To enable a better understanding of the underlying logic of path dependence, we set forth a theoretical framework explaining how organizations become path dependent. At its core are the dynamics of self-reinforcing mechanisms, which are likely to lead an organization into a lock-in. By drawing on studies of technological paths, we conceptualize the emergent process of path dependence along three distinct stages. We also use the model to explore breakouts from organizational path dependence and discuss implications for managing and researching organizational paths.

To enable a better understanding of the underlying logic of path dependence, we set forth a theoretical framework explaining how organizations become path dependent. At its core are the dynamics of self-reinforcing mechanisms, which are likely to lead an organization into a lock-in. By drawing on studies of technological paths, we conceptualize the emergent process of path dependence along three distinct stages. We also use the model to explore breakouts from organizational path dependence and discuss implications for managing and researching organizational paths.

Even though organizational activities have always been future-oriented, actors’ fascination with the future is not a universal phenomenon of organizational life. Human experience of the future is a rather young product of modernity, in which actors discovered the indeterminacy of the future, as well as their abilities to ‘make’ and, in part, even control and de-problematize it through ever-more sophisticated planning practices. In this essay, we argue that actors have recently ‘rediscovered’ the future as a problematic, open-ended category in organizational life, one that they cannot delineate through planning practices alone. This, we suggest, has been produced through a pluralization of what we refer to as ‘future-making practices’, a set of practices through which actors produce and enact the future. Based on illustrations of the experienced problematic open-endedness of the future in prevalent discourses such as climate change, digital transformation and post-truth politics, we invite scholars to explore future-making practices as an important but under-appreciated organizational phenomenon.

An organization's ability to act strategically under conditions of path dependence relies not only on the particular form of a strategic path but also on how this path is inscribed in an organization. To achieve a better understanding of this process, we shall introduce the concept of strategic path inscription and distinguish between mechanism inscription and pattern inscription. By referring to power, and formal and informal structures, the paper explores dimensions of the organizational context and its relation to strategic path inscription. The paper draws on an empirical study contrasting two established newspaper publishing organizations based in Germany. The comparative analysis of these cases reveals that in both organizations there are different forms of strategic pattern inscription but very similar forms of mechanism inscription. It is argued that the analysis of pattern inscription reveals much about the organizational nature of strategic lock-ins and, consequently, the range of variety that remains available to an organization after a specific path has emerged.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Research Summary: In this article, we explore how keynote speeches come into being as a staged genre of strategic communication. In our critical discursive analysis of video data on Apple Inc.'s keynote speeches, we demonstrate how keynote speeches are multimodally accomplished through the embodied enactment of four discursive practices: referencing, relating, demarcating, and mystifying. We show how different bodily movements, which we describe as leveling and leaping gestures, systematically contribute to constructing different conceptions of strategy through the enactment of these discursive practices as a staged genre of strategic communication. Our findings contribute to strategy‐as‐practice research by extending the nascent but growing literature on genres of strategic communication, the strategist's body in the strategy process, and the use of video‐based research methods. Managerial Summary: Firms increasingly rely on keynote speeches to communicate their strategies. As a result, managers invest more and more time and effort into preparing and rehearsing their keynote speeches. But how do managers communicate strategy in these staged performances? Based on an analysis of Apple Inc.'s keynote speeches, we explore the discursive and bodily patterns that characterize this genre. In doing so, we demonstrate that the coordinated use of bodily movements in keynote speeches is consequential for highlighting different aspects of the communicated strategy. This shows that keynote speeches and other types of public speeches cannot simply be scripted, but require managers to engage in bodily rehearsal and training in order to communicate strategies effectively.