Strategy as practice and strategy implementation

Strategy-as-Practice (S-as-P) is a rather recent addition to the cognitive processual view of strategic management, with strategy being an activity comprised of what humans do compared to what firms possess. With its attention to what strategists do in terms of strategy making, there is an explicit inclination to demonstrate how

28 strategists use different practices for strategy shaping (Jarzabkowski and Spee, 2009). The S-as-P focuses on micro activities of human actors and their interactions in the strategy process (Johnson et al., 2007). There are some scholars like Whittington (2007) and Chia and MacKay (2007) who strongly argued to position S- as-P distinctly from the processual views of strategy. However, there are others who recognise that S-as-P is a ‗recent strand of strategy formation research‘ (Sminia, 2009: 110) and ‗generally embodies processual thinking‘ (Langley, 2007: 272; Carter et al., 2008). S-as-P considered strategy as a combination of practices, practitioners, and strategy praxis that involves humans at different levels within a larger institutional context (Whittington, 2007). In essence, the S-as-P criticised the lack of managerial agency and human actions in the popular economic views like the RBV and the insufficient attention to micro details in the cognitive view of the strategy process (Jarzabkowski, 2005; Johnson et al., 2003).

A critical analysis of Strategy-as-Practice literature reveals that strategy implementation is viewed as a process with different routinized practices contributing towards successful implementation (Johnson et al., 2006). Whittington (1996: 619) included all ‗activities involved in the deliberate formulation and implementation‘ as the praxis of strategizing. It is noted that S-as-P considers implementation as an inseparable activity from formulation (Jarzabkowski, 2005). However, there is a small number of S-as-P studies focussing on implementation related activities like Hoon (2007), Paroutis and Pettigrew (2007), Laine and Vaara (2007) and Dederichs (2010). Hoon (2007) looked at the practice of strategy committees and identified that middle managers used formal and informal communication activities in strategy committees to get the approvals for the implementation of their initiatives.

Paroutis and Pettigrew (2007) identified the activities of strategy teams such asexecuting, initiation, coordinating, and reflecting during the strategic planning process. Paroutis and Pettigrew (2007: 108) looked at strategizing as the ‗way strategic planning process was perceived, communicated and implemented‘. This is a clear indication of conceptualising implementation as a subset of strategizing activities dependent upon strategy formulation processes. Implementation was rather implicit in the executing and coordinating categories of practices involved in the strategic planning process. Interestingly, they identified strategy team activities in

29 relation to the recursiveness or the concluding adaptations in the strategic planning process. This approach of looking at implementation from a planning process lens reflected a rather back-seat perspective of implementation as a subset within the strategic planning process. This implied stance is contrasted by Dederichs (2010), who focussed on implementation practices for the external growth strategy in a subsidiary of a multinational firm.

Laine and Vaara (2007) looked at activities during sense-making of strategies by different practitioner groups in a functional capacity (e.g. engineering), and how they pursued their subjective goals often in contravention to the organizational goals. However, the focus remained on the implementation of the strategy development process in a functional group praxis context. This is similar to Paroutis and Pettigrew (2007) who argued for implementation issues to be discussed in the area of strategy development. This is commendable for crossing the content-process divide but at the same time highlights strategy development as the core of strategizing activity, while strategy implementation remained a peripheral issue.

Dederichs (2010) conducted his PhD research on an intended corporate-wide external growth strategy implementation in the German subsidiary of a US multinational firm. He applied the S-as-P framework of practices and interactions among practitioners for implementation. He identified implementation as the execution of intended strategy (p. 158) and mentioned that ‗Both conceptually and practically, the execution of intended strategy implies the existence of some kind of expressed strategic direction (Costanzo, 2004; Hrebiniak, 2006; Hrebiniak & Joyce, 2005; Jarzabkowski & Wilson, 2002).‘ This is in line with broader strategy implementation literature that considers strategy execution as synonymous with strategy implementation (Noble, 1999; Li et al., 2010). An interesting finding of Dederichs‘ (2010: 160) is the recognition that ‗Execution of strategy implies the existence of expressed strategic direction‘. This showed the importance of rationality and intention in execution of strategies and supported Whittington‘s (2007) argument for intentionality in strategizing practices.

It is important to locate the theoretical nature of implementation within the broader S- as-P literature. Both, Johnson et al. (2007) and Jarzabkowski and Spee (2009) considered strategy implementation as a processual issue. Johnson et al. (2007)

30 talked about the management challenge of implementing intended strategy as a ‗process issue‘ that involves issues of process interactions between organisational systems and human actors and their activities. They also highlighted the need for researching the impact of such interactions on strategic outcomes. Jarzabkowski and Spee (2009: 76) considered implementation of strategic direction as a meso-level phenomenon – strategy praxis at sub-organizational or organizational level. Matthiesen and Jarzabkowski (2009) discussed the role of conflict and its changing nature during strategy implementation. They found that conflict remains during implementation, though at reduced levels and thus patterns of conflict change over time.

Overall, S-as-P literature views strategy implementation as a processual issue, a managerial challenge, and highlights the need for identification of interactions and reciprocal relationships between humans and their strategy praxis. Socialistic tendencies have led to S-as-P defining outcomes differently to the conventional strategic management performance oriented outcomes (Jarzabkowski and Spee, 2009). Ambrosini, Bowman and Burton-Taylor (2007) have provided a more balanced study of inter-team coordination for customer satisfaction, showing that competitive performance can still find its place in S-as-P studies. However, it is clear that S-as-P literature, similar to strategy process, is limited for studies focussing on strategy implementation.

This supports the need for studies looking at the processual nature of strategy implementation and analysing the effect on strategic outcomes for firms with different organizational contexts. In line with Jarzabkowski and Spee (2009), there is a need for implementation - focussed research to deal with details of strategy implementation process and the linkages with outcomes. Similarly, future research needs to evaluate implementation processes related to continuity and change in the strategic directions of firms (Jarzabkowski, 2003; Johnson et al., 2006). There is a gap to explore implementation characteristics and conduct more box-exploring studies focused on strategy implementation processual issues (Hutzschenreuter and Kleindienst, 2006).

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