How Useful Are the Strategic Tools We Teach in Business Schools?

Abstract

Strategic tools are indispensible for business and competitive analysis. Yet we know very little about managers' internal logic as they put these tools into practical use. We situate our study in a business school context using action learning prior to the manifestation of practice to complement our understanding of practice. Using Personal Construct Theory and Repertory Grids, our mid-range theorizing showed that, contrary to current thinking about strategic tools, managers think in dualities (often paradoxically) and have a preference for multiple-tools-in-use, tools that provide different perspectives, peripheral vision, connected thinking, simultaneously help differentiate and integrate complex issues, and guide the thinking process. These findings are important for designing better tools and the nurturing of critical managerial competencies needed for a complicated world. Our study's focus also has wider implications for scholars as we see our own material evaluated by those who will put these lessons into practice.

Capabilities and Skill Configurations of Information Security Incident Responders

“…This means that either content analysis needs to be performed on individual grids (which exposes the data to an influence from the researcher), or constructs have to be supplied (which loses the richness of the data). Napier et al [21] is a good example of the former, while Write et al [45] illustrates the latter.…”

“…Beyond IS research, RepGrid has been used for testing or extending theories such as value-in-use [42], determining factors that cause users to ignore on-line marketing messages [43], understanding educators' personal beliefs regarding education and learning [44], and students' perception of the usefulness of management frameworks such as Porter's Five Forces, SWOT analysis, and the Resource Based View [45].…”

The power of PowerPoint: A visual perspective on meaning making in strategy

“…In line with a growing body of work, we define the strategy process as a materially mediated stream of activities in which strategists accomplish tasks using materials (Dameron et al, 2015), such as PowerPoint slides (Kaplan, 2011), toys (Heracleous & Jacobs, 2008), plans (Giraudeau, 2008;Spee & Jarzabkowski, 2011), popular strategic tools (Wright, Paroutis, & Blettner, 2013), and whiteboard presentations (Werle & Seidl, 2015). Even though strategists engage primarily in visual activities when using these materials, strategy researchers who have investigated materiality have focused mainly on what actors say (Balogun, Jacobs, Jarzabkowski, Mantere, & Vaara, 2014), and paid relatively scant attention to what actors create, see, draw, or display (Meyer et al, 2013).…”

Strategy and virtue: Developing strategy-as-practice through virtue ethics

“…How is a strong orientation to success shaped by extra-organizational practices, including discursive resources, power structures, and available tools (Jarzabkowski and Kaplan, 2015;Whittington, 2006;Hardy and Thomas, 2014;Vaara, 2010;Wright et al, 2013;Moore and Beadle, 2006:378-380 advantage? What self-commitments do senior managers make to induce core practitioners to depart from, or not yield to, the temptation of, self-interested behavior?…”

“…This involves differentiation work, namely work undertaken by, typically, senior managers and/or heads of designated units (via strategic planning analysis, strategy workshops, or ad hoc committee decisions, etc. ), through which the organization is viewed in quasi-abstract terms (Tsoukas, 2015), in order to examine its competitive advantages and explore ways these may be sustained, developed or changed, in light of evolving stakeholder values and needs (Grant, 2003;Johnson et al, 2010;Seidl and Guerard, 2015;Wright et al, 2013).…”