Strategic concepts as micro‐level tools in strategic sensemaking

Abstract

Research Summary: The purpose of this article is to illuminate the role of concepts in strategic sensemaking. Based on a longitudinal real-time study of a city organization, we demonstrate how the concept of "selfresponsibility" played a crucial role in strategic sensemaking. We develop a theoretical model that elucidates how strategic concepts are used in meaning-making, and how such concepts may be mobilized for the legitimation of strategic change. Our main contribution is to offer strategic concepts as a missing micro-level component of the language-based view of strategic processes and practices. By so doing, our analysis also adds to studies on strategic ambiguity and advances research on vocabularies. Managerial Summary: Our analysis helps to understand the role of strategic concepts, that is, specific words or phrases with established and at least partly shared meanings, in an organization's strategy process. We show how adopting the concept "self-responsibility" helped managers in a city organization to make sense of environmental challenges and to promote change. Our analysis highlights how such concepts involve ambiguity that can help managers to establish common ground, but can also hinder implementation of specific decisions and actions if it grows over time. We suggest that under environmental changes, development of new strategic concepts may be crucial in helping managers to collectively deal with environmental changes and to articulate a new strategic direction for the organization. K E Y W O R D Sconcept, discourse, language, practice, sensemaking

Faço Sentido; Logo, Aprendo: As Propriedades Do Sensemaking Na Aprendizagem Experiencial

“…Vale ressaltar que, embora a ideia tradicional de estratégica gire em torno nos níveis hierárquicos mais elevados dentro da organização, a estratégia como prática social, derivada das Teorias da Prática, sustenta a ideia de que a estratégia é algo a ser construído pelos seus praticantes, seja individualmente ou em grupo, que manipulam símbolos, linguagens e outras ordens estabelecidas (JALONEN;VAARA, 2018;WHITTINGTON, 2012;JARZABKOWSKI;SPEE, 2009). Essa perspectiva enfatiza aspectos processuais e sociais dos principais elementos estratégicos em detrimento do seu resultado, reconhecendo a estratégia em múltiplos níveis organizacionais potencialmente relevantes (ASMUß, 2018).…”

Design Languages in the Design Space: Silicon Valley

“…Strategic concepts are central micro-level tools in strategic sensemaking in the languagebased view on strategising (Balogun et al, 2014;Jalonen et al, 2018;Mantere, 2014). In this article, strategising is ongoing sensemaking in a design space of entangled material-linguistic elaborations influenced by languages and facilitated by designers.…”

“…In this article, strategising is ongoing sensemaking in a design space of entangled material-linguistic elaborations influenced by languages and facilitated by designers. Strategic concepts are 'linguistic expressions, essentially words or phrases with established and at least partly shared meanings, which play a central role in an organization's strategy discourse´ (Jalonen et al, 2018(Jalonen et al, , p. 2795. This article thus suggests that cues are filtered through individual and collective frames ( Figure 1) and negotiated into meanings through different languages (cf.…”

Untitled

“…в периоды организационных изменений. Разница трактовок неясных терминов приводит в идеале к появлению пучка опций, генерируемых менеджерами среднего звена, выбор наилучшей из которых на верхнем уровне управления компанией является прерогативой топ-менеджмента [Jalonen, Schildt, Vaara, 2018]. Менеджерам среднего звена тем самым делегируется власть интерпретировать слова высшего руководства фирмы [Davenport, Leitch, 2005].…”