Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-669899f699-qzcqf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-30T05:20:38.478Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - A Bourdieusian perspective on strategizing

from Part II - Theoretical Resources: Social Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2015

By
Marie-LÉandre Gomez
Edited by
Damon Golsorkhi ,
Linda Rouleau ,
David Seidl  and
Eero Vaara
Marie-LÉandre Gomez
Affiliation:
ESSEC Business School, Cergy-Pontoise, France
Damon Golsorkhi
Affiliation:
Grenoble School of Management
Linda Rouleau
Affiliation:
HEC Montréal
David Seidl
Affiliation:
Universität Zürich
Eero Vaara
Affiliation:
Svenska Handelshögskolan, Helsinki
Get access

Summary

The firm is not a homogeneous entity that can be treated as a rational subject – the ‘entrepreneur’ or the ‘management’ – oriented towards a single, unified objective. It is determined (or guided) in its ‘choice’ not only by its position in the structure of the field of production, but also by its internal structure, which, as a product of all its earlier history, still orients its present… Its strategies are determined through innumerable decisions, small and large, ordinary and extraordinary, which are, in every case, the product of the relationship between, on the one hand, interests and dispositions associated with positions in relations of force within the firm and, on the other, capacities to make those interests or dispositions count, capacities which also depend on the weight of the different agents concerned in the structure, and hence on the volume and structure of their capital.

Bourdieu (2005: 69)

Introduction

With the spread of strategy-as-practice research (see introduction, this volume; Heracleous and Jacobs 2011; Vaara and Whittington 2012), the focus has been on how strategy is actually performed in organizations. Strategy is more than something written in a strategic plan (Whittington and Cailluet 2008) or just relying on top management decision-making. SAP researchers have built upon major social theories (Sandberg and Tsoukas 2011; Seidl and Whittington 2014; Vaara and Whittington 2012) to define practice from different perspectives, but mostly emphasizing that practice is a human activity in relation with a strong social context. It is no surprise that the ideas of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) have been used from the very beginning of strategy-as-practice research in some seminal works, such as those by Jarzabkowski (2005), Whittington (2006) and Chia and Holt (2006). In nearly ten years Bourdieu's work has spread among strategy-as-practice studies. It has mostly been used to study how strategy emerges and becomes established in the actions of individuals and institutions (Chia and Holt 2006; 2009); to explore how strategizing bridges the relationship between the micro levels of human activity and the macro levels of social and institutional context (Gomez and Bouty 2011); to investigate strategists, as legitimate entrepreneurs (De Clercq and Voronov 2009) or corporate elites (MacLean, Harvey and Chia 2010); and how strategic practices and discourses maintain domination from corporate management (Laine and Vaara 2007; Kerr and Robinson 2012).

Type
Chapter
Information
Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice , pp. 184 - 198
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ansoff, I. (1965), Corporate Strategy. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Battilana, J., Leca, B., and Boxenbaum, E. (2009), ‘How actors change institutions: towards a theory of institutional entrepreneurship’, Academy of Management Annals, 3/1: 65–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boltanski, L., and Chiapello, E. (2005), The New Spirit of Capitalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1977), Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1979), ‘Les trois états du capital culturel’, Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 30: 3–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1984), Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1990a), The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1990b), In Other Words: Essay towards a Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1998), Practical Reason. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (2000), Pascalian Meditations. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (2002), Questions de sociologie. Paris: Éditions de Minuit.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (2005), The Social Structures of the Economy. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P., and Wacquant, L. (1992), An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Cabantous, L., and Gond, J.-P. (2011), ‘Rational decision making as performative praxis: explaining rationality's éternel retour’, Organization Science, 22/3: 573–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calhoun, C. (2003), ‘Pierre Bourdieu’, in Ritzer, G. (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Major Classical Social Theorists: 274–309. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Carroll, G. R. (1988), Ecological Models of Organizations. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.Google Scholar
Carter, C., Clegg, S., and Kornberger, M. (2008), ‘Strategy as practice?’, Strategic Organization, 6/1: 83–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chia, R. (2004), ‘Strategy-as-practice: reflections on the research agenda’, European Management Review, 1/1: 29–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chia, R., and Holt, R. (2006), ‘Strategy as practical coping: a Heideggerian perspective’, Organization Studies, 27/5: 635–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chia, R., and Holt, R. (2009), Strategy without Design: The Silent Efficacy of Indirect Action. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chia, R., and MacKay, B. (2007), ‘Post-processual challenges for the emerging strategy-as-practice perspective: discovering strategy in the logic of practice’, Human Relations, 60/1: 217–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Czarniawska-Joerges, B., and Sevon, G. (1996), Translating Organizational Change. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Clercq, D., and Voronov, M. (2009), ‘Toward a practice perspective of entrepreneurship: entrepreneurial legitimacy as habitus’, International Small Business Journal, 27/4: 395–419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emirbayer, M., and Johnson, V. (2008), ‘Bourdieu and organizational analysis’, Theory and Society, 37/1: 1–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emirbayer, M., and Williams, E. (2005), ‘Bourdieu and social work’, Social Service Review, 79/4: 689–724.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golsorkhi, D. (2006), La fabrique de la stratégie: Une perspective multidimensionnelle. Paris: Vuibert.Google Scholar
Golsorkhi, D., and Huault, I. (2006), ‘Pierre Bourdieu: critique et réflexivité comme attitude analytique’, Revue Française de Gestion, 165: 15–34.Google Scholar
Golsorkhi, D., Leca, B., Lounsbury, M., and Ramirez, C. (2009), ‘Analysing, accounting for and unmasking domination: on our role as scholars of practice, practitioners of social science and public intellectuals’, Organization, 16/6: 779–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gomez, M.-L., and Bouty, I. (2011), ‘The emergence of an influential practice: food for thought’, Organization Studies, 32/7: 921–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hambrick, D. C. (2005), ‘What if the academy actually mattered?’, Academy of Management Review, 19/1: 11–16.Google Scholar
Hannan, M. T., and Freeman, J. (1984), ‘Structural inertia and organizational change’, American Sociological Review, 49/2: 149–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hendry, J., and Seidl, D. (2003), ‘The structure and significance of strategic episodes: social systems theory and the routine practices of strategic change’, Journal of Management Studies, 40/1: 175–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heracleous, L., and Jacobs, C. D. (2011), Crafting Strategy: Embodied Metaphors in Practice. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. (2005), Strategy as Practice: An Activity-Based Approach. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P., Balogun, J., and Seidl, D. (2007), ‘Strategizing: the challenges of a practice perspective’, Human Relations, 60/1: 5–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, G., Melin, L., and Whittington, R. (2003), ‘Guest editors’ introduction: micro strategy and strategizing: towards an activity-based view’, Journal of Management Studies, 40/1: 3–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kerr, R., and Robinson, S. (2012), ‘From symbolic violence to economic violence: the globalizing of the Scottish banking elite’, Organization Studies, 33/2: 247–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lahire, B. (2001), Le travail sociologique de Pierre Bourdieu: Dettes et critiques. Paris: Éditions La Découverte.Google Scholar
Laine, P.-M., and Vaara, E. (2007), ‘Struggling over subjectivity: a discursive analysis of strategic development in an engineering group’, Human Relations, 60/1: 29–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrence, T. B., Suddaby, R., and Leca, B. (2009), Institutional Work: Actors and Agency in Institutional Studies of Organizations. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrence, T. B., Suddaby, R., and Leca, B. (2011), ‘Institutional work: refocusing institutional studies of organization’, Journal of Management Inquiry, 20/1: 52–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lounsbury, M., and Crumley, E. T. (2007), ‘New practice creation: an institutional perspective on innovation’, Organization Studies, 28/7: 993–1012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacLean, M., Harvey, C., and Chia, R. (2010), ‘Dominant corporate agents and the power elite in France and Britain’, Organization Studies, 31/3: 327–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacLean, M., Harvey, C., and Chia, R. (2012), ‘Reflexive practice and the making of elite business careers’, Management Learning, 43/4: 385–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacLean, M., Harvey, C., and Kling, G. (2014), ‘Pathways to power: class, hyper-agency and the French corporate elite’, Organization Studies, 35/6: 825–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maitlis, S., and Lawrence, T. B. (2003), ‘Orchestral manoeuvres in the dark: understanding failure in organizational strategizing’, Journal of Management Studies, 40/1: 109–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mantere, S. (2005), ‘Strategic practices as enablers and disablers of championing activity’, Strategic Organization, 3/2: 157–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mintzberg, H., and Lampel, J. (1999), ‘Reflecting on the strategy process’, Sloan Management Review, 40/3: 21–30.Google Scholar
Mintzberg, H., and Westley, F. (1992), ‘Cycles of organizational change’, Strategic Management Journal, 13/S2: 39–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morales, J., and Pezet, A. (2012), ‘Financialization through hybridization: the subtle power of financial controlling’, in Huault, I., and Richard, C. (eds.), Finance: The Discreet Regulator: How Financial Activities Shape and Transform the World: 19–39. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Mutch, A. (2007), ‘Reflexivity and the institutional entrepreneur: a historical exploration’, Organization Studies, 28/7: 1123–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicolini, D. (2012), Practice Theory, Work, and Organization: An Introduction. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Oakes, L. S., Townley, B., and Cooper, D. J. (1998), ‘Business planning as pedagogy: language and control in a changing institutional field’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 43/2: 257–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orlikowski, W. J. (2002), ‘Knowing in practice: enacting a collective capability in distributed organizing’, Organization Science, 13/3: 249–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Özbilgin, M., and Tatti, A. (2005), ‘Book review essay: understanding Bourdieu's contribution to organization and management studies’, Academy of Management Review, 30/4: 855–77.Google Scholar
Patent, S., Chia, R., and Burt, G. (2014), ‘Relevance or “relevate”? How university business schools can add value through reflexively learning from strategic partnerships with business’, Management Learning, 45/3: 267–88.Google Scholar
Pettigrew, A. M. (1992), ‘The character and significance of strategy process research’, Strategic Management Journal, 13/S2: 5–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prahalad, C. K., and Hamel, G. (1994), Competing for the Future. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Rasche, R., and Chia, R. (2009), ‘Researching strategy practices: a genealogical social theory perspective’, Organization Studies, 30/7: 713–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reger, R. K., and Huff, A. S. (1993), ‘Strategic groups: a cognitive perspective’, Strategic Management Journal, 14/2: 103–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rouleau, L. (2005), ‘Micro-practices of strategic sensemaking and sensegiving: how middle managers interpret and sell change every day’, Journal of Management Studies, 42/7: 1413–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salvato, C. (2003), ‘The role of micro-strategies in the engineering of firm evolution’, Journal of Management Studies, 40/1: 83–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandberg, J., and Tsoukas, H. (2011), ‘Grasping the logic of practice: theorizing through practical rationality’, Academy of Management Review, 36/2: 338–60.Google Scholar
Schatzki, T. R. (1997), ‘Practices and actions: a Wittgensteinian critique of Bourdieu and Giddens’, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 27/3: 283–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schatzki, T. R. (2005), ‘Peripheral vision: the sites of organizations’, Organization Studies, 26/3: 465–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seidl, D., and Whittington, R. (2014), ‘Enlarging the strategy-as-practice research agenda: towards taller and flatter ontologies’, Organization Studies, 35/10: 1407–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smets, M., Morris, T., and Greenwood, R. (2012), ‘From practice to field: a multilevel model of practice-driven institutional change’, Academy of Management Journal, 55/4: 877–904.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Splitter, V., and Seidl, D. (2011), ‘Does practice-based research on strategy lead to practically relevant knowledge? Implications of a Bourdieusian perspective’, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 47/1: 98–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stacey, R. D. (1995), ‘The science of complexity: an alternative perspective for strategic change processes’, Strategic Management Journal, 16/6: 477–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stringfellow, L., Shaw, E., and Maclean, M. (2014), ‘Apostasy versus legitimacy: relational dynamics and routes to resource acquisition in entrepreneurial ventures’, International Small Business Journal, 32/5: 571–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thietart, R.-A., and Forgues, B. (1995), ‘Chaos theory and organization’, Organization Science, 6/1: 19–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaara, E., and Durand, R. (2012), ‘How to make strategy research connect with broader issues that matter?’, Strategic Organization, 10/3: 248–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaara, E., and Faÿ, E. (2011), ‘How can a Bourdieusian perspective aid the analysis of MBA education?’, Academy of Management Learning and Education, 10/1: 27–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaara, E., and Whittington, R. (2012), ‘Strategy as practice: taking social practices seriously’, Academy of Management Annals, 6/1: 285–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van de Ven, A. H. (1992), ‘Suggestions for studying strategy process: a research note’, Strategic Management Journal, 13/S1: 169–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittington, R. (2006), ‘Completing the practice turn in strategy research’, Organization Studies, 27/5: 613–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittington, R. (2007), ‘Strategy practice and strategy process: family differences and the sociological eye’, Organization Studies, 28/10: 1575–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittington, R., and Cailluet, L. (2008), ‘The crafts of strategy: special issue introduction’, Long Range Planning, 41/3: 241–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, D. C., and Jarzabkowski, P. (2004), ‘Thinking and acting strategically: new challenges for interrogating strategy’, European Management Review, 1/1: 14–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×