D EVELOPING T HE R ESEARCH Q UESTION

6 _{The terms constructivist and constructivism will used in this thesis to refer to the interpretivist-}

constructivist paradigm

‘How are you getting on?’ said the Cat.

‘I don't think they play at all fairly,’ Alice said, in a rather complaining tone; ‘and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't hear oneself speak’

Lewis Carroll

‘We need to take strategy seriously because it has important effects on the world.’ Whittington et al. (2003, p. 397)

This section is focused on refining the research question(s) forming the foundation of this study. The literature review chapter demonstrated that there is a rich body of knowledge on strategy and strategic management, but that there is a lack of focus on strategy practitioners, who largely remain an under-researched phenomenon. Mainstream research into strategy cognition and TMTs has humanised the research agenda but tended to view strategy practitioners as a collective or a set of demographic variables. SAP research has focused on strategy practitioners but, to date, has not focused significantly on how they develop their practices. From a supply-side view, there were few studies that looked at the impact of business schools and popular management on practitioner development. As a result, strategy practitioners appear to be ahistorical.

Therefore, the primary research question, which is depicted pictorially in Figure 3.1, is: How do strategy practitioners develop their practices; the skills, abilities and knowledge they use during episodes of strategy praxis?

Figure 3.1 – The research question figuratively.

Continuing on from the literature review, a secondary research question has been identified as follows:

What impact do business schools and popular management have on the development of strategy practitioners?

What experiences, education and information have been formative in the development of the practices employed? Do business schools provide the foundation of strategy

STRATEGY PRACTITIONER

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practices that are then modified over time during episodes of strategy praxis? Do management fads and fashions play a part in practice development? What other experiences yet to be considered are formative in the development of practices?

According to Booth, Colomb, and Williams (2008), answering the question ‘so what’ vexes most researchers. It is, therefore, important to state why this research question is an important one for the strategic management field. The literature has shown that a strategy practitioner’s knowledge structure has a significant influence on the framing of decisions in strategic decision making (Narayanan et al., 2011) and his or her knowledge structure is formed from experience (Walsh, 1995). Therefore, how strategy practitioners develop their practices has a significant impact on strategy formulation. Strategy formulation (i.e., deliberate strategy), which is generally accepted alongside emergent strategy as a key part of most organisational strategic management, has a direct impact on the organisation’s future activities and direction and ultimately organisational performance. To adapt a claim from TMT research, strategy practitioners and how they practise strategic management appears to matter. But where they come from no one really knows.

From the SAP perspective, strategy practitioners and how they develop has been a stated area of interest, as covered in the literature review chapter. The integrated framework introduced by Whittington (2006) demonstrated the interrelated nature of practitioners, practices and praxis. Therefore, how a strategy practitioner develops his or her practices must impact on his or her strategy praxis. As the SAP perspective has noted, strategy is ‘conducted by living beings whose emotions, motivations and actions shape strategy’ (Jarzabkowski & Spee, 2009, p. 70). Importantly, emotions, motivations and actions are based on how strategy practitioners see and interpret the world, which is based on their own individual experience and the collective experiences they encounter at the time. Strategy practitioners are not ahistorical and their development shapes their practice.

This study will contribute to the strategic management academic field by providing an empirical study into the development of strategy practitioners. In addition, it will provide an empirical study on the impact of business schools and popular management on the development of strategy practitioners. There are currently gaps in both of these areas. Dependent on the research findings, it is considered that the research has potential to contribute to, or inform, other debates such as the professional status of strategic

management or the practitioner view of strategic management, what can now be termed the informed view of strategic management.

It is difficult to identify the immediate benefits for practitioners from this research as practitioners do not read scholarly journal articles let alone PhD theses. Ultimately this research is a contribution along a path to understanding more about the research focus raised by Whittington (2006, p. 626), ‘given the investments involved, how strategy practitioners are best produced is an urgent research question’. It must be noted that this latter question is an ambitious research agenda. This research will contribute by providing a study that identifies how a sample of strategy practitioners have been produced, but in order to determine how to ‘best’ produce strategy practitioners it must first be determined what is ‘best’. The literature review revealed that the strategic management academic community has yet to reach this point.

The focus of this thesis now turns to developing an approach to answering the research question. The literature has made it clear that in order to answer the research question it will be necessary to develop ‘close with’ (Johnson, Balogun, & Beech, 2010b) relationships as the answers are located within the knowledge structure (i.e., heads) of strategy practitioners. It is only strategy practitioners who are in a position to be able to reflect and relate what events and experiences were significant in their practice development. Simple demographic variables such as age, education, degrees achieved or years of experience are not expected to be sufficient to answer the research question. Therefore, the method employed must, in SAP tradition, get close to strategy practitioners and allow them to reflect and narrate their stories.