This paper identifies a practice turn in current strategy research, treating strategy as something people do. However, it argues that this turn is incomplete in that researchers currently concentrate either on strategy activity at the intra-organizational level or on the aggregate effects of this activity at the extra-organizational level. The paper proposes a framework for strategy research that integrates these two levels based on the three concepts of strategy praxis, strategy practices and strategy practitioners. The paper develops implications of this framework for research, particularly with regard to the impact of strategy practices on strategy praxis, the creation and transfer of strategy practices and the making of strategy practitioners. The paper concludes by outlining the distinctive emphases of the practice perspective within the strategy discipline.Keywords: practice, strategy theory, process, strategists This paper addresses a challenge raised by a current shift in our conception of strategy. Traditionally, the strategy discipline has treated strategy as a property of organizations: an organization has a strategy of some kind or other. Increasingly, however, strategy is being seen also as a practice: strategy is something people do (e.g. Hambrick 2004; Jarzabkowski 2004). This recognition of strategy as a practice points in two directions. On the one hand, we are invited to dive deep into organizations to engage with people's strategy activity in all its intimate detail (Johnson et al. 2003; Samra-Fredricks 2003). Here, typically, strategy is a demanding kind of work, which managers must master. On the other hand, we are confronted by the aggregation of all this activity into a bigger phenomenon that has powerful and pervasive effects on society at large (Ghemawat 2002;Clark 2004). Here strategy is in a sense an industry, whose members in business, consulting and beyond collectively produce the strategies and practices that help shape our world.It is this bifurcation between intra-organizational activity and extraorganizational aggregation that sets the challenge for this paper. Advancing strategy practice research requires a more integrated view. The successes and failures of intra-organizational activity are often traceable to external context; aggregate trends need close interrogation for what is really being done in their name. Drawing upon practice perspectives developed in social theory and other managerial disciplines, this paper proposes a framework capable of Organization Studies 27(5):613-634

Context.-Interstitial radiation (implant) therapy is used to treat clinically localized adenocarcinoma of the prostate, but how it compares with other treatments is not known. Objective.-To estimate control of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) after radical prostatectomy (RP), external beam radiation (RT), or implant with or without neoadjuvant androgen deprivation therapy in patients with clinically localized prostate cancer. Design.-Retrospective cohort study of outcome data compared using Cox regression multivariable analyses. Setting and Patients.-A total of 1872 men treated between January 1989 and October 1997 with an RP (n = 888) or implant with or without neoadjuvant androgen deprivation therapy (n = 218) at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or RT (n = 766) at the Joint Center for Radiation Therapy, Boston, Mass, were enrolled. Main Outcome Measure.-Actuarial freedom from PSA failure (defined as PSA outcome). Results.-The relative risk (RR) of PSA failure in low-risk patients (stage T1c, T2a and PSA level Յ10 ng/mL and Gleason score Յ6) treated using RT, implant plus androgen deprivation therapy, or implant therapy was 1.1 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.5-2.7), 0.5 (95% CI, 0.1-1.9), and 1.1 (95% CI, 0.3-3.6), respectively, compared with those patients treated with RP. The RRs of PSA failure in the intermediate-risk patients (stage T2b or Gleason score of 7 or PSA level Ͼ10 and Յ20 ng/mL) and high-risk patients (stage T2c or PSA level Ͼ20 ng/mL or Gleason score Ն8) treated with implant compared with RP were 3.1 (95% CI, 1.5-6.1) and 3.0 (95% CI, 1.8-5.0), respectively. The addition of androgen deprivation to implant therapy did not improve PSA outcome in high-risk patients but resulted in a PSA outcome that was not statistically different compared with the results obtained using RP or RT in intermediate-risk patients. These results were unchanged when patients were stratified using the traditional rankings of biopsy Gleason scores of 2 through 4 vs 5 through 6 vs 7 vs 8 through 10. Conclusions.-Low-risk patients had estimates of 5-year PSA outcome after treatment with RP, RT, or implant with or without neoadjuvant androgen deprivation that were not statistically different, whereas intermediate-and high-risk patients treated with RP or RT did better then those treated by implant. Prospective randomized trials are needed to verify these findings.

 This introductory paper provides a background to the origins, themes and papers of this Special Issue on Micro Strategy and Strategizing. Our overarching argument is that, while the field of strategy has traditionally concentrated on the macro-level of organizations, it needs now to attend to much more micro-level phenomena. We propose an activity-based view of strategy that focuses on the detailed processes and practices which constitute the day-to-day activities of organizational life and which relate to strategic outcomes. The paper develops this view by considering two bodies of theory, those of the resource based view and institutionalism; two bodies of empirical work, those on corporate diversification and structure; and finally the process tradition of strategy research. The paper identifies the benefits of the activity-based view and introduces some challenges for further research. It concludes by introducing the papers in this Special Issue.

This is a so-called personal version (author's manuscript as accepted for publishing after the review process but prior to final layout and copyediting) of the article.

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