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Temporal Work in Strategy Making
Sarah Kaplan,Wanda J. Orlikowski +1 more
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In this paper, the authors developed a model of temporal work in strategy making that articulates how actors resolved differences and linked their interpretations of the past, present, and future so as to construct a strategic account that enabled concrete strategic choice and action.Abstract:
This paper reports on a field study of strategy making in one organization facing an industry crisis. In a comparison of five strategy projects, we observed that organizational participants struggled with competing interpretations of what might emerge in the future, what was currently at stake, and even what had happened in the past. We develop a model of temporal work in strategy making that articulates how actors resolved differences and linked their interpretations of the past, present, and future so as to construct a strategic account that enabled concrete strategic choice and action. We found that settling on a particular account required it to be coherent, plausible, and acceptable; otherwise, breakdowns resulted. Such breakdowns could impede progress, but they could also be generative in provoking a search for new interpretations and possibilities for action. The more intensely actors engaged in temporal work, the more likely the strategies departed from the status quo. Our model suggests that strategy cannot be understood as the product of more or less accurate forecasting without considering the multiple interpretations of present concerns and historical trajectories that help to constitute those forecasts. Projections of the future are always entangled with views of the past and present, and temporal work is the means by which actors construct and reconstruct the connections among them. These insights into the mechanisms of strategy making help explain the practices and conditions that produce organizational inertia and change.read more
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Leading and organizing the future : temporality and social practices within a military staff exercise
TL;DR: In this paper, an ethnographer followed the staff in their daily tasks, aiming to gain understanding of how the staff organization works in practice and how the organization members make sense of their work.
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Exploring an Extension to the Foresight Measure: A Mixed-Mode Study of Individual Managerial Employees
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A delicate balance: how multinationals can harmonize local and global strategies
Abstract: Strategizing in a multinational corporation requires balancing global and local strategy. The purpose of this paper is to provide some insights into how multinational corporations succeed in this endeavor.,The authors conducted a detailed qualitative investigation of the strategy-development processes at Gamma – a European multinational corporation in the materials industry. Specifically, the authors investigated strategy development in the DACH region (i.e., for the German, Austrian and Swiss subsidiaries). To collect data, they conducted interviews with key informants at the corporate headquarters and the subsidiaries and collected archival data.,The data revealed that Gamma had found an approach to strategy development that balanced its global strategy with local conditions, finding a suitable way to align its global and local strategies. The authors therefore unravel three key insights revolving around subsidiaries’ unique interpretations of the basic idea of global strategy, idiosyncratic strategy development processes in subsidiaries and globally and locally synchronized temporal structures.,Knowing how to balance the strategic needs of headquarters and subsidiaries allows multinational corporations to follow a general strategy while simultaneously developing a local market strategy responsive to the individual market requirements.
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Roadmapping: (Missed) opportunities to overcome strategic challenges
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that roadmapping is especially suitable in helping firms to surmount these three critical strategic challenges: coordination, adopt a holistic view of various functional perspectives, and foster commitment among key decision makers.
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