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Chapter 30 - A Critical Discursive Approach to Strategy-as-Practice Research

from Part IV - Methodological Resources

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2025

By
Eero Vaara
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
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Summary

Eero Vaara looks at the discursive aspects of strategy and strategizing from a critical angle. He emphasizes that critical discourse studies (CDS) differ from that of relativist forms of discourse analysis, which reduce everything to discourse. After an overview of the characteristic features of CDS, he presents various ways in which this methodology can be applied to advance our understanding of different forms of strategic discourse: (1) the central role of formal strategy texts; (2) the use of discursive practices in strategy conversations, (3) the construction of strategy and subjectivity in organizational discourse; (4) the discursive legitimation of strategies; and (5) the ideological underpinnings of strategy discourse. He also illustrates how strategy as practice researchers can conduct a critical discursive analysis by providing an example of a media text. Overall, he addresses the fundamental questions of how texts are selected and analyzed from a critical standpoint and emphasizes key issues in the application of CDS in strategy as practice.

Keywords

strategy as practicepractice approachcritical discursive approachcritical disclosure studies
Type
Chapter
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Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice , pp. 541 - 556
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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