HEC Montréal

About: HEC Montréal is a education organization based out in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Context (language use) & Vehicle routing problem. The organization has 1221 authors who have published 5708 publications receiving 196862 citations. The organization is also known as: Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales de Montreal & HEC Montreal.

Middle Managers, Strategic Sensemaking and Discursive Competence

Abstract: This paper seeks to better understand the way middle managers contribute strategically to the development of an organization by examining how they enact the strategic roles allocated to them, with particular reference to strategic change. Through vignettes drawn from the authors' current research, a framework is developed that shows two situated, but interlinked, discursive activities, ‘performing the conversation’ and ‘setting the scene’, to be critical to the accomplishment of middle manager sensemaking. Language use is key, but needs to be combined with an ability to devise a setting in which to perform the language. The paper shows how middle managers knowledgeably enact these two sets of discursive activities by drawing on contextually relevant verbal, symbolic, and sociocultural systems, to allow them to draw people from different organizational levels into the change as they go about their day-to-day work.

External Relationships and the Small Business: A Review of Small Business Alliance and Network Research*

Abstract: In order to thrive, small businesses are often advised to develop relationships with external organizations that have the potential to assist business development, survival, and growth. A focus on the external relationships of the small business underlines the vital importance of external resources in moving a small business toward increased success and profitability. Covering the period from 1990 to 2002, this paper reviews the small business literature as it relates to the use of these external relationships (such as organizational partnerships, networks, and alliances). In response to both academic and practitioner demand for further research in this area, an exhaustive analysis of the relevant literature was conducted and three “meta” research questions representing the connections within this literature were formed. The resource-based view of the firm, resource dependency theory, and punctuated equilibrium theory are proposed as useful starting points for exploring these research questions and can give direction for moving forward in this research area.

Strategizing in pluralistic contexts: Rethinking theoretical frames:

Abstract: Pluralistic organizations characterized by multiple objectives, diffuse power and knowledge-based work processes present a complex challenge both for strategy theorists and for strategy practitioners because the very nature of strategy as usually understood (an explicit and unified direction for the organization) appears to contradict the natural dynamics of these organizations. Yet pluralism is to some extent always present in organizations and perhaps increasingly so. This article explores the usefulness of three alternate and complementary theoretical frames for understanding and influencing strategy practice in pluralistic contexts: Actor-Network Theory, Conventionalist Theory and the social practice perspective. Each of these frameworks has a predominant focus on one of the fundamental attributes of pluralism: power, values and knowledge. Together, they offer a multi-faceted understanding of the complex practice of strategizing in pluralistic contexts.

Strategy as Practice: Research Directions and Resources

Abstract: Preface Part I: 1. Introducing the Strategy as Practice Perspective: 2. Practical theories 3. Doing research on doing strategy Part II. Introduction to the Papers: 4. Technology as an occasion for structuring: evidence from observations of CT scanners and the social order of radiology departments Stephen R. Barley 5. Making fast strategic decisions in high-velocity environments Kathleen M. Eisenhardt 6. In search of rationality: the purposes behind the use of formal analysis in organizations Ann Langley 7. Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation Dennis A. Gioia and Kumar Chittipeddi 8. Business planning as pedagogy: language and control in a changing institutional field Leslie S. Oakes, Barbara Townley and David J. Cooper 9. Strategizing as lived experience and strategists' everyday efforts to shape strategic direction Dalvir Samra-Fredericks 10. Organizational restructuring and middle manager sensemaking Julia Balogun and Gerry Johnson 11. From metaphor to practice in the crafting of strategy Peter T. Burgi, Claus D. Jacobs and Johan Roos Part III: 12. Reflections References.