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
×

Online ordering will be unavailable from 17:00 GMT on Friday, April 25 until 17:00 GMT on Sunday, April 27 due to maintenance. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Hostname: page-component-669899f699-7tmb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-26T01:59:10.477Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 21 - The Communicative Constitution of Strategy-Making: Exploring Fleeting Moments of Strategy

from Part III - Theoretical Resources: Organization and Management Theories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2025

By
François Cooren ,
Nicolas Bencherki ,
Mathieu Chaput  and
Consuelo Vásquez
Edited by
Damon Golsorkhi ,
Linda Rouleau ,
David Seidl  and
Eero Vaara
Damon Golsorkhi
Affiliation:
emlyon Business School
Linda Rouleau
Affiliation:
HEC Montréal
David Seidl
Affiliation:
Universität Zürich
Eero Vaara
Affiliation:
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Get access

Summary

François Cooren, Nicolas Bencherki, Mathieu Chaput and Consuelo Vásquez develop a communicational approach to strategy and strategy-making in an attempt to foster a dialogue with the strategy as practice literature and its latest explorations around talk and text. Based on a ‘communicative constitution of organization’ approach, they provide a conceptual framework to define strategy-making as a series of communication episodes where specific matters of concerns are invoked, evoked and negotiated, defining and appropriating value to the organization. More specifically, they propose that strategy as practice researchers focus on fleeting moments of strategy to highlight how collective endeavours are progressively born as effects, and therefore do not exist prior to the practices that generate them. Applying this framework to the analysis of a board meeting in a community organization, the authors show that favouring a constitutive view of communication allows the researcher to de-center his/her analysis from human practices, broadening it to a ‘web of practices’ (Vaara and Whittington 2012: 310) that is created through talk and text.

Keywords

strategy as practicepractice approachcommunicative constitution of organizationweb of practices
Type
Chapter
Information
Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice , pp. 381 - 400
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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

Aggerholm, H. K., Asmuß, B. and Thomsen, C. (2012), ‘The role of recontextualization in the multivocal, ambiguous process of strategizing’, Journal of Management Inquiry, 21/4: 413–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, D. (2007), Identity’s Strategy: Rhetorical Selves in Conversion. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Asmuß, B. and Oshima, S. (2018), ‘Strategy making as a communicative practice: the multimodal accomplishment of strategy roles’, M@n@gement, 21/2: 884–912.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, J. M. and Heritage, J. (eds) (1984), Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Balogun, J. and Johnson, G. (2005), ‘From intended strategies to unintended outcomes: the impact of change recipient sensemaking’, Organization Studies, 26/11: 1573–601.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Basque, J., Bencherki, N. and Kuhn, T. (eds) (2022), The Routledge Handbook of the Communicative Constitution of Organization. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bencherki, N. (2021), ‘Using video methods to uncover the relational, interactional and practical constitution of space’, in Grosjean, S., and Matte, F. (eds), Organizational Video-Ethnography Revisited: 99–116. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bencherki, N. and Elmholdt, K. T. (2022), ‘The organization’s synaptic mode of existence: how a hospital merger is many things at once’, Organization, 29/4: 521–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bencherki, N., Sergi, V., Cooren, F. and Vásquez, C. (2021), ‘How strategy comes to matter: strategizing as the communicative materialization of matters of concern’, Strategic Organization, 19/4: 608–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boje, D. M. (2008). Storytelling Organizations. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brummans, B., Cooren, F. and Chaput, M. (2009), ‘Discourse, communication, and organizational ontology’, in Bargiela-Chiappini, F. (ed.), The Handbook of Business Discourse: 53–65. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burke, K. (1945), A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Callon, M. (1986), ‘Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay’, in Law, J. (ed.), Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge?: 196–223. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Chaput, M., Brummans, B. and Cooren, F. (2011), ‘The role of organizational identification in the communicative constitution of an organization: a study of consubstantialization in a young political party’, Management Communication Quarterly, 25/2: 252–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, I., Kwon, W. and Wodak, R. (2012), ‘A context-sensitive approach to analysing talk in strategy meetings’, British Journal of Management, 23/4: 455–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooren, F. (2000), The Organizing Property of Communication. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooren, F. (2006), ‘The organizational world as a plenum of agencies’, in Cooren, F., Taylor, J. R., and Van Every, E. J. (eds), Communication as Organizing: Practical Approaches to Research into the Dynamic of Text and Conversation: 81–100. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Cooren, F. (2010), Action and Agency in Dialogue: Passion, Incarnation and Ventriloquism. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooren, F. (2012), ‘Communication theory at the center: ventriloquism and the communicative constitution of reality’, Journal of Communication, 62/1: 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooren, F. (2015), ‘In medias res: communication, existence, and materiality’, Communication Research and Practice, 1/4: 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooren, F. (2017), ‘Acting for, with, and through: a relational perspective on agency in MSF’s organizing’, in Brummans, B. H. J. M. (ed.), The Agency of Organizing: Perspectives and Case Studies: 142–69. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cooren, F. (2018). ‘Materializing communication: making the case for a relational ontology’, Journal of Communication, 68/2: 278–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooren, F., Taylor, J. R. and Van Every, E. J. (eds) (2006), Communication as Organizing: Practical Approaches to Research into the Dynamic of Text and Conversation. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Cooren, F., Matte, F., Taylor, J. R. and Vásquez, C. (2007), ‘A humanitarian organization in action: organizational discourse as an immutable mobile’, Discourse and Communication, 1/2: 153–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooren, F., Kuhn, T. R., Cornelissen, J. and Clark, T. (2011), ‘Communication organizing and organization: an overview and introduction to the special issue’, Organization Studies, 32/9: 1149–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Del Fa, S. and Kärreman, D. (2022), ‘Uncritical constitution: CCO, critique and neoliberal capitalism’, in Basque, J., Bencherki, N., and Kuhn, T. (eds), Routledge Handbook of the Communicative Constitution of Organization: 165–79. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Denis, J.-L., Dompierre, G., Langley, A. and Rouleau, L. (2011), ‘Escalating indecision: between reification and strategic ambiguity’, Organization Science, 22/1: 225–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fenton, C. and Langley, A. (2011), ‘Strategy as practice and the narrative turn’, Organization Studies, 32/9: 1171–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golsorkhi, D., Rouleau, L., Seidl, D. and Vaara, E. (eds) (2010), Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardy, C., Palmer, I. and Phillips, N. (2000), ‘Discourse as a strategic resource’, Human Relations, 53/9: 1227–48.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
Hoon, C. (2007), ‘Committees as strategic practice: the role of strategic conversation in a public administration’, Human Relations, 60/6: 921–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. (2003), ‘Strategic practices: an activity theory perspective on continuity and change’, Journal of Management Studies, 40/1: 23–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. (2005), Strategy as Practice: An Activity-Based Approach. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. (2008), ‘Strategy as practice’, in Barry, D., and Hansen, H. (eds), The Sage Handbook of New Approaches in Management and Organization: 364–78. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. and Seidl, D. (2008), ‘The role of meetings in the social practice of strategy’, Organization Studies, 29/11: 1391–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P., Sillince, J. and Shaw, D. (2010), ‘Strategic ambiguity as a rhetorical resource for enabling multiple interests’, Human Relations, 63/2: 219–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, G. (1972), ‘Side sequences’, in Sudnow, D. (ed.), Studies in Social Interaction: 294–338. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. (2004), ‘Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction’, in Lerner, G. H. (ed.), Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation: 13–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, G., Langley, A., Melin, L. and Whittington, R. (2007), Strategy as Practice: Research Directions and Resources. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, S. (2011), ‘Strategy and PowerPoint: an inquiry into the epistemic culture and machinery of strategy making’, Organization Science, 22/2: 320–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, R. S. and Norton, D. P. (2001), The Strategy-Focused Organization: How Balanced Scorecard Companies Thrive in the New Business Environment. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knights, D. and Morgan, G. (1991), ‘Corporate strategy, organizations, and subjectivity: a critique’, Organization Studies, 12/2: 251–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohtamäki, M., Whittington, R., Vaara, E. and Rabetino, R. (2022), ‘Making connections: harnessing the diversity of strategy-as-practice research’, International Journal of Management Reviews, 24/2: 210–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, T., Ashcraft, K. L. and Cooren, F. (2017), The Work of Communication: Relational Perspectives on Working and Organizing in Contemporary Capitalism. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kwon, W., Clarke, I. and Wodak, R. (2009), ‘Organizational decision-making, discourse, and power: integrating across contexts and scales’, Discourse and Communication, 3/3: 273–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latour, B. (1996), ‘On interobjectivity’, Mind, Culture, and Activity, 3/4: 228–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latour, B. (2004), ‘Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern’, Critical Inquiry, 30/2: 225–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latour, B. (2005), Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor–Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latour, B. (2008), What Is the Style of Matters of Concern? Assen, Netherlands: Royal Van Gorcum.Google Scholar
Liu, F. (2013), ‘Emotion and strategizing: exploring emotional dynamics and senior team strategizing in meetings’, unpublished PhD dissertation. Vancouver: University of British Columbia.Google Scholar
Liu, F. and Maitlis, S. (2014), ‘Emotional dynamics and strategizing processes: a study of strategic conversations in top team meetings’, Journal of Management Studies, 51/2: 202–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mantere, S. and Vaara, E. (2008), ‘On the problem of participation in strategy: a critical discursive perspective’, Organization Science, 19/2: 341–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mintzberg, H. and Waters, J. A. (1985), ‘Of strategies, deliberate and emergent’, Strategic Management Journal, 6/3: 257–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nathues, E. and van Vuuren, M. (2022), ‘Acting in the name of others: how to unpack ventriloquations’, in Basque, J., Bencherki, N., and Kuhn, T. (eds), The Routledge Handbook of the Communicative Constitution of Organization: 213–25. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nathues, E., van Vuuren, M. and Cooren, F. (2021), ‘Speaking about vision, talking in the name of so much more: a methodological framework for ventriloquial analyses in organization studies’, Organization Studies, 42/9: 1457–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicolini, D. (2009), ‘Zooming in and out: studying practices by switching theoretical lenses and trailing connections’, Organization Studies, 30/12: 1391–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pink, S. (2001), Doing Visual Ethnography. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Pink, S. (2006), The Future of Visual Anthropology: Engaging the Senses. Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, L. L. and Nicotera, A. M. (2009), Building Theories of Organization: The Constitutive Role of Communication. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reckwitz, A. (2002), ‘Toward a theory of social practices: a development in culturalist theorizing’, European Journal of Social Theory, 5/2: 243–-63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Regnér, P. (2003), ‘Strategy creation in the periphery: inductive versus deductive strategy making’, Journal of Management Studies, 40/1: 57–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robichaud, R. (2006), ‘Steps toward a relational view of agency’, in Cooren, F., Taylor, J. R., and Van Every, E. J. (eds), Communication as Organizing: Practical Approaches to Research into the Dynamic of Text and Conversation: 101–14. Mahwah, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Rouse, J. (2007), ‘Practice philosophy’, in Turner, S., and Risjord, M. (eds), Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, vol. XV, Philosophy of Anthropology and Sociology: 630–81. London: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Samra-Fredericks, D. (2003), ‘Strategizing as lived experience and strategists’ everyday efforts to shape strategic direction’, Journal of Management Studies, 40/1: 141–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samra-Fredericks, D. (2004), ‘Managerial elites making rhetorical and linguistic “moves” for a moving (emotional) display’, Human Relations, 57/9: 1103–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samra-Fredericks, D. (2005), ‘Strategic practice, “discourse” and the everyday interactional constitution of “power effects”’, Organization, 12/6: 803–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samra-Fredericks, D. (2010), Researching everyday practice: the ethnomethodological contribution’, in Golsorkhi, D., Rouleau, L., Seidl, D., and Vaara, E. (eds), Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice: 230–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schatzki, T. R., Knorr Cetina, K. and von Savigny, E. (eds) (2001), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schwartzman, H. B. (1989), The Meeting: Gatherings in Organizations and Communities. New York: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sillince, J. and Mueller, F. (2007), ‘Switching strategic perspective: the reframing of accounts of responsibility’, Organization Studies, 28/2: 155–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sillince, J., Jarzabkowski, P. and Shaw, D. (2012), ‘Shaping strategic action through the rhetorical construction and exploitation of ambiguity’, Organization Science, 23/3: 630–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spee, A. P. (2022), ‘Strategic management and CCO’, in Basque, J., Bencherki, N., and Kuhn, T. (eds), The Routledge Handbook of the Communicative Constitution of Organization: 339–53. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Spee, A. P., and Jarzabkowski, P. (2011), ‘Strategic planning as communicative process’, Organization Studies, 32/9: 1217–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spee, A. P., and Jarzabkowski, P. (2017), ‘Agreeing on what? Creating joint accounts of strategic change’, Organization Science, 28/1: 152–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stensaker, I. and Falkenberg, J. (2007), ‘Making sense of different responses to corporate change’, Human Relations, 60/1: 137–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stronz, M. (2005), ‘Strategic learning in the context of strategy implementation: a case study of implementers in action’, unpublished PhD dissertation. New York: Columbia University.Google Scholar
Suominen, K. and Mantere, S. (2010), ‘Consuming strategy: the art and practice of managers’ everyday strategy usage’, in Baum, J. A. C., and Lampel, J. (eds), Advances in Strategic Management, vol. XXVII, The Globalization of Strategy Research: 211–45. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing.Google Scholar
Taylor, J. R. and van Every, E. J. (2000), The Emergent Organization: Communication as Its Site and Surface. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Taylor, J. R. and van Every, E. J. (2011), The Situated Organization: Case Studies in the Pragmatics of Communication Research. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ten Have, P. (1999), Doing Conversation Analysis: A Practical Guide. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Tracy, K. and Dimock, A. (2004), ‘Meetings: discursive sites for building and fragmenting community’, in Kalbfleisch, P. J. (ed.), Communication Yearbook 28: 127–65. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Vaara, E. and Tienari, J. (2011), ‘On the narrative construction of multinational corporations: an antenarrative analysis of legitimation and resistance in a cross-border merger’, Organization Science, 22/2: 370–90.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
Vaara, E., Kleymann, B. and Seristö, H. (2004), ‘Strategies as discursive constructions: the case of airline alliances’, Journal of Management Studies, 41/1: 1–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaara, E., Sorsa, V. and Pälli, P. (2010), ‘On the force potential of strategy texts: a critical discourse analysis of a strategic plan and its power effects in a city organization’, Organization, 17/6: 685–702.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Dijk, T. A. (ed.) (1997), Discourse Studies: A Multidiscilpinary Introduction, vol. I, Discourse as Structure and Process. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vásquez, C. (2013), ‘Spacing organization (or how to be here and there at the same time)’, in Robichaud, D., and Cooren, F. (eds), Organization and Organizing: Materiality, Agency and Discourse: 127–49. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Vásquez, C., Brummans, B. H. J. M. and Groleau, C. (2012), ‘Notes from the field on organizational shadowing as framing’, Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, 7/2: 144–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vásquez, C., Sergi, V. and Cordelier, B. (2013), ‘From being branded to doing branding: studying representation practices from a communication-centered approach’, Scandinavian Journal of Management, 29/2: 125–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vásquez, C., Bencherki, N., Cooren, F. and Sergi, V. (2018), ‘From “matters of concern” to “matters of authority”: studying the performativity of strategy from a communicative constitution of organization (CCO) approach’. Long Range Planning, 51/3: 417–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Veltrop, D. B., Bezemer, B. J., Nicholson, G. and Pugliese, A. (2021), ‘Too unsafe to monitor? How board-CEO cognitive conflict and chair leadership shape outside director monitoring’, Academy of management Journal, 64/1: 207–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wenzel, M. and Koch, J. (2018), ‘Strategy as staged performance: a critical discursive perspective on keynote speeches as a genre of strategic communication’, Strategic Management Journal, 39/3: 639–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wenzel, M., Krämer, H., Koch, J. and Reckwitz, A. (2020), Future and organization studies: on the rediscovery of a problematic temporal category in organizations. Organization Studies, 41/10: 1441–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittington, R. (2003), ‘The work of strategizing and organizing: for a practice perspective’, Strategic Organization, 1/1: 119–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittington, R. (2006), ‘Completing the practice turn in strategy research’, Organization Studies, 27/5: 613–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittle, A., Housley, W., Gilchrist, A., Lenney, P. and Mueller, F. (2014), ‘Power, politics, and organizational communication: an ethnomethodological perspective’, in Cooren, F., Vaara, E., Langley, A., and Tsoukas, H. (eds), Language and Communication at Work: Discourse, Narrativity, and Organizing: 71–94. Oxford; Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wodak, R., Kwon, W. and Clarke, I. (2011), ‘“Getting people on board”: discursive leadership for consensus building in team meetings’, Discourse and Society, 22/5: 592–644.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
×