Finding an emergent way through transformational change: a narrative approach to strategy

Abstract

Current strategic media management has a tendency to draw on design or planning schools and focus primarily on competitive advantages, industry development and strategic positioning. However, the way in which strategies emerge from everyday practices is poorly understood. To this end, we build a theoretical lens from the narrative approach to strategy-as-practice and the concept of 'wayfinding', and study how organizational narratives can help both managers and employees to construct meaning around emergent strategy during ongoing transformational change. Through interview data of an empirical case study, we identify narratives on three fronts -about (1) employees, (2) managers, and (3) the market -and elaborate on how these narratives may give meaning, offer guidance and provide an actionable basis from which to find a way through ongoing transformational change. Our study contributes to the research on strategic media management by showing how narratives can help to make sense of emergent strategy and the way organizations find their way through ongoing change.

Future Making and Visual Artefacts: An Ethnographic Study of a Design Project

“…While rejecting a strictly rationalistic approach, foreseeing and future perfect thinking continue to emphasize cognition, deliberation and purposeful action as the primary (if not the only) ways of dealing with the future. Another perspective shifts attention towards spontaneous actions of strategizing and organizing, recasting practitioners' orientation towards the future as a continuous and collective process of wayfinding (Chia & Holt, 2006Ericson, 2014;Horst & Järventie-Thesleff, 2016;Hydle, 2015;Nayak & Chia, 2011;Sarpong, Maclean, & Alexander, 2013). By emphasizing that the past and future are integral to the present (Chia, 1999), wayfinding allows for a more experiential awareness of practitioners' struggles with the uncertainties posed by the future.…”

Are opportunities and threats enough?A development of the labels of strategic issues

“…As this new dynamic framework does not rely solely on opportunity and threat labels but also incorporates ambivalent and amorphous issues, it overcomes some shortcomings in strategic issue diagnosis wherein organisational members miss important opportunities or fail to detect threats due to the limitations of having only two labels. Lastly, this study further highlights the relevant and important role that concepts and theories from strategy can play in enhancing media management (Oliver, 2018;Hasenpusch & Baumann, 2017;Horst & Järventie-Thesleff, 2016;Küng, 2016), gaining a better understanding of contemporary issues facing newspaper organisations, and overcoming these organisations' issues.…”

“…Joining the growing scholarly work that uses concepts and frameworks from strategy in media management (e.g. Hasenpusch & Baumann, 2017;Horst & Järventie-Thesleff, 2016;Küng, 2016), this paper explores the labelling of strategic issues in media organisations. This allows for conceptual clarification with regards to strategic issues and to highlight the uncertainties that could occur when organisational members interpret strategic issues during periods of transformation (Oliver, 2018).…”

TV Film Financing in the Era of “Connected TV”: How Do “Legacy” Broadcasters Respond to Market Changes?

“…or What is the strategy we should use?" (Horst & Järventie-Thesleff, 2016) or actor-centered questions, such as "are you thinking about the technology or the customer?, Will your digital media strategy deliver against your corporate or business level strategy? or Is your creativity coming from the technology or the idea" (North & Oliver, 2014).…”