Using Foucault to make strategy

Abstract

Purpose -The premise of the paper is that Foucault's concept of governmentality has important but unacknowledged implications for understanding strategy. Highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the governmentality approach, the paper seeks to suggest how governmentality can be used to conceptualise strategy. More generally, the paper seeks to contribute to the body of research on governmentality articulated by authors such as Peter Miller, Ted O'Leary and Nikolas Rose. Design/methodology/approach -The paper reprises the argument that accounting is constitutive of social relations. It proceeds to discuss Peter Miller, Ted O'Leary and Nikolas Rose's seminal contributions to the conceptual development of governmentality. In outlining their work, the paper highlights the significance accorded to the emergence of standard costing and scientific management and its subsequent role in developing both the strategies and structures of managerial capitalism. The paper examines how this, in turn, was pivotal to the emergence of strategy as an important means through which organisations began to understand and conceive of themselves. The paper rehearses the standard criticisms made of governmentality within the accounting literature, before arguing that the concept emerges intact from the critique levelled against it. Proceeding to summarise Foucault's radical conception of power, the paper notes the elusiveness of Foucault's relationship with strategy. Elaborating on the nature of governmentality, the paper employs the concept to re-examine the managerial revolution. The objective is to explore its implications for understanding strategy. Findings -The paper builds on the innovative work published in accounting on governmentality to construct an account of the emergence of the managerial revolution. This yields important insights on strategy. In particular, the paper challenges Chandler, arguing that the birth of strategy is best seen as a post-hoc rationalisation produced by the emergence of systematic management and standard costing. The paper explores how governmentality might be developed to study strategy. The overarching message of the paper is that there is a need to rethink strategy as a language and social practice. Strategy, therefore, must be understood as much as a cultural and political project than as an economic one. Originality/value -The paper highlights how strategy can be regarded as a cultural and political phenomenon. This opens up the possibility of accounts of strategy that are firmly grounded within studies of organisations, politics and society. Dispensing with neo-economic notions of strategy, the paper advocates writing Foucault into strategic management.

Strategy, political regulation and management control in the public sector: Institutional and critical perspectives

“…By contrast, a critical perspective on strategy formation draws attention to how the power embedded in management control practices is implicated in privileging some interests whilst subordinating and marginalizing others McKinlay et al, 2010). Some institutional theorists have attempted to address this issue by asking critical questions about who benefits from particular institutional arrangements and what they do to entrench them (Lounsbury, 2003;Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006).…”

“…It rather seems to have materialized as a result of the increasingly pervasive strategy discourse causing managers to take emerging notions of strategy for granted (cf. Carter et al, 2010;McKinlay et al, 2010). Throughout the study none of my informants questioned the need for explicit and formalized strategies as a means of focusing attention in the organization.…”

“…Whilst this is symptomatic of the general lack of dialogue between institutional and critical theories (Rahaman et al, 2004;Cooper et al, 2008) it is problematic for a number of reasons. Most importantly, it fails to recognize how a focus on strategy formation may reify narrow, managerialist agendas and bracket their potentially detrimental consequences for wider constituencies (Clegg et al, 2004;Ezzamel and Willmott, 2008;McKinlay et al, 2010). Mobilizing institutional theories in an unquestioning manner runs the risk of normalizing and legitimizing such changes by ignoring alternative theorizations critiquing the effects of institutionalization (Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006;Cooper et al, 2008).…”

Accounting fundamentals and accounting change: Boulton & Watt and the Springfield Armory

“…Other Foucauldian variants overlap more closely with the ATBV, such as those based on the sociology of translation (Callon, 1986), which see accounting techniques developing as part of constellations of institutions and practice (Miller & Rose, 1990;Miller, 1991), based on expertise (Miller & O'Leary, 1987), 2 Recognizing that accounting precedes writing (Ezzamel & Hoskin, 2002, p. 339) but that once developed, writing influences modes of naming and counting. and constitutive of social relations (McKinlay, Carter, Pezet, & Clegg, 2010). 3 The paper uses the ATBV in the next section to examine accounting evidence from B&W, the pioneering steamengine manufacturing firm of the BIR.…”

Liberal conservatism, ‘boardization’ and the government of civil servants

“…There has been significant critical commentary on the alleged shortcomings of the genre from without, often with a strongly anti -Foucauldian flavour (eg Armstrong, 2001;Kerr, 1999). But those seeking to develop the genre also highlight an array of limitations (Barratt, 2008;McKinlay, 2010;McKinlay et al, 2010;O'Malley et al, 1997).…”