Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and

EGOS 2015, Sub-theme 46, Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and practitioner interaction

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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

mailto:[email protected]


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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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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 sub-

unit 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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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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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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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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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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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 socio-

material 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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(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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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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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

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

Action to be

taken

More meetings

Communication over the telephone + meetings


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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 start-

up 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-

table activity

Outcome from strategy group 1 Outcome from strategy group 2

Producing

strategy themes

To many stocks

To many old stock

Prognosis

Punctuality

Better planning

Contracts

Many resources

Critical mass

Allocation to logistic centre

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

Organizing

strategy themes

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)

Control and follow-up

Responsibility – sender, receiver

Direct communication

Celebrate our victories

Optimising social network

Career opportunities


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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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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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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 socio-

material 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


Page 16

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


Page 17

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


Page 18

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 sub-

unit 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.


Page 19

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Documents

Openness in strategy: Social strategy practices and