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Strategizing in pluralistic contexts: Rethinking theoretical frames

January 2007
Human Relations 60(1)

DOI:10.1177/0018726707075288

Authors:

Jean-Louis Denis

Université de Montréal & CRCHUM

Ann Langley

HEC Montréal - École des Hautes Études commerciales

Linda Rouleau

HEC Montréal - École des Hautes Études commerciales

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.

Six 'worlds' or constitutive value frameworks

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Human Relations

DOI: 10.1177/0018726707075288

2007; 60; 179 Human Relations

Jean-Louis Denis, Ann Langley and Linda Rouleau Strategizing in pluralistic contexts: Rethinking theoretical frames

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Strategizing in pluralistic contexts:

Rethinking theoretical frames

Jean-Louis Denis, Ann Langley and Linda Rouleau

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 practitioner s

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 comple-

mentary 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 funda-

mental attributes of pluralism: power, values and knowledge.

Together, they offer a multi-faceted understanding of the complex

practice of strategizing in pluralistic contexts.

KEYWORDS Actor-Network Theor y Conventionalist Theory pluralistic

contexts social practice perspective strategizing

The ‘strategy-as-practice’ perspective takes a particular interest in the way

that strategizing takes place in different contexts (Whittington, 2003; Wilson

& Jarzabkowski, 2004). This article aims to develop a better understanding

of the practice of strategy (or ‘strategizing’) in ‘pluralistic contexts’, deﬁned

here as organizational contexts characterized by three main features: multiple

179

Human Relations

DOI: 10.1177/0018726707075288

Volume 60(1):179–215

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objectives, diffuse power and knowledge-based work processes. Clearly, all

organizations are to some degree pluralistic and to that extent, the ideas we

present here are applicable anywhere. Yet, some organizations appear to be

‘more pluralistic’ than others. For example, hospitals, arts organizations,

universities, professional partnerships and cooperatives have traditionally

possessed the characteristics we have described rather strongly. As organ-

izations in many industries enter into various forms of collaborative arrange-

ments, as matrices and networks penetrate organizational structures, and as

knowledge workers play an increasingly important role in the economy,

pluralistic forms of organization are becoming more and more prevalent

(Løwendahl & Revang, 1998). Yet, while pluralism may have beneﬁts, it

challenges conventional conceptions of strategic decision-making. As Cohen

and March (1986: 195) noted in their discussion of the dilemmas underly-

ing the university president’s role: ‘When purpose is ambiguous, ordinary

theories of decision-making and intelligence become problematic. When

power is ambiguous, ordinary theories of social order and control become

problematic’.

Our article seeks to enrich Cohen and March’s (1986) observation by

exploring the potential contribution of some alternative theoretical frames

from sociology and organization theory to the understanding of strategy

practice. The three foundational frameworks presented here were chosen for

their particular relevance in a context of pluralism. They are Actor-Network

Theory (Callon, 1986; Latour, 1987), Conventionalist Theory (Boltanski &

Thévenot, 1991, 2006) and Social Practice Theories (de Certeau, 1984;

Giddens, 1984).

The three frameworks taken together constitute a multifaceted theor-

etical base contributing to enrich the overall strategy-as-practice agenda in

four complementary ways. First, these three approaches provide distinctive

insights into how managers practically construct the links between their

micro-daily activities and the macro-structures of their organizations and

their environment (Johnson et al., 2003; Regnér, 2003). Second, each

provides useful theoretical concepts for understanding what managers and

others do when they are strategizing (Whittington, 1996). Third, these three

approaches all recognize the importance of dealing with the materiality of

the strategizing process, according special attention to the tools and tech-

nologies that managers and others use (Whittington, 2004). Fourth, the

approaches suggested offer directions for the possible improvement of reﬂex-

ivity among practitioners, thus assuming one of the most important chal-

lenges of a strategy-as-practice agenda (Balogun & Johnson, 2004;

Jarzabkowski, 2003, 2004).

We begin the article by brieﬂy reviewing the previous literature on

strategizing within the context of pluralism. We then present the three

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alternative conceptual frames and explore their implications. Finally, we

compare these perspectives to identify commonalities, complementarities and

implications for researchers and practitioners.

The challenges of strategizing in pluralistic contexts

Previous literature on ‘strategizing’ in contexts recognized to be pluralistic

(such as hospitals, arts organizations, universities, voluntary services

organizations, and so on), has drawn attention to the various ways in which

the practices of strategizing diverge from generally accepted thinking about

strategic management. For example, Cohen et al. (1972) used the term

‘organized anarchy’ to describe pluralistic organizations and argued that in

such contexts, decisions follow a ‘garbage-can’ process in which problems,

solutions and choices are uncoupled from one another. Later, Mintzberg and

colleagues, through detailed studies of organizations such as the National

Film Board and McGill University, described the way in which these organ-

izations appeared able to generate coherent patterns in their activities

without any clear centralized intention (Mintzberg & McHugh, 1985;

Mintzberg & Waters, 1985). Rather, through the cumulative activities of

autonomous professionals, or through spontaneous convergence, a certain

consistent orientation became evident that an outside observer would recog-

nize as a ‘strategy’. Yet, the deliberate top management process usually

associated with strategy making might be either absent or irrelevant to what

the organization was actually doing.

Some literature has also looked at what happens when attempts are

made to apply modes of strategy making developed for more mechanistic

types of organizations in pluralistic contexts. For example, Denis et al.

(1995) observed that when strategic planning was adopted by hospitals, great

difﬁculty was experienced in generating plans that were clear and focused.

Instead, they found that plans were composed of long lists of vague develop-

mental recommendations that provided little obvious guidance for action. In

their work on strategic change in universities Gioia and colleagues (Gioia &

Chittipeddi, 1991; Gioia & Thomas, 1996) drew attention to the potential

symbolic power of a broad vision that revealed to organization members the

gap between their own view of themselves (identity) and a desirable image.

However, in their studies of leadership and strategic change in health care

settings, Denis et al. (1996, 2001) noted the fragile nature of novel strategic

orientations in a context where leadership positions were shared. In these

contexts, change moved forward cyclically in ﬁts and starts, as the actions

of organizational leaders to implement strategic visions often stimulated

resistance, leading to leadership turnover and setbacks in implementation.

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Overall, the literature suggests that pluralistic contexts present a

complex challenge for would-be strategists. Strategizing implies the capacity

to inﬂuence organizational action. Yet, pluralism (as constituted by the three

complementary characteristics of diffuse power, divergent objectives and

knowledge-based work) appears to generate at least three types of problems

for those interested in promoting concerted organizational action:

1) Individual autonomy is often associated with collective paralysis: with

diffuse power and an emphasis on knowledge-based work, pluralistic

organizations generally provide broad scope for individual action,

encouraging local development and ﬂexibility. Indeed, this is one of the

advantages often associated with pluralism. Yet this same autonomy

can constitute a barrier to integrated organizational action as people

are equally free to dissociate themselves from centrally established

orientations (Cohen & March, 1986; Hardy et al., 1984).

2) Participative strategizing produces inﬂationary consensus: under situ-

ations of diffuse power where multiple stakeholders can have an

inﬂuence on strategic directions, participative strategizing appears

unavoidable to ensure that all actors are involved and committed to

emerging strategies. Yet, the literature described above shows that in

practice, consensus may often be achieved at the expense of realism in

proposed strategies (Denis et al., 1995).

3) Diffuse power and divergent objectives produce dilution in strategic

change initiatives: in pluralistic organizations, diffuse power structures

mean that strategic change must often be negotiated through the same

people and processes that produced a perception of the need for change

in the ﬁrst place. Thus, changes are often diluted as they are imple-

mented, producing a ‘sedimented’ layering of partially digested

structures and strategic orientations (Cooper et al., 1996; Denis et al.,

2001; Mone et al., 1998).

Clearly, rational models of strategic management are of limited assist-

ance in understanding or confronting these challenges precisely because they

tend to assume away pluralism. Nevertheless, various theories that might be

more relevant to pluralistic contexts have been explored by strategic manage-

ment scholars. Most obviously there is a stream of research centred on politi-

cal processes in strategy making (Hardy, 1995; Narayanan & Fahey, 1982;

Pettigrew, 1973). From this perspective, diffuse power and divergent

objectives ensure that strategies will be the ‘political resultant’ of ‘pulling and

hauling’ (Allison, 1971) among competing interests and visions of appropri-

ate strategic directions. A political frame clearly has potential and echoes of

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it will be seen in some of our discussion below. However, as noted by Hardy

and Clegg (1996), many discussions of power and politics in organizational

strategy-making tend to see power as a legitimate resource only for the

dominant coalition. Indeed, the very word ‘politics’ is associated in the

minds of many managers and scholars alike with ‘illegitimate’ (read not

managerially sanctioned) behaviour (Dean & Sharfman, 1996; Eisenhardt

& Bourgeois, 1988). There is a need for a perspective on strategizing in

which pluralism is viewed as a natural state of affairs and not as a sub-

versive aberration.

Another perspective with some relevance is the institutional school

(Ferlie et al., 1996; Greenwood & Hinings, 1996; Townley, 2002) because

it focuses on the origins of the values and interpretive schemes that inﬂuence

organizational members. Pluralistic organizations are characterized by the

co-existence of a variety of logics or rationalities which are legitimated by

stakeholders inside and outside the organization. Again the discussion

presented below echoes some of these ideas. However, institutional theorists

have generally not explained the processes by which a strategist in action

juxtaposes or reconciles divergent frames, or the processes by which a

compromise among competing rationalities may become possible.

In this article, we look beyond the rational, political and institutional

models of strategizing to explore the potential of three alternate theoretical

perspectives. These view strategizing respectively as a ‘translation process’,

as an ‘accommodation process’, and as a ‘social practice’. In the discussion

below, we examine the conceptual roots of each perspective in social and

organizational theory, the type of deﬁnition of strategy that derives from it,

the role of organizational actors within it, and the conceptions of outcomes

that it favours. We also identify and examine the limited number of empiri-

cal research exemplars from the organization studies literature that draw on

these frames. We argue that each individual perspective offers a new way

to understand and address some particular challenges of strategizing in

pluralistic contexts. The comparison and confrontation of ideas based on

these perspectives also has potential to offer richer insights than each

perspective alone.

Strategizing as a translation process: Building actor-networks

Conceptual foundations

Actor-Network Theory (or ANT) was originally developed by French

sociologists of science Michel Callon (1986) and Bruno Latour (1987) as an

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approach to understanding the emergence and dominance of technological

and scientiﬁc ideas. It is a combined methodological and conceptual tool

based on the somewhat controversial idea that technological artefacts and

even scientiﬁc ‘discoveries’ are socially deﬁned as scientists, engineers, entre-

preneurs, and others interact with each other and with existing artefacts in

a dynamic and non-deterministic way to bring new objects and new scientiﬁc

concepts into existence to the point where they are taken for granted. Speciﬁ-

cally, the approach views technologies and the networks of human and non-

human actors (or ‘actants’) linked to them as mutually constitutive. The

technology and the actor-network are built up gradually and simultaneously

as central actors (‘translators’ in ANT’s specialized language) succeed in

mobilizing other participants and non-human entities as supporters of their

deﬁnition of the technology while simultaneously redeﬁning it in terms that

can maintain this support. Technological artifacts become taken for granted

(‘irreversible’) as the actor-networks surrounding them are solidiﬁed. Actors

are attached to the network as the artifact in question is deﬁned so as to

‘translate’ their needs and identities, with different actors being quite likely

to interpret the emerging ‘object’ and their own role with respect to it in

different ways. The trick for a would-be ‘translator’ is to make the different

meanings mutually compatible and to ‘enrol’ a network of actors so that the

object may come to exist.

The theory as developed by its originators involves an extensive and

sometimes rather hermetic set of terms to describe its various elements. For

example, theorists speak of ‘obligatory passage points’ as the creation of

nodes through which all actors must pass in order to obtain what they need.

Theorists also talk of four sub-processes or ‘moments’ of translation:

‘problematization’ in which translators attempt to deﬁne an issue and offer

an ‘obligatory passage point’ drawing an initial set of actors together to solve

it; ‘intéressement’ in which translators determine and ﬁx the interests of key

actors so that they are willing to stay with an emerging project; ‘enrolment’

in which representatives of main groups of actors are assigned ‘roles’ and are

drawn together to build an alliance; ‘mobilization’ in which the actor-

network is extended beyond an initial group.

The theory obviously recalls a political model of organization and

society. Simplistically, ‘translators’ can be seen as Machiavellian manipu-

lators who use every trick in the book to build alliances around their

deﬁnitions of the world. Many writers have tended to apply the theory in

this way. However, Latour (1996) himself resists this reductionist inter-

pretation of ANT. He insists on the symmetry of the theory as a uniﬁed model

of the natural and social worlds in which no entity (human or non-human)

has particular priority or lies outside the network. For example, translators

are themselves constituted by the networks of actors supporting them. Any

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technology is itself an actor in a network that contributes to deﬁning the

identities and roles of other actors. The theory is also dynamic. While it has

often been used to explain how technological artefacts become ‘irreversible’,

that irreversibility is always contestable as the network supporting an

artefact or object shifts over time.

ANT and strategizing in pluralistic contexts

So how might this set of conceptual and methodological tools be relevant to

strategizing in pluralistic contexts? First, pluralistic contexts are character-

ized by diffuse power. It is clear that this feature lies front and centre in ANT

to the extent that the theory describes and explains how despite fragmen-

tation of power and goals, it is possible to build networks of support around

deﬁnitions of technology so that they become taken for granted. Second, the

ﬂexibility of ANT allows almost any entity to be deﬁned in terms of actor-

networks that support it. Thus in this framework, an ‘organizational

strategy’ can be taken as equivalent to any technological artifact or scientiﬁc

discovery. From this perspective, a particular ‘strategy’ exists to the extent

that its existence is made real by the network of organizational actors

(human and non-human) that support it. ANT also offers a series of ideas

about how such strategies might be created. Strategizing, within this

deﬁnition, becomes a ‘translation’ process with all the potential elements of

problematization, intéressement, enrolment, and mobilization leading

potentially (but not deterministically) to the irreversibility of a well-deﬁned

strategy. The fragility of strategic orientations in pluralistic contexts is

explainable by the way in which actors are or are not able to detach them-

selves from the deﬁnition of strategy and the network of support that

dynamically emerges through this translation process. The approach also

draws attention to the ways in which certain objects can acquire agency

(become ‘actants’) in the process of strategizing. For example, objects such

as strategic plans or resource allocation formulas, once constituted, may

serve to deﬁne or at least constrain the roles and identities of human actors.

Based on the analogy above, the application and extension of ANT to

strategizing in pluralistic contexts appears immediately obvious and at ﬁrst

sight, appealing. Yet empirical applications to organizational issues are still

rare. Most such applications deal with the implementation of artifacts that

are to some extent technological in nature and thus closest to the original

domain of ANT. For example, ANT has been used to look at the adoption

and diffusion of information systems (Lea et al., 1995; Walsham & Sahay,

1999); accounting systems (Chua, 1995; Fussel & George, 2000; Lowe,

2001); and performance models (Hansen & Mauritsen, 1999). While these

works are interesting, in this article, we focus more speciﬁcally in Table 1 on

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Table 1 Illustrative applications of ANT to strategy-related issues

Article Context and strategic Methodology Contributions from use of ANT

issue/artefact considered

Knights et al. (1993) Organizational context: Case study Uses ANT as a tool to trace the complex non-linear processes by which

Inter-organizational a new intermediary organization is created in an industry. The networking

relationships within the activities among actors and intermediaries required to create this new

ﬁnancial services industry organization are used to illustrate an important new kind of

organizational knowledge-work.

Focal strategic artefact:a

new company to manage

electronic interface in the

industry

Ezzamel (1994) Organizational context: Single case study Uses ANT to show how power inherent in knowledge-based artifacts

University (based on (like a budgeting system) can be mobilized by both proponents and

participant opponents of change to redeﬁne strategic situations (paper uses ANT

Focal strategic artefact: a observation & combined with Foucauldian theory).

new budgeting system analysis of

suggesting a major documents)

reallocation of resources

Parker & Wragg (1999) Organizational context: Single case study Uses ANT to illustrate the creation of competing networks struggling to

Public sector local (little information control the deﬁnition of a single strategic issue (navigation on the Wye),

community domain but appears based and the role of ‘texts’ in glueing together durable networks (in this case,

on interviews and a 150-year-old document was invoked).

Focal strategic artefact: documents)

plans for river navigation

(cont.)

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Denis et al. Strategizing in pluralistic contexts 187

Table 1 continued

Article Context and strategic Methodology Contributions from use of ANT

issue/artefact considered

Demers & Charbonneau Organizational context: Discourse Uses ANT to illustrate various discursive (‘translation’) strategies within

(2001) Electricity company and analysis of a the text of a single strategy document. The paper shows how the authors

stakeholder groups single major of the document position the interests of various other actors, deﬁning

document the reasons why they should support the proposed strategy (e.g.‘You

Focal strategic artefact: need what we have’,‘We want what you want’,‘Don’t we all want the

plan to dam a major river same thing?’, Latour, 1987).

for electricity production

Hensman (2001) Organizational context: A Case study Uses ANT to deﬁne strategy-making as a networking process ‘in which

Cooperative bank (participant intermediaries translate their solutions (. . .) into obligatory passage

observation and points so as to achieve network closure’. Shows how these solutions can

Focal strategic artefact: interviews) become ‘black holes’ that attract all attempts at alternative solutions and

customer relations thus prevent constructive change.

management (but also

includes other strategies

deﬁnable as contributing to

customer value)

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the much smaller number of applications that seem to have a closer relation-

ship with strategy and strategizing. Note that since ANT has not moved into

the mainstream strategy literature, applications tend to be published in less

widely known outlets (some in French).

In Table 1, we have noted the source, the context and strategic issue

considered, the methods adopted and the particular way in which ANT has

been used. The ﬁrst observation about these contributions is that (with no

planning on our part) all papers deal directly or indirectly with pluralistic

contexts. Three of the ﬁve papers explicitly concern inter-organizational

issues. The papers by Demers and Charbonneau (2001) and Parker and

Wragg (1999) are concerned with public policy questions that involve a

variety of stakeholders, while the article by Knights et al. (1993) deals with

the creation of a new organization serving as an intermediary in an inter-

organizational domain. Thus its mission and strategy are necessarily deﬁned

through the networking processes developed among its originators. The

other two papers involve single organizational contexts but ones that have

pluralistic components: a university (Ezzamel, 1994) and a ﬁnancial services

cooperative (Hensman, 2001). Clearly, ANT has particular resonance for

strategizing in pluralistic contexts.

Although all the papers view strategizing processes in terms of the

construction of actor-networks, they illustrate between them three different

dynamic patterns that can emerge from this process: strategic convergence,

strategic conﬂict and strategic inertia. A fourth dynamic pattern – strategic

instability – is emerging in some of our own recent research.

The article by Knights et al. (1993) focuses on the development of

strategic convergence around a single solution from a situation of fragmen-

tation. This is the article that perhaps most reﬂects the origins of ANT as a

means of explicating the social construction of technological artefacts, except

that here, the artefact is a new organizational form with a speciﬁc mission

and role. As we noted earlier, pluralistic organizations may experience some

difﬁculty in achieving strategic convergence in a deliberate way, but Knights

et al.’s (1993) article shows that it can be done. Similarly, Demers and

Charbonneau’s (2001) study of an organizational strategy document shows

how a speciﬁc actor may discursively construct a convergent network in

terms of meanings – illustrating an attempt at ‘translation’.

Two of the papers focus speciﬁcally on strategic conﬂict. Ezzamel

(1994) and Parker and Wragg (1999) in different ways show how distinct

networks may develop around conﬂicting deﬁnitions of strategy and how

their proponents may draw on knowledge represented in texts or technical

expertise in an attempt to solidify these competing networks.

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The paper by Hensman (2001) provides an interesting illustration of

how strategic inertia can develop in a pluralistic context. In his cooperative

ﬁrm, he identiﬁes a group of actors at an intermediate level between the indi-

vidual member banks and corporate headquarters that has succeeded in

deﬁning its role in such a way as to become an obligatory passage point for

any others attempting to develop a new strategic orientation oriented around

customers. Yet, at the same time, this group of actors has consistently failed

to solidify the organization’s strategy and create viable links with the

environment. However, paradoxically, it succeeds in maintaining its key role

in the organizational network precisely by allowing its strategy to remain

ambiguous. Clarity would destroy the support it maintains from the co-

operative membership. It thus becomes what Hensman calls a ‘black hole’

that attracts almost all strategic initiatives towards it, but that fails to achieve

substantive change.

Finally, in our own ongoing research on hospital mergers, we are

focusing on strategic instability, looking at how networks supporting

strategic orientations form, converge temporarily and then disband to be

replaced by new networks and alternate strategic orientations. Despite huge

investments of energy, actors involved in the newly merged hospital’s attempt

to ﬁnd a way to solidify the merger project in a new conﬁguration of services,

seem unable to reach a stable agreement. Temporary agreements repeatedly

break down as the ambiguities that allowed them to exist become clariﬁed

and as the links tying people to them are loosened by the appearance of other

temporarily more attractive solutions.

Overall, these various pieces of work suggest that there is potential to

enrich understanding of strategizing in pluralistic contexts using actor-

network theory. The approach seems well adapted to contexts involving

atomized participants loosely coupled together – that is, where power is diffuse

and objectives are multiple and shifting. The approach focuses simultaneously

on the mobilization of multiple meanings and the linking of multiple indi-

viduals in a dynamic way. Indeed strategy comes to be deﬁned by the network

of actors that support it – so pluralism is embedded even within its deﬁnition.

A would-be strategist (or ‘translator’) that sees the world from an ANT

perspective will recognize the need to think simultaneously in terms of both

strategies and the networks of support that they can engage. He or she will be

drawn to consider the diverse meanings that strategic orientations may have

for others and how those meanings might be reconstructed to render them

more or less attractive. He or she will also be more sensitive to the dynamic

and shifting nature of strategic consensus as well as the importance of irre-

versible investments in solidifying both networks and strategic orientations.

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Strategizing as an accommodation process: Managing

competing values

Conceptual foundations

One of the main challenges of pluralistic organizations is to generate

strategies in a context of multiple or conﬂicting objectives. The role played

by values and potentially conﬂicting rationalities in shaping behaviours of

organizational actors is well recognized in organizational analysis (Gioa &

Chittipeddi, 1991; Quinn, 1988; Selznick, 1957; Townley, 2002). However,

the processes associated with the reconciliation of competing values systems

have not been analysed extensively. A recent body of work by French

sociologists (Boltanski & Chiapello, 1999; Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991,

2006), the conventionalist school, focuses on the bases and processes by

which actors achieve cooperation despite potentially divergent values.

Somewhat similar to the institutional theorists, the conventionalists are in-

terested in the role played by normative systems in shaping interactions

between individuals. Based on an historical analysis of emerging core values

in the western world, they propose a typology of competing rationalities. The

focus of their analysis is on the dynamics involved in securing the legitimacy

of these core values and in achieving co-existence and reconciliation when

multiple values compete.

More speciﬁcally, following an in-depth analysis of classic work in

political philosophy, Boltanski and Thévenot (1991, 2006) identify six

‘worlds’, ‘cities’ or constitutive value frameworks that structure social

arrangements: the ‘inspirational’, ‘domestic’, ‘opinion’, ‘civic’, ‘merchant’

and ‘industrial’ worlds (see Table 2 derived from Amblard et al., 1996;

Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991, 2006).

The ‘inspirational’ world refers to the legitimacy of the spontaneous

vision, imagination and creativity of the artist. It is a highly individualistic

world. The ‘domestic’ world is a world of tradition ruled by the principles

of loyalty and the respect of authority based on assigned roles, status and

duties among individuals. The world of ‘opinion’ or reputation values the

achievement of public recognition and prestige. The judgements that others

make about a person are critical in this world. The ‘civic’ world values civic

duties and the suppression of particular interests in the pursuit of the

common good. It is based on an ideal of justice and solidarity. The ‘merchant’

world is driven by the interests of competing actors who take part in a

commercial game in order to achieve their personal goals. Finally, the

‘industrial’ world is driven by the search for efﬁciency and standardization.

Science and technology are seen to be powerful tools in the service of

industrial development.

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Each of these worlds is deﬁned according to a set of dimensions. A

given world is based on a superior principle which speciﬁes what needs to

be valued or respected in any social situation, the qualities or attributes that

social agents must demonstrate, the type of effort or investments that indi-

viduals must make to gain respect, and a test (‘épreuve’) that is considered

to be fair in order to determine or restore legitimacy within a given world.

The previous deﬁnitions we provided of the different worlds deﬁne clearly

their superior principles (respectively, spontaneity or artistic ingenuity,

paternalism and hierarchy, opinion of others, collective well-being, com-

petition, instrumental rationality and performance).

To gain respect in a given world, individuals have to show the attributes

that incarnate the superior principle. The artist will be unpredictable, passion-

ate and eccentric, the patriarch of the domestic world will show wisdom and

benevolence, the prestigious individual will constantly seek recognition from

others, civic heroes will promote solidarity and genuine collaboration, the

‘rational actor’ in the merchant world will be a strong promoter of his or her

own interests and the industrial ﬁgure will demonstrate dedication to work

and performance. Similarly, the search for respect in a given world will imply

speciﬁc investments on the part of the individuals. The artist must take risks,

the patriarch must demonstrate a sense of duty, the merchant must look for

opportunities and so on (see Table 2).

Finally, to exemplify each of these worlds, some ideal tests are

suggested by the conventionalists. The great artist will be someone who has

passed through the loneliness and trauma of an introspective adventure. In

Denis et al. Strategizing in pluralistic contexts 191

Table 2 Six ‘worlds’ or constitutive value frameworks

Inspirational Domestic Opinion Civic Merchant Industrial

Superior Inspiration, Tradition, Judgement of Collective Competition Effectiveness,

principle originality loyalty others good performance

Individual Creative, Dedicated, Prestige, Representative, Defence of Dedication to

qualities imaginative, wise, public ofﬁcial self-interest work

passionate benevolent recognition

Speciﬁc Risk Sense of Pursuit of Renunciation Search for Investments in

investments duty publicity of personal personal progress

interests, opportunities

dedication to

solidarity

Test Introspection, Family Setting up Demonstration Concluding a Rational tests

solitude ceremonies public events in favour of contract or

moral causes transaction

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the domestic world, family ceremonies restore the weight of tradition. In the

world of opinion, remarkable public events may increase reputation. In the

civic world, public demonstrations in favour of moral or humanitarian

causes are appreciated. In the merchant world, the signing of contracts and

the completion of economic exchanges reafﬁrm legitimacy. Finally, formal

testing procedures for judging products and work methods are mechanisms

by which the industrial world shows its virtuosity.

In general, the ordering of the social world according to a ﬁxed set of

logics does not leave much freedom to social agents to modify or adapt forms

of rationality. An individual’s scope for action will consist mainly of working

out compromises between pre-existing and competing logics. However,

despite a limited set of recurrent value frameworks, collective settings or situ-

ations will rely on a mix of the different worlds. This is where the notion of

‘conventions’ becomes important. Conventions make the co-existence of

heterogeneous worlds possible by providing an acceptable compromise

between competing value frameworks.

A convention is an artifact or an object that crystallizes the compromise

between various logics in a speciﬁc context. Because individuals in an organ-

ization will not always identify with similar worlds and because a single indi-

vidual may identify with multiple worlds, the invention and negotiation of

conventions becomes critical to ensure coordination and cooperation. For

example, a convention might be a quality improvement policy in a public

service organization where the rules of the merchant and the industrial worlds

act in synergy. A new copyright law could bridge the inspirational world with

the merchant world. Star and Griesemer’s (1989) work on ‘boundary objects’

echoes the conventionalist stance. Boundary objects (as conventions) are

objects that can be interpreted differently by different groups and may thus

bridge different worlds. Star and Griesemer (1989) suggest that various

scenarios can be identiﬁed for creating such bridges, from the use of a lowest

common denominator which minimally satisﬁes each world to the generation

of complex agreements in which each world recognizes its fundamental

values, to the deliberate separation of the different worlds allowing them to

evolve in parallel with minimal coordination.

Of course, conventions in themselves can be a source of tension and

critique in society and organizations. If people feel that some fundamental

principles associated with a world with which they identify are not respected,

they may contest the legitimacy of the rules or instruments used in the

regulation of a situation (e.g. contracts, performance measures, criteria used

to assess the value of research in academia, etc.) taking on the key role of

‘critic’ (Boltanski & Chiapello, 1999) and becoming a potential agent of

change and adjustment. Changes in the environment may also undermine or

favour the relative legitimacy of the various worlds. Boltanski and Thévenot

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(1991, 2006) suggest two main processes by which social agents will try to

restore normative legitimacy of current rules and regulations. They may

become involved in short-term local and superﬁcial compromises, or they

may attempt to negotiate durable agreements that respect the competing

worlds in a more integrated way. In pluralistic contexts, conventions will

develop according to the need to secure acceptable compromises between the

various logics that compete for legitimacy.

In summary, the conventionalists have provided an interesting analyti-

cal framework for deﬁning competing values in organizations that extends

analysis beyond instrumental and formal rationality. Further, their approach

pays attention to the processes by which a normative order gains or main-

tains legitimacy and by which a compromise among competing rationalities

may become possible. How then might these contributions be relevant to the

study of strategizing?

Conventionalist theory and strategizing in pluralistic contexts

In this section we will attempt to extend the conventionalist approach to an

examination of strategizing processes in pluralistic contexts. In contrast to our

previous discussion of ANT and our subsequent discussion of the social

practice perspective that draw more strongly on previous empirical research,

our analysis here is almost exclusively conceptual partly because there have

been few empirical contributions so far (but see Chiapello [1998] on modes

of control in artistic organizations and Demers et al. [2003] on the ‘worlds’

reﬂected in corporate merger announcements). Speciﬁcally, we will focus on

three themes: the role played by the constraints imposed on the manifestation

of the various worlds and their impact on the shaping of strategies, the active

positioning of actors in strategizing processes and the conditions of legitimacy

in a world of conventions.

Strategy as convention rooted in history and societal norms: from a

conventionalist perspective, we propose that organizational strategy can be

deﬁned as a convention: a sustainable compromise among competing values.

Because pluralistic organizations are by deﬁnition not mono-logic, strategies

must incorporate a variety of logics or rationalities. For example, tensions

between the inspirational world and the merchant world are inherent to the

evolution of artistic organizations (Chiapello, 1998; Townley, 2002).

Strategies in such contexts will be a compromise between these logics. They

will be legitimate as long as the ordering of multiple logics is acceptable for

the various stakeholders inside and outside the organization.

From a conventionalist perspective, organizational strategies are the

resultant of deliberate and emergent actions. Emergent strategies develop in

response to broad societal or institutional trends and also to the cumulative

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effect of previous compromises or conventions. The legitimacy of a given

normative order (world) will ﬂuctuate over time (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991)

and strategies will shift to follow broad changes in institutional environ-

ments. For example, recent analysis of the impact of the ‘New Public

Management’ in different public sector domains suggests that ‘managerial-

ism’ as a set of values has recently taken precedence over more ‘traditional’

logics (Ferlie et al., 1996; Townley, 2002). Strategies will thus partly emerge

from these environmental or external determinants and organizations will

have a limited set of worlds or values to rely on in the deﬁnition of its

strategy. Organizational strategies will also be constrained by the nature or

content of previous compromises/conventions and will thus tend to follow a

path-dependency logic. As we see below, this does not mean, however that

organization members cannot play a role in their development.

Strategizing as accommodation; strategists as critics. Strategizing

consists of a set of processes that generate accommodation between compet-

ing values that cannot be discarded but that, at the same time, are sources

of tension. Based on this conception of the strategy formation process,

managers and other individuals have some opportunity for short-term

deliberate action. In fact, the strategist, for the conventionalist, can be

conceived as a ‘critic’.

The role of the ‘critic’ is central to the argument of Boltanski and

Chiapello (1999) in their analysis of contemporary capitalism. It is only or

mostly by contesting explicitly predominant or emerging logics that organ-

ization members will secure a role in the strategy formation process. Without

active critics, the strategy will take shape according to previous arrangements

among the different worlds. Critical thinking questions the normative

assumptions behind current strategies or developments (which worlds are

favoured or rejected) and may help in fostering change. For example, the

presence of individuals who favour increased social responsibility with

regard to the environment may invoke a reframing of organizational

strategies. In such situations, the critic is a vector for an increased consider-

ation of the ‘civic’ world in strategy formulation.

The active involvement of actors in the reading of institutional orders

and in the critique of strategies does not imply that the outcome of the strate-

gizing game is predictable. When multiple actors seek an active role in

strategizing, the resulting strategies will be the product of a mutual adjust-

ment process between conﬂicting expectations. This is why we insisted earlier

on seeing strategies as a relatively sustainable compromise among competing

logics. Moreover, because these value frameworks are highly institutional-

ized for the conventionalist, it may be difﬁcult for actors to act deliberately

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on the content of a given world. Strategizing is more a task of combining

and weighting existing value frames than of shaping them directly.

Performance as legitimacy. As we saw, Boltanski and Thévenot (1991,

2006) used different dimensions to deﬁne their six value frameworks. These

dimensions can be used to understand the performance of organizational

strategists. Because the fundamental problem of the strategist is to ensure the

legitimacy of organizational strategies, the process of strategy formation will

be partly an exercise of demonstration. Strategy takes shape by demonstrat-

ing an afﬁliation or identiﬁcation with core values that are central for a

speciﬁc organizational and environmental context. Thus, a high-performing

strategist will demonstrate his or her virtuosity in competencies or be-

haviours that are viewed as appropriate with respect to different worlds. For

example, a designer who produces a highly creative piece (inspirational

world) and who also achieves success in obtaining contracts for the ﬁrm

(merchant world) will probably be a credible participant in the deﬁnition of

organizational strategy. A successful strategist may be someone who is able

to navigate with credibility between different worlds. Co-strategists who

individually incarnate different worlds but can bridge their differences at the

personal level within the ‘domestic’ world (illustrated in Chiapello’s [1998]

work on a ﬁlm company) may also be effective in achieving accommodation

(e.g. the administrative and artistic directors of an arts organization; or the

administrative and clinical leaders of a health care organization).

Finally, as we saw, one of the main components of the conventionalist

approach is the notion of ‘test’ (épreuve), implying the reafﬁrmation of core

values by the performance of critical processes or events. By extension, the

very processes used to formulate strategies may be an occasion to afﬁrm or

reafﬁrm certain core values. In consequence, the legitimacy of a strategy may

depend on the nature of its formulation process. If the process used is in tune

with predominant value frameworks, the strategy may be seen as being more

acceptable in the eyes of concerned organizational members. Would-be

strategists (or critics) in pluralistic contexts need to consider the value-

implications of both the content of their strategic proposals, and the

processes through which their critique is introduced and integrated into

strategic discourse.

Although some may argue with the restrictive conception of values

described by the conventionalists (why just six worlds?), their work deﬁnes

several dimensions that seem helpful to understanding the linkages between

values and actions in organizations. The emphasis on multiple value schemes

and the ways in which they are accommodated has clear resonance with the

preoccupations and issues associated with strategizing in pluralistic contexts.

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Strategizing as social practice: Mobilizing knowledge in action

Conceptual foundations

In contrast with the two perspectives so far described, the third theoretical

perspective examined constitutes one of the pillars of the micro-strategy

literature. An emerging stream of theoretical and empirical work in strategy

(e.g. Jarzabkowski, 2003; Rouleau, 2005; Samra-Fredericks, 2003;

Whittington, 2001) draws explicitly on theoretical resources associated with

the broader ‘practice turn’ in social theory (Schatzki et al., 2001) and in

particular the work of social theorists such as Bourdieu, Foucault, Giddens,

de Certeau and Vygotski. These theorists all contributed to the questioning

of the systemic and deterministic approaches that dominated American

sociology until the end of the 1970s. Most manifest a strong interest in the

practical accomplishments of skilled social actors in the production of social

life, adopting a position that recognizes the competencies of the individual

and the centrality of knowledge to the production and reproduction of the

social world (Schatzki et al., 2001).

Albeit to different degrees, these social theorists claim that there is a

practical rationality rooted in the concrete detail of daily life. As Gherardi

(2001) argued, practice connects knowing with doing. This perspective there-

fore promotes a focus on the nature of everyday life and the central role it

plays in the social world (de Certeau, 1984). The everyday is where we enter

into a transformative praxis with the outside world, acquire and develop

communicative competence, and actualize our normative conceptions.

Although daily life is generally associated with routine-driven behaviour, it

can also reveal contradictions of social life and activate the possibilities of

change that lie hidden in it (Feldman, 2000).

These social scientists are also preoccupied with the fact that knowl-

edge coming from people must be connected to context or at least to index-

ical meanings in order to be understood. Practical activity cannot be detached

from wider social, cultural, and historical development (Giddens, 1984). In

action, people use these global structures in various ways through a set of

objects and artefacts that symbolize their material existence.

Social practice and strategizing in pluralistic contexts

Drawing on the theoretical roots described above, strategy is considered as

a social practice just like any other practice (Chia, 2004; Hendry, 2000).

Speciﬁcally, from a social practice perspective, strategy is enacted through a

set of social interactions, routines and conversations through which

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managers and others project a direction for their ﬁrm and activate it

(Samra-Fredericks, 2003). Here, the deﬁnition of strategy embraces all the

conversations, routines and interactions which contribute to activate and

transform the ﬁrm’s direction on a daily basis. Also, like any other social

practice, strategy, carried out through individual discourse and action, is

contextually embedded in a set of social, political, and economic relations

(Hendry, 2000). Put another way, strategy is fabricated by situated and local

practices of strategizing using strategic tools and models which are mobilized

through tacit and collective knowledge regarding the future of the enterprise.

While authors in this tradition do not identify their work as particularly

associated with pluralistic contexts as we have deﬁned them, it is clear from

the above description that the approach has particular resonance in plural-

istic domains: strategizing is described as a social practice involving multiple

individuals. For example, several authors focus on the importance of under-

standing how strategic plans are inﬂuenced, consummated and understood by

all actors in the organization, whether or not they are senior managers (de la

Ville & Mounoud, 2003; Whittington, 2001). Westley (1990), in particular,

looks at how middle managers participate in strategic ‘conversations’. At the

same time, other authors extend the notion of strategizing to include actors

outside the organization. For example, Whittington et al. (2003) include

consultants, as well as all institutional actors who, from far or near, con-

tribute to the creation and diffusion of strategy models. Thus, strategy as a

social practice is embedded in a wider organizational ﬁeld that groups

together ﬁrms, consultants, business schools, government, and ﬁnancial insti-

tutions (Whittington et al., 2003). In sum, while pluralistic contexts in the

extreme sense of some of our earlier illustrations are not the only domain of

application for the practice perspective, social practice theorists have a

tendency to see all organizational contexts as, in some way, pluralistic.

In fact, an increasing number of contributions to the literature have

adopted the social practice approach and many of these refer to pluralistic

situations either explicitly or implicitly. In Table 3, we provide illustrative

theoretical and empirical examples of recently published articles that are

engaged in the development of this perspective. All of these draw on the

social scientists associated with the ‘practice turn’ and are interested in the

way people talk, act and interpret when they are strategizing.

Among these contributions, Samra-Fredericks (2003) paid special

attention to the skills or social competencies that managers and others

display in strategizing (for other relevant work, Samra-Fredericks, 2000a,

2000b). For example, she examined the relational-rhetorical skills of one

strategist (not the CEO) and identiﬁed six features including the ability to 1)

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speak forms of knowledge, 2) mitigate and observe the protocols of human

interaction, 3) question and query, 4) display appropriate emotions, 5)

deploy metaphor, and 6) put history to work. The probable relevance of

these social skills for strategizing in pluralistic contexts is immediately

evident. In a different vein, Rouleau (2005) examined middle managers’

routines and conversations related to the implementation of a strategic

change in a top-of-the-line clothing company. The interpretive analysis of

these routines and conversations highlights four micro-practices of strate-

gic sensemaking and sensegiving: translating the orientation, overcoding the

strategy, disciplining the client, and justifying the change. This article

demonstrates that middle managers, through their tacit knowledge of the

social structures they belong to, strategize by enacting a set of micro-

practices which allow them to interpret and sell the change to outside people

at the organizational interface.

Others centre their efforts on the everyday activities that individual

actors perform in enacting strategic orientations (Jarzabkowski, 2003; Oakes

et al., 1998). These activities take different forms such as committees, formal

strategic planning, board meetings, and so on. In this vein, Jarzabkowski

(2003) showed how the formal strategic practices of three top management

teams in universities structured the subjective and emergent processes of

strategizing. The study suggested that contradictions in existing strategic

practices (as displayed in two of the three universities) tended to be

supportive of change.

It is also important to note that language is often at the centre of these

works although it takes on different labels (e.g. talk-in-interaction: Samra-

Fredericks, 2003; communicative discourse: Hendry, 2000). A social practice

perspective of strategy is based on the idea that actors ensure the mediation

between action and cognition through ongoing talk and thus contribute to

the structuration of strategic change processes (de la Ville & Mounoud,

2003). Put differently, it is through language that strategy is linked to action

and routines in practice (Rouleau, 2005).

These works propose some compelling and interesting theoretical

debates and notions which, for the moment, do not have the strong theor-

etical unity of the ANT or conventionalist perspectives. However, they have

generated considerable questioning about what characterizes the social

practice of strategy. The practice perspective suggests that strategizing

consists of mobilizing explicit and tacit knowledge through everyday

discourse and action. While formal strategizing episodes such as strategic

workshops and planning meetings have been identiﬁed as providing a

particularly interesting focus for research attention on the social practices of

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strategy (e.g. Jarzabkowski & Seidl, 2005; Johnson et al., 2005), the practice

perspective may also be particularly powerful when it reveals hidden micro-

dynamics and processes that might not at ﬁrst appear to be strategic

(Rouleau, 2005). For example, Samra-Fredericks’ (2003) description of how

a strategist skilfully constitutes ‘facts’ about organizational weaknesses

implicitly through talk about operational issues stands in contrast to the

explicit and formalized SWOT analyses usually proposed as tools for strategy

formulation.

Although performance is not the main issue in studies of strategy using

a social practice perspective, it is no less a fundamental component of them.

However, it is an indirect and subjectivist view of performance. Several of

these works are interested in reinforcing the effectiveness of managers and

others participating in strategy formation (Whittington, 1996). By tracking

the skills, the activities and knowledge that are more or less explicit to strate-

gizing, these studies can produce knowledge that is more adapted to the

needs of managers. Awareness of the existence of the micro-dynamics

revealed by these studies is likely to contribute to reinforcing managers’

reﬂexivity regarding their way of doing things, thus allowing them to acquire

greater control over what they do and what they say.

Overall, the contribution of this perspective to understanding strate-

gizing in pluralistic contexts is undeniable. By considering that strategy

formation is not just the prerogative of the dominant coalition, this approach

invites us to consider the actions of a greater number of actors, whether they

are managers or not. This wider view of strategy focuses attention on micro-

dynamics, discourses and activities that, while perhaps peripheral to formal

strategic activity as usually considered, are likely in the end to affect the

process and its outcomes.

In addition to throwing light on the social dimension of strategy-

making, the strategy as social practice perspective also emphasizes the

routinized, even mundane, character of organizational life and tries to under-

stand how change emerges from routines and conversations. Much of the

strategy literature assumes change to take the form of radical discontinuity.

A perspective that considers strategizing as a social practice adopts a differ-

ent viewpoint. It looks instead at the routine and discursive nature of strate-

gic episodes (Hendry & Seidl, 2003) to understand how change emerges

through recursiveness and continuity rather than radical breakdown

(Jarzabkowski & Wilson, 2002). A strategist cognizant of this perspective

may see more clearly how any strategic initiative will necessarily be

constructed, reconstructed and renegotiated through ongoing practices and

routines (Lozeau et al., 2002).

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Table 3 Illustrative articles adopting a social practice perspective

Article Organizational context and Theoretical inﬂuences Major contributions for a social practice perspective of strategizing

strategy deﬁnition Methodology

Oakes et al. (1998) Organizational context: Bourdieu, Foucault Shows how business plans introduced a hidden curriculum into

Introduction of business plans the ﬁeld involving participants in activities that undermined

in museums & heritage sites in Alberta their own symbolic capital; examines language & control in a

changing institutional ﬁeld.

Strategy: plans as pedagogical practice Longitudinal study

(naming, categorizing, regularizing) (1993–5)

Hendry (2000) Organizational context: Brunsson’s Giddens, Harré & Gillett Develops an integrative conceptualization of strategic

empirical work on decision-making in decisions as discourse; suggests that a decision should be

bureaucratic organizations communicated and recommunicated – continually reﬁned and

adapted through dialogue.

Strategy: a technological and

appropriative social practice Theoretical article

De la Ville & Organizational context: Emerging De Certeau Proposes a shift from discourses of ‘grand strategy’ to the

Mounoud (2003) high tech ﬁrm and emerging green minutiae of everyday narratives; illustrates three strategizing

industry tactics (poaching, humour, plotting); emphasizes the contrast

between the discursive nature of strategy and the narrative

Strategy: ongoing process involving nature of practice.

what strategists produce – or write – Empirical fragments

and the ways organizational members extracted from two

consume – or read – their productions cases studies

Jarzabkowski (2003) Organizational context: Vygotski, Engeström Illustrates how practices contribute to generate continuity and

Strategic change in UK universities change in structuring the emergent strategic process;

(direction, resource allocation and concludes that change is not attributable to external causes

monitoring) or top managers but to change interpretations and systemic

needs through activities and practices.

Strategy: set of practices for

continuity and change; patterns of Three longitudinal in-depth

interaction and interpretation case studies (1992–8)

(cont.)

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Denis et al. Strategizing in pluralistic contexts 201

Table 3 continued

Article Organizational context and Theoretical inﬂuences Major contributions for a social practice perspective of strategizing

strategy deﬁnition Methodology

Samra-Fredericks Organizational context: Garﬁnkel (Sacks, Goffman) Describes skills & forms of knowledge for strategizing: speak

(2003) Manufacturing investment decision forms of knowledge; mitigate and observe the protocols of

human interaction; question & query; display appropriate

Strategy: talk in interaction on a Conversation analysis of emotions; deploy metaphor; put history to work.

daily basis about the ﬁrm’s direction four sections of dialogue

Chia (2004) Organizational context: Academic Bourdieu, Dreyfus, Examines some underlying conceptions of practices and their

production of knowledge in strategy Heidegger implications for the strategy-as-practice agenda; seeks to

advance the debate on research on micro-strategizing;

Strategy: a matter of style, a style of proposes a revised view of practical logic and style.

existential engagement;

strategy-in-practice as skilled

improvised in situ coping Theoretical article

Rouleau (2005) Organizational context: Giddens, Foucault, Illustrates how middle managers interpret and sell change through

Implementation of a strategic change Gioia & Chittipeddi their daily activities at the organizational interface; demonstrates how

in a top-of-the-line clothing company strategic sensemaking and sensegiving are anchored in managers’ tacit

knowledge and embedded in a broader social context; proposes a

Strategy: it is accomplished in the third-order explanation of strategic sensemaking and sensegiving in

day-to-day encounters at the highlighting four of its micro-practices.

organizational interface where the Interpretive analysis of

strategic positioning of the ﬁrm in its routines and

environment is enacted conversations

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The three perspectives compared

In the previous sections, we have presented three theoretical approaches that

could be useful to understand and respond to the challenges of strategizing

in pluralistic contexts. As we saw, the social practice perspective has already

achieved a signiﬁcant level of penetration in the strategy ﬁeld. Another

approach (ANT) is gaining more and more attention from management

scholars, while a third approach (conventionalism) has developed mainly in

the ﬁeld of sociology and is so far largely absent from scholarly works in

organization theory and strategic management. We now summarize the

critical insights of each of these approaches (see Table 4). We ﬁrst describe

their main commonalities and complementarities before concluding with an

analysis of their potential for integration and implications for researchers and

strategists.

Commonalities

The three approaches presented have a number of common features. First,

and perhaps most importantly for our analysis, all recognize and attempt to

deal explicitly with the pluralism inherent in organizational and societal

contexts, albeit in different ways. Also, none of these approaches draws hard

distinctions between internal and external organizational contexts – an

interesting feature for a ﬁeld such as strategic management that has often

deﬁned itself in terms of managing organization–environment relations. For

example, actor-networks may include internal and external actants in-

discriminately; conventionalists clearly view their worlds as traversing all

levels of society and organizations; the social practice perspective recognizes

that routines and interactions relevant to strategy-making may involve indi-

viduals with various organizational memberships and loyalties.

Another common feature of the three approaches concerns the

attention given to material objects as mediators of strategic action. Actor-

Network Theory explicitly recognizes the potential role of non-human

actants in the construction of actor-networks. The social practice approach

focuses on the mediating role of formal tools such as plans in structuring

strategizing routines, while for the conventionalists, emergent conventions

among competing values may be reﬂected in strategic plans or even the very

nature of the products and services that organizations produce. Star and

Griesemer’s (1989) notion of the ‘boundary object’ could thus play a role in

the development of each of these perspectives, constituting a common theme

among them. More speciﬁcally, their work suggests that in order to produce

cooperation among potentially divergent interest and values, the translation

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process central to ANT needs to be an open process that is not under the

control of a single actor. Looking at our alternative theoretical frames, it

appears that the blending of ANT’s core preoccupation for the persuasion

and mobilization of divergent interests and the conventionalist focus on

harmonizing divergent worlds provides a basis to conceive of strategizing as

a process of translation that is subject to multiple inﬂuences and that is not

solely driven by dominant views.

Finally, empirical research applications of these three approaches have

all tended to emphasize two different types of qualitative analysis, one

adopting a realist perspective and concerned with tracing action over time

in longitudinal case studies to directly capture the phenomena at their core

(the creation of actor-networks; the establishment of conventions; the

routines of strategists), and the other adopting a discursive perspective aimed

at examining the way in which core concepts (e.g. translations; worlds;

strategic conversations) are reﬂected in the language of organization

members. The second of these two complementary modes of analysis

illustrates the importance of underlying meaning systems to all of these

approaches, although theorists of each school may hold different assump-

tions about their nature and effectiveness. This brings us to an analysis of

the complementarities between these approaches.

Complementarities

Each of the three perspectives focuses on different levels and units of analysis,

emphasizes a different dimension of pluralism, and suggests different but

complementary research questions. They also offer different visions of the

role of the strategist and of the nature of performance.

The approaches can in fact be placed on a continuum going from micro-

to macro-levels. At one extreme, the social practice perspective is clearly most

explicitly associated with the individual and with micro-processes, whereas

the conventionalist stance implies a reference to broad value systems at the

level of society (macro-level). Actor-Network Theory lies somewhere in

between in its concern for networks that may have a local or broader scope.

Similarly, the three approaches tend to emphasize different dimensions

of pluralism. Actor-Network Theory draws attention to diffuse power

structures in its focus on the construction of networks that pull diverse actors

together, the conventionalist approach explicitly emphasizes the role of

divergent value systems, and the social practice perspective is more concerned

with individual autonomy and the distribution of tacit knowledge. In cor-

respondence with this, each of the perspectives tends to see strategy in

different terms and to ask different research questions.

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204

Table 4 The three perspectives compared

Actor-Network Theory: Theory of Conventions: Social Practice Theory:

Strategizing as a Strategizing as an Strategizing as a

translation process accommodation process social practice

Central unit of analysis Networks of actants (meso-level) Conventions reconciling competing Routines and interactions (micro-level)

worlds (macro-level)

Dimension of pluralism Diffuse power Multiple value systems Distributed knowledge and autonomy

most invoked

Deﬁnition of strategy A conceptual artefact constituted and A sustainable compromise between The set of actions and interactions which

rendered irreversible by a network of competing values (convention) contribute to activate and transform the

supporting ‘actants’ ﬁrm’s direction on a daily basis

Deﬁnition of strategizing Translation:the process of constructing Accommodation:the process of Practice: mobilizing explicit tools and tacit

networks (alliances) among actors in a negotiating compromise among knowledge in interactions to produce

diffuse ﬁeld competing values strategies

Role of actors Translators who enrol others in Critics of established compromises; Social actors at all levels inside and

(managers and others) networks; Actants in networks that Negotiators of new compromises outside the organization who through their

reciprocally construct organizational practices and interactions contribute to

strategies enacting strategy

Organizational and Pow er : Building networks that attract Legitimacy (greatness): Building an Knowledge of how to build and maintain

individual performance support from external and internal organization (or individual identity) effective strategy-making routines

preoccupations actors that is highly valued according to its

reference worlds

Link to environment No clear distinction between internal Conventions and value systems are Practices of individuals inside and outside

and external actants able to form societal, traversing organizational organizations participate in strategizing

networks boundaries

(cont.)

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Denis et al. Strategizing in pluralistic contexts 205

Table 4 continued

Actor-Network Theory: Theory of Conventions: Social Practice Theory:

Strategizing as a Strategizing as an Strategizing as a

translation process accommodation process social practice

Preferred research • Qualitative case studies • Qualitative case studies • Qualitative case studies

methods • Discourse analysis • Discourse analysis • Discourse analysis

Research questions in • How are networks made irreversible? • How are competing values reconciled? • How do routines reproduce strategies?

domain of action • How do stable networks break down? • How are stable conventions questioned? • How do routines contribute to strategic

change?

Research questions in • How do translators discursively • How do organizations and actors • How does discourse contribute to

realm of discourse construct networks with the discursively justify strategies? deﬁne strategic practices?

environment?

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As indicated in Table 4 for the actor-network theorist, research

questions deal with translation: how to build, maintain and reorient networks

in a context where power is diffuse. In contrast, for the conventionalist,

research questions deal with accommodation: how to develop durable

compromises that can reconcile competing values and at the same time with

how these conventions might be questioned. Finally, for the third perspective,

research questions deal with practice: how micro-routines contribute to repro-

ducing or changing strategic orientations. The research questions based in

each theoretical perspective are not necessarily contradictory and may be

mutually supporting. For example, the translations that allow the con-

struction of networks may draw on accommodations among competing

values. Conventions among competing values may be operationalized through

micro-level routines, and routines may serve to link networks of actors

together. However, each of the three theoretical frames approaches the under-

standing of strategizing from a somewhat different angle.

Each of the three approaches also suggests different roles for the strat-

egist and tends to value different dimensions of performance. The strategist

of the actor-network approach is a translator who will be recognized in his

or her ability to pull together a powerful alliance. The strategist of the Theory

of Conventions is a critic who through his or her personal association with

highly valued worlds is able to open up and renegotiate established con-

ventions leading to enhanced organizational and personal legitimacy. The

strategist of the social practice perspective is a skilled practitioner who

contributes to the organization’s strategic capability by mobilizing tools and

routines in interaction with others.

Towards integration: Implications for researchers and

strategists

How can these theoretical perspectives assist in understanding and

confronting the challenges of strategizing in pluralistic contexts? What

avenues might they suggest for overcoming some of the problems that we

argued are endemic to these contexts? Taken individually, each of the three

perspectives presented seems to focus attention on one of the essential

dimensions of pluralism. The ANT perspective most obviously addresses the

issue of diffuse power, the conventionalist perspective emphasizes the

reconciliation of divergent and multiple objectives, and the social practice

perspective emphasizes the importance of knowledge-based work. Since

pluralistic contexts combine all three of these features, can the insights

drawn from these frameworks be combined or integrated to suggest

coherent approaches to strategizing?

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As suggested in the preceding discussion, the three frameworks are not

entirely commensurable. Each is grounded in different sociological theories

and has its own language, concepts and assumptions. One way to use them

in research might be to take them as alternate lenses that could be

confronted, compared and contrasted in the style of Allison’s (1971) analysis

of the Cuban missile crisis. This is a plausible approach and one that is

worthy of consideration. However, we argue here that a second approach

may be possible – one that does not deny the distinctiveness of the theories,

but that asks the question: what if we took all of them seriously as partial

representations of the phenomenon? If pluralistic contexts combine all three

of the features addressed by these perspectives, may there not be a zone of

intersection amongst them that would lead to more focused propositions

about strategizing in pluralistic contexts compatible with all of them. Figure

1 shows a ﬁrst attempt to view the theoretical frames in this light.

In Figure 1, the core concepts associated with each frame and their

dominant level of analysis are indicated. Also as we see in Figure 1, each

frame is associated with one of the critical dimensions to strategizing in

pluralistic contexts. Through its emphasis on drawing together networks of

actants supporting a strategy or other artefact, ANT focuses on the power

dimension. In its emphasis on the accommodation of competing value

systems, conventionalist theory is preoccupied with the legitimacy of

emerging strategies (or conventions). Finally, in its focus on the everyday

mobilization of tacit knowledge in the creation of strategies, the social

practice perspective emphasizes the knowledge dimension. Strategizing in

pluralistic contexts requires all of these and lies at the conﬂuence or inter-

section of these poles: power acquired by collectively operating within

networks, legitimacy acquired by incarnating and bridging the values that lie

at the heart of organizational identity, and knowledge that is embedded in

and acquired through participation in organizational routines and practices.

The arrows in the ﬁgure thus suggest the need to combine these three

elements in successful strategizing. But is this a plausible option? Is the inter-

section of these perspectives a null set or can the three demands be recon-

ciled to deal with the challenges associated with strategizing under pluralism

that we described earlier. If so, how? In the following discussion, we argue

that they can but only under certain conditions.

Strategizing as the creation of value-based networks constituted

through routines

Actor-Network Theory directs strategists, as translators, towards the

consideration of how to build networks around strategic orientations. It

suggests that strategy can only be constructed in synchrony with the network

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that deﬁnes it. In pluralistic settings, the strategist must therefore see him or

herself as embedded in an ongoing process shared with others (an active node

in a multifaceted constantly shifting network), not as an external authority

able to impose strategies. Attention must therefore be devoted to under-

standing what actors inside and outside the organization want and can

support, and designing and redesigning strategic projects that can slide

through windows of opportunity where interests converge long enough to

ensure irreversibility. As such, this approach may at ﬁrst sight suggest a

somewhat opportunistic view of strategizing. The key to overcoming inertia

appears to lie in collectively imagining a project that can satisfy multiple

interests and in ensuring that actors linked to a supporting network make

commitments and investments that irrevocably ﬁx their attachment to it.

In contrast to the ANT approach that seems to play on short-term self-

interest and expediency, the conventionalist perspective takes a longer term

and more idealistic view. It directs strategists to consider what fundamental

societal value systems are in play, how they are currently reconciled, and how

both the organization and the strategist as an individual might position them-

selves to best represent values at the heart of the organization’s identity. This

suggests, for example, that a strategy that exhibits ‘greatness’ in terms of

Human Relations 60(1)

208

Networks

Translation

Power

Organizational

(meso-)

Routines and conversations

Mobilization of tacit knowledge

Knowledge

Individual

(micro-)

Conventions

Accommodation

Legitimacy

Social

(macro-)

Strategizing as

creation of value-

based networks

constituted through

routines

Conventionalist theory

Social practice theories

ANT

Figure 1 Strategizing in pluralistic contexts at the intersection of theoretical frames

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highly signiﬁcant organizational values can be a key motivator that has a

better chance of overcoming the inertia associated with pluralism than one

which compromises those values for short-term gain. This will be doubly the

case if the strategist who promotes such a ‘noble cause’ appears to person-

ally and authentically incarnate those values. This recalls Gioia and Thomas’s

(1996) insistence on the importance of identity and image, and Thompson’s

(1967) reference to ‘charisma’ as the only possible mode of conﬂict resolution

in anomic organizations.

Recall however that pluralistic contexts imply multiple value logics tied

together by conventions that accommodate their contradictions. Thus the

strategist must attempt to simultaneously tap into the value systems that

reﬂect key aspects of organizational identity while bridging alternate identi-

ties and value systems that are nevertheless inherent to the organization’s

existence and survival. In this sense, the notion of the actor-network is not

necessarily incompatible with the conventionalist view of strategizing. (The

intersection is not null.) However, for the conventionalists, ‘translations’ that

enable actor-networks to cohere will be deﬁned above all by reference to a

limited set of socially accepted value frameworks rather than by the locally

speciﬁc (and possibly crass) interests of individuals. To the extent that indi-

viduals seek not only to satisfy their own personal preferences and needs but

also to legitimize those preferences and needs, the lesson for strategists is that

alliances and networks based on local expediency and political sleight of

hand alone are fragile. Genuine commitment to a valued cause and the ability

to interpret that cause in terms that legitimate it with others (while respect-

ing their personal interests) can perhaps help to make strategy stick in plural-

istic contexts. Thus combining actor-network and conventionalist insights

leads to the conclusion that the creation of actor-networks is important, but

that for this construction to be durable, the networks need to be drawn

together by both interests and more fundamental values. In other words,

networks must be value-based. But how can this be achieved? This is where

the social practice perspective contributes.

Indeed, the social practice perspective brings the strategizing process

down to earth by showing how patterns of strategic decision-making are

embedded in positioned practices and routines. The practice perspective

clearly indicates that some strategists are more skilful than others in using

routines, interactions and the other tools available to them to move events

in directions they seek to promote. One of the messages of the practice

perspective is thus that strategizing is a skill that can be acquired both indi-

vidually and organizationally through active participation in its routines. A

second message is that achieving genuine strategic impact in pluralistic

contexts requires skilful effort over a long time: this is a call for patience,

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persistence and subtlety. In pluralistic contexts, practices and routines are not

instantaneously changed. Often, they incorporate participative mechanisms

that may make strategizing slow and somewhat inﬂationary as we described

at the beginning of this article. However, routines are never perfectly repro-

duced and changes can build on one another. For example, Oakes et al.

(1998) showed how museum managers were imperceptibly socialized to the

language of strategic planning. As Lozeau et al. (2002: 559) note: ‘Imper-

fections in the reproduction of routines and shared understandings at one

time can be skilfully mobilized to consolidate further change later.’ From this

perspective, the most successful strategists will be those who are willing to

commit both to their organizations and to strategy development over the

longer term.

The social practice perspective thus emphasizes both the need for

skilful practice and for persistence and long-term effort in making an

impact. Linking to the discussion of ANT and conventionalism and moving

to the zone of intersection, such persistence and long-term effort seem

somehow implausible if their object is not in some way value-driven. The

conventionalist view explains how the value commitments and compromises

reﬂected both in strategies and in the behaviour of strategists may operate

to increase or decrease the likelihood that any moves towards strategic

change will be acceptable. At the same time, Actor-Network Theory

suggests that these strategies can only exist to the extent that they are

supported by networks of actors that see in them a reﬂection of their own

values and interests.

In summary, the three perspectives, when cumulated, offer a rich view

of the process of strategizing in pluralistic contexts that has real plausibility.

This combines political manoeuvring in networks, rehearsal of societal and

organizational value systems, and the mobilization of the tools, routines and

interactions of everyday organizing. Our proposal does not suggest simple

solutions – if such solutions existed, the challenges observed at the beginning

of this article would not exist – however, it does suggest that successful

strategizing in pluralistic organizations is a long-term project, accomplished

through routines, driven by values and embedded in evolving networks. This

is not an easy prescription. Impatience and short-term pressures can easily

seduce pluralistic organizations and their multiple strategists into forsaking

the progressive value-based approach for more dramatic but ultimately less

powerful modes of strategizing.

For researchers, the insights we derived above from the three frame-

works clearly need further investigation and validation. More generally, and

perhaps more importantly, our multifaceted framework suggests a need for

strategy researchers to direct studies towards a more dynamic, processual

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and contextual vision of strategizing that adds richness and depth to the

conventional view of strategy formation which does not take into account

the speciﬁc nature of pluralistic contexts. However, this will require greater

reliance on qualitative, longitudinal research methods that follow actors

involved in strategizing over time to reveal processes of translation,

accommodation and mobilization of knowledge that are at the core of the

strategy-making process and to track their organizational consequences.

For researchers engaged by the strategy-as-practice agenda, this multi-

faceted framework offers a series of complementary perspectives for under-

standing and inﬂuencing the way managers strategize. Their confrontation

and integration allowed us to simultaneously take into account different

levels of analysis (micro-, meso- and macro-) and to consider representations,

materiality and action. This framework also provided a stronger basis for

capturing the essence of strategizing in a context characterized by multiple

goals, diffuse power and knowledge-based work processes. To the extent that

pluralism exists in all organizations, albeit to different degrees, the insights

we develop have broad application. More generally, and perhaps more

importantly, our multifaceted framework moves away from a perspective on

strategy formation as a disembodied and asocial activity to view it as

dynamic, social, and fully contextualized.

Acknowledgements

Authors’ names are in alphabetical order, reﬂecting roughly equal contributions.

The authors thank the editors of the special issue and three anonymous

reviewers for their advice in developing this article. We are also grateful to the

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Fonds

québécois pour la recherche sur la société et la culture for their ﬁnancial support

for this research.

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Whittington, R., Jarzabkowski, P., Mayer, M., Nahapiet, J., Mounoud, É. & Rouleau, L.

Taking strategy seriously: Responsibility and reform for an important social practice.

Journal of Management Inquiry, 2003, 12, 396–409.

Wilson, D.C. & Jarzabkowski, P. Thinking and acting strategically: New challenges for

interrogating strategy. European Management Review, 2004, 1, 14–20.

Human Relations 60(1)

214

at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on February 12, 2008 http://hum.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Jean-Louis Denis is Professor of Health Care Administration and

member of the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Health at the

University of Montreal. He is the Canadian Institutes for Health

Research/Canadian Health Services Research Foundation Chair in the

Governance and Transformation of Health Care Organizations. His

research deals with leadership,governance and strategic change in health

care organizations.

[E-mail: jean-louis.denis@umontreal.ca]

Ann Langley is Professor of Strategic Managemen at HEC Montréal.

She obtained her undergraduate and masters degrees in the UK and

her PhD in administration at HEC Montréal. Her research deals with

strategic decision-making, innovation, leadership and strategic change in

pluralistic organizations and notably in the health care sector. She is a

member of the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Health at the

University of Montreal.

[E-mail: ann.langley@hec.ca]

Linda Rouleau is Associate Professor in the Management Department

at HEC Montreal. She obtained her PhD in administration at HEC

Montréal. Her research focuses on micro-strategy and strategizing and

on the transformation of control and identity of middle managers in

the context of organizational restructuring. She is a member of CRIMT

(a Canadian research centre on globalization and work) and DRISSE (a

research group on discourses and representations in strategy based in

France).

[E-mail: linda.rouleau@hec.ca]

Denis et al. Strategizing in pluralistic contexts 215

at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on February 12, 2008 http://hum.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Studying strategy as practice through historical methods

Chapter

Jul 2015

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 management moves away from disembodied and asocial studies of firm assets, technologies and practices to explore and explain the contribution that strategizing makes to people working at all levels of an organization. It breaks down many of the traditional paradigmatic barriers in strategy to investigate who the strategists are, what they do, how they do it, and what the consequences or outcomes of their actions are. This essential work summarizes recent developments in the field while presenting a clear agenda for future research.

Studying strategizing through biographical methods: narratives of practices and life trajectories of practitioners

Chapter

Jul 2015

Linda Rouleau

A critical perspective on strategy as practice

Chapter

Jul 2015

An institutional perspective on strategy as practice

Chapter

Jul 2015

Participation in strategy work

Chapter

Jul 2015

An activity theory approach to strategy as practice

Chapter

Jul 2015

Strategy-as-practice research on middle managers’ strategy work

Chapter

Jul 2015

Making strategy: meta-theoretical insights from Heideggerian phenomenology

Chapter

Jul 2015

Haridimos Tsoukas

The ongoing challenge of developing cumulative knowledge about strategy as practice

Chapter

Jul 2015

Ann Langley

Strategic planning as practice

Chapter

Jul 2015

Strategy-as-practice: Reflections on the research agenda

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2004
Eur Manag Rev

Robert Chia

Strategy-as-practice has become an important alternative to the hitherto dominant institutional and resource-based approaches to strategy research. This paper examines some of the underlying conceptions of 'practice' and its implications for researching the micro-practices of strategizing. It concludes with the observation that the notion of habitus is a better way of understanding how consistency and hence strategy in action is achieved and how we might begin to understand strategy-as-practice in terms of a certain style of engagement.

The Work of Strategizing and Organizing: For a Practice Perspective

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2003
STRATEG ORGAN

Richard Whittington

Artistes versus managers

Book

Jan 1998

Eve Chiapello

Between discourse and narration : how can strategy be a practice

Book

Jan 2003

Valérie Inés de La Ville

LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGIC CHANGE UNDER AMBIGUITY.

Article

Aug 1994

Under ambiguous authority, effective strategic change requires collaborative leadership. Yet, radical change often involves new power distributions, making collaboration difficult. An exploratory case study of the large hospital suggests that change may be achieved in a cyclical pattern where leadership roles are redistributed through the influence of tactics on credibility.

Leadership and Administration

Article

Jan 1982

P. Selznick

Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. Power, action and belief

Article

Jan 1986

Michel Callon

On Justification: Economies of Worth

Book

Jan 2006

Institutional Ecology, 'Translations' and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Article

Jan 1989
SOC STUD SCI

Objets fronti_re = s'adaptent pour prendre en compte plusieurs points de vue et maintenir une identité entre eux Cet espace de travail se construit grâce à des objets-frontières tels que des systèmes de classification, qui relient entre eux les concepts communs et les rôles sociaux divergents de chaque groupe professionnel. Les objet-frontière contribuent à la stabilité du système de référence en offrant un contexte partagé pour la communication et la coopération. Les objets peuvent être considérés comme frontière (Star et Griesemer, 1989) en tant qu’ils contribuent à la stabilité du système de référence en offrant un contexte partagé pour la communication et la coopération.

'Of strategies, deliberate and emergent'

Article

Jan 2007

Henry Mintzberg

Strategizing in pluralistic contexts: Rethinking theoretical frames

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