. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Seidl, D. and Whittington, R. (2014), ‘Enlarging the strategy-as-practice research agenda: towards taller and latter ontologies’, Organization Studies, 35/10: 1407–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sennett, R. (2008), The Craftsman. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Statler, M. and Oliver, D. (2008), ‘Facilitating serious play’, in Hodgkinson, G., and Starbuck, W. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Decision Making: 475–94. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Statler, M., Heracleous, L. and Jacobs, C. D. (2011), ‘Serious play as a practice of paradox’, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 47/2: 236–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Statler, M., Jacobs, C. and Roos, J. (2008), ‘Performing strategy: analogical reasoning as a strategic practice’, Scandinavian Journal of Management, 24: 133–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Statler, M., Roos, J. and Victor, B. (2009), ‘Ain’t misbehavin’: taking play seriously in organizations’, Journal of Change Management, 9/1: 87–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stigliani, I. and Ravasi, D. (2012), ‘Organizing thoughts and connecting brains: material practices and the transition from individual to group-level prospective sensemaking’, Academy of Management Journal, 55/5: 1232–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suddaby, R., Seidl, D. and Lê, J. K. (2013), ‘Strategy-as-practice meets neo-institutional theory’, Strategic Organization, 11/3: 329–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sutton-Smith, B. (1997), The Ambiguity of Play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Swabey, M. C. (1962), ‘Comic laughter: a philosophical essay’, The Journal of Philosophy, 59/14: 376–84.Google Scholar
Turner, V. W. (1969), The Ritual Process. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine Publishing.Google Scholar
Vesa, M. and Tienari, J. (2022). ‘Artificial intelligence and rationalized unaccountability: ideology of the elites?’, Organization, 29/6: 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978), ‘The role of play in development’, in Cole, M., Jolm-Steiner, V., Scribner, S., and Souberman, E. (eds), Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes: 92–104. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Whittington, R. (2006), ‘Completing the practice turn in strategy research’, Organization Studies, 27/5: 613–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winnicott, D. W. (2001), Playing and Reality. London: Routledge Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×