Paul Spee

• The University of Queensland

In this entry, we introduce research programs advocating sociological perspectives on strategy. We place particular emphasis on strategy-as-practice, which brings to bear different approaches from the canon of social theory. We describe the genesis of research on strategy from this perspective, present empirical and methodological examples of recen...

Now in its third edition, this Handbook is essential for students and researchers in Strategic Management and Organizational Theory and Behaviour. The Strategy as Practice approach moves away from the disembodied and asocial study of firm assets, technologies and practices, towards the study of strategizing as an activity. Strategy is understood as...

In this editorial, the authors present an overview of the papers featured in this volume, all centered around the theme of “Routine Dynamics: Organizing in a World in Flux.” Recognizing the omnipresence of flux in organizational life, the authors identify key themes that emerged across the papers. These encompass temporality, improvisation, process...

Field research is an important site for engagement between academics and practitioners, and a stepping stone for collecting data, publishing outputs, and fostering impact. Despite a long-standing recognition that academic research should be relevant for practitioners, academic–practitioner relationships have been stymied through stereotypes around...

The presence of conflicting cues about what is legitimate provided by various stakeholders, begs the question of how the legitimacy of contested institutionalized practices is justified. Recent critique of tax minimization strategies exemplifies this difficulty: on one hand, practitioners need to increase shareholders’ profits; on the other, a grow...

This chapter considers how facets of occupations and professions manifest in routine dynamics. Whilst the salience of occupations and professions on routines has been recognized in extant research on routine dynamics, it remains largely scattered. To illuminate the salience of occupations and professions in the literature on routine dynamics, which...

We add to the ongoing call for greater integration between organizational and history scholarship. Specifically, we contribute by identifying reciprocal opportunities for practice theorists and historians interested in the unfolding of socio-historic patterns over space and time. Through contrasting two studies of 'relationship' in the internationa...

Volumes 70 and 71 of Research in the Sociology of Organizations combine to comprise cutting edge theory and empirical scholarship at the interface of practice and institution in organization studies. As we highlight, this interface has spurred particularly generative conversations with many open questions, and much to explore. We provide a review o...

The current conceptualization of dynamic capabilities entails a paradox, one that hampers the achievement of one of the framework’s main missions: While studies on dynamic capabilities claim to offer explanations of continuous, routine-based organizational change, their prevalent conceptualization of organizational routines is rather undynamic and...

This chapter considers how facets of occupations and professions manifest in routine dynamics. Whilst the salience of occupations and professions on routines has been recognized in extant research on routine dynamics, it remains largely scattered. To illuminate the salience of occupations and professions in the literature on routine dynamics, which...

This essay extends a Bourdieusian perspective on the microfoundations of institutions. Drawing on this perspective, we argue that the recursive dynamics of institutions and action orient actors towards the maintenance of distinct and contradictory practices within, rather than bridging across, different fields. We corroborate our argument with an i...

This chapter advances understanding of how professional expertise is enacted and created to accomplish routines in the context of technology-mediated work. Information and communication technologies broaden the participation of professionals with various specialist skills and expertise to accomplish work together, which is particularly salient in h...

Since the Global Financial Crisis, corporate tax minimization strategies have come under increasing public scrutiny. While the legitimacy of ‘aggressive’ practices has been challenged, corporate tax minimization largely remains unquestioned and manifests in corporate tax strategies. To appreciate how the institutionalized practice of tax minimizati...

This essay extends a Bourdieusian perspective on the microfoundations of institutions. Drawing on this perspective, we argue that the recursive dynamics of institutions and action orient actors towards the maintenance of distinct and contradictory practices within, rather than bridging across, different fields. We corroborate our argument with an i...

Complementing previous chapters on process philosophy and theory, this chapter offers insights into the crafting of qualitative process analysis grounded in a strong process approach. In particular, this chapter develops a framework that revolves around the analysis of particular moments (doing) and how these shape the flow of experience over time...

This paper addresses a fundamental conundrum at the heart of meaning-making: how are multiple meanings accommodated within a joint account, given the plurivocal nature of organizations? While a new strategic initiative introduces new meanings that must coexist within multiple prevailing meanings; studies on meaning-making processes place different...

Since the Global Financial Crisis, corporate tax minimization strategies have been under increasing public scrutiny. While the legitimacy of ‘aggressive’ practices has been challenged, ‘day-to-day’ tax minimization remains unquestioned and manifests in corporate tax strategies. To appreciate how the institutionalized practice of tax minimization is...

The goal of our chapter is twofold. Firstly, it focuses on the critical role of artifacts within the cycles of action through which routines are performed. Conceptualizing actors and artifact as entangled in action, our study offers a multi-layered approach to the study of routines. Secondly, it advances the theorizing of professional routines that...

This paper advances understanding of the coordination of interdependence between multiple intersecting routines and its influence on the balancing of coexisting ostensive patterns. Building on a professional service routine – the deal appraisal routine – and its intersections with four related routines, we develop a dynamic framework that explains...

Now in its second edition, this extended and thoroughly updated handbook introduces researchers and students to the growing range of theoretical and methodological perspectives being developed in the vibrant field of strategy as practice. With new authors and additional chapters, it shows how the strategy-as-practice approach in strategic managemen...

Full text available from: http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/research_showcase/Smets-lloyds/Smets-manuscript.pdf Drawing on a year-long ethnographic study of reinsurance trading in Lloyd's of London, this paper makes three contributions to current discussions of institutional complexity. First, we shift focus away from structural and rela...

Reinsurance is a financial market that trades in the risk of unpredictable and devastating disasters - such as Hurricane Katrina, the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre. Such disasters are increasing in both frequency and severity, with the cost of their losses mounting rapidly. Reinsurance insures in...

This paper takes seriously the call for strategy-as-practice research to address the material, spatial and bodily aspects of strategic work. Drawing on a video-ethnographic study of strategic episodes in a financial trading context, we develop a conceptual framework that elaborates on strategic work as socially accomplished within particular spaces...

Introduction While spatial and material aspects are fundamental to accomplishing any organizational activity and process, these have largely been neglected or treated as mere background in theoretical accounts that explain phenomena such as strategic change. This dearth of research exploring the role of materials has inspired ‘material turns’ in th...

A strong emphasis on the theorization in business and management research has called for standardized coding and analysis protocols. While this trend has increased the rigor of data analysis, such approaches have neglected the disclosing and sharing of fieldwork practices. Yet the challenges faced while collecting data are an increasingly important...

This paper provides an overview of different approaches to materiality, explaining the assumptions inherent in each approach and how these assumptions alter the way we understand and study strategizing. Where possible, we illustrate the approaches with examples from strategy-as-practice. In-so-doing, we develop a typology of materiality that resear...

Purpose – Increasing complexity, fragmentation, mobility, pace, and technological intermediation of organizational life make “being there” increasingly difficult. Where do ethnographers have to be, when, for how long, and with whom to “be there” and grasp the practices, norms, and values that make the situation meaningful to natives? These novel co...

This paper argues that there is little reporting of qualitative fieldwork practices in business and management journals. We show through the example of a project on a global professional service firm that this is a concerning oversight because the direction of any research endeavour can change significantly during different stages of the fieldwork...

Summary This paper addresses the dearth of research into material artifacts and how they are engaged in strategizing activities. Building on the strategy-as-practice perspective, and the notion of epistemic objects, we develop a typology of strategy practices that show how managers use material artifacts to strategize by a dual process of knowledge...

At its most fundamental, businesses are built by establishing relationships with customers. Such relationships enable you to capture more of their patronage by better evaluating and servicing their needs. High-volume industries with fragmented customers, such as supermarkets and other retailers of fast-moving consumer goods can use rich purchasing...

This review maps and critically evaluates the rapidly growing body of research in the strategy-as-practice field. Following an introduction on the emergence and foundations of strategy-as-practice, the review is structured in three main parts, based on the terminology, issues and research agendas outlined in the field. First, the paper examines the...

This paper examines the construction of a strategic plan as a communicative process. Drawing on Ricoeur's concepts of decontextualization and recontextualization, we conceptualize strategic planning activities as being constituted through the iterative and recursive relationship of talk and text. Based on an in-depth case study, our findings show h...