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-669899f699-2mbcq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-25T01:00:57.108Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 10 - A Foucauldian Perspective on Strategic Practice: Strategy as the Art of (Un)folding

from Part II - Theoretical Resources: Social Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2025

By
Florence Allard-Poesi
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

Florence Allard-Poesi adopts a Foucauldian view on strategy as practice. This reflection explains the seminal role of Foucault’s work in more critical studies of strategy as practice, as well as pointing to new ways in which we can look at strategy as a body of knowledge. From this perspective, strategic management may be seen as a heterogeneous set of discursive and material practices. These discursive and material practices are governed by specific rules that determine what can be read, said and done in and around strategy. She argues that strategic management is similar to a monitoring technique in which the strategist is led to reveal one’s intentions, say aloud what is hidden and ‘objectify’ one’s subjectivity. This has all kinds of effects on the individuals in question and the way in which people can and will make sense of strategy.

Keywords

strategy as practicepractice approachFoucauldian perspectivestrategic sensemaking
Type
Chapter
Information
Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice , pp. 178 - 193
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

Allard-Poesi, F. (2006), ‘La stratégie comme pratique(s): ce que faire de la stratégie veut dire’, in Golsorkhi, D. (ed.), La fabrique de la stratégie: Une perspective multidimensionnelle: 27–47. Paris: Vuibert.Google Scholar
Allard-Poesi, F. (2009), ‘La stratégie comme art de se déplier’, in Golsorkhi, D., Huault, I., and Leca, B. (eds), Les études critiques en management: Une perspective française: 163–84. Laval: Eska.Google Scholar
Allard-Poesi, F. and Cabantous, L. (2021), ‘Strategizing’, in Cooren, F., and Stücheli-Herlach, P. (eds), Handbook of Management Communication: 195–211. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alvesson, M. and Kärreman, D. (2011), ‘Decolonializing discourse: critical reflections on organizational discourse analysis’, Human Relations, 64/9: 1121–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brighenti, A. (2007), ‘Visibility: a category for the social sciences’, Current Sociology, 55/3: 323–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calàs, M. and Smircich, L. (1988), ‘Reading leadership as a form of cultural analysis’, in Hunt, J. G., Baliga, R. D., Dachler, H. P., and Schriesheim, C. A. (eds), Emerging Leadership Vistas: 201–26. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Carmora, S., Ezzamel, M. and Gutiérrez, F. (2002), ‘The relationship between accounting and spatial practices in the factory’, Accounting, Organizations and Society, 27/3: 239–74.Google Scholar
Chan, A. (2000), ‘Redirecting critique in postmodern organization studies: the perspective of Foucault’, Organization Studies, 21/6: 1059–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Copeland, T. E. (2000), Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies, 3rd edn. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Cuganesan, S., Dunford, R. and Palmer, I. (2012), ‘Strategic management accounting and strategy practices within a public sector agency’, Management Accounting Research, 23/4: 245–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deleuze, G. (1988), Foucault. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Dick, P. and Collins, D. (2014), ‘Discipline and punish? Strategy discourse, senior manager, subjectivity and contradictory power effects’, Human Relations, 67/2: 1513–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DiMaggio, P. and Powell, W. (1983), ‘The iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields’, American Sociological Review, 48/2: 147–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ezzamel, M. and Willmott, H. (2008), ‘Strategy as discourse in a global retailer: a supplement to rationalist and interpretive accounts’, Organization Studies, 29/2: 191–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ezzamel, M. and Willmott, H. (2010), ‘Strategy and strategizing: a poststructuralist perspective’, in Baum, J. A. C., and Lampel, J. (eds), Advances in Strategic Management, vol. XXVII, The Globalization of Strategy Research: 75–109. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ezzamel, M., Willmott, H. and Worthington, F. (2008), ‘Manufacturing shareholder value: the role of accounting in organizational transformation’, Accounting, Organizations and Society, 33/2–3: 107–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ezzamel, M., Robson, K., Stapleton, P. and McLean, C. (2007), ‘Discourse and institutional change: “giving accounts” and accountability’, Management Accounting Research, 18/2: 150–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foucault, M. (1969), L’archéologie du savoir. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1971), L’ordre du discours. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1975), Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1976), Histoire de la sexualité, vol. I, La volonté de savoir. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1980), Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977, ed. Gordon, C. Brighton: Harvest Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1982), ‘The subject and power’, in Dreyfus, H. L., and Rabinow, P. (eds), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics: 208–26. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1984a), Histoire de la sexualité, vol. II, L’usage des plaisirs. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1984b), Histoire de la sexualité, vol. III, Le souci de soi. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1991), ‘Politics and the study of discourse’, in Burchell, G., Gordon, C., and Miller, P. (eds), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality: 53–72. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (2001a [1974]), ‘La vérité et les formes juridiques’, in Defert, D., and Ewald, F. (eds), Michel Foucault: Dits et écrits, vol. II, 1976–1988: 1406–514. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (2001b [1978]), ‘La “gouvernementalité”, cours du Collège de France, 1977–1978, “Sécurité, territoire et population”, 4ième leçon, 1er février 1978’, in Defert, D., and Ewald, F. (eds), Michel Foucault: Dits et écrits, vol. II, 1976–1988: 635–57. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (2001c [1983]), ‘“L’écriture de soi”, corps écrit, 5: l’autoportrait’, in Defert, D., and Ewald, F. (eds), Michel Foucault: Dits et écrits, vol. II, 1976–1988: 1234–49. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (2001d [1983]), ‘“Structuralisme et poststructuralisme”; entretien avec G. Raulet’, in Defert, D., and Ewald, F. (eds), Michel Foucault: Dits et écrits, vol. II, 1976–1988: 1250–76. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (2001e [1984]), ‘L’éthique du souci de soi comme pratique de la liberté; entretien avec H. Becker, R. Fornet-Betancourt et A. Gomez-Müller’, in Defert, D., and Ewald, F. (eds), Michel Foucault: Dits et écrits, vol. II, 1976–1988: 1527–48. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (2001f [1988]), ‘Technologies of the self’, in Defert, D., and Ewald, F. (eds), Michel Foucault: Dits et écrits, vol. II, 1976–1988: 1602–32. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1991), Modernity and Self-Identity. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Gordon, R., Clegg, S. and Kornberger, M. (2009), ‘Embedded ethics: discourse and power in the New South Wales Police Service’, Organization Studies, 30/1, 73–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenwood, R., Suddaby, R. and Hinings, C. (2002), ‘Theorizing change: the role of professional associations in the transformation of institutionalized fields’, Academy of Management Journal, 45/1: 58–80.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
Hopper, T. and Macintosh, N. (1998), ‘Management accounting numbers: freedom or prison – Geenen versus Foucault’, in McKinlay, A., and Starkey, K. (eds), Foucault, Management and Organization Theory: 126–50. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Hoskin, K., Macve, R. and Stone, J. (2006), ‘Accounting and strategy: towards understanding the historical genesis of modern business and military strategy’, in Bhimani, A. (ed.), Contemporary Issues in Management Accounting: 165–90. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hung, S.-C. and Whittington, R. (1997), ‘Strategy and institutions: a pluralistic account of strategies in the Taiwanese computing industry’, Organization Studies, 18/4: 551–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. (2003), ‘Strategic practices: an activity theory perspective on continuity and change’, Journal of Management Studies, 40/1: 28–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. (2004), ‘Strategy as practice: recursiveness, adaptation, and practices-in-use’, Organization Studies, 25/4: 529–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. and Spee, P. (2009), ‘Strategy-as-practice: a review and future directions for the field’, International Journal of Management Reviews, 11/1: 69–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P., Seidl, D. Balogun, J. (2022), ‘From germination to propagation: two decades of Strategy-as-Practice research and potential future directions’, Human Relations, 75/8, doi:10.1177/00187267221089473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P., Spee, P. and Smets, M. (2013), ‘Material artifacts: practices for doing strategy with “stuff”’, European Management Journal, 31/1: 41–54.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
Knights, D. (2002), ‘Writing organizational analysis into Foucault’, Organization, 9/4: 575–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knights, D. and McCabe, D. (2003), ‘Governing through teamwork: reconstituting subjectivity in a call center’, Journal of Management Studies, 40/7: 1587–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knights, D. and Morgan, G. (1991), ‘Corporate strategy, organizations, and subjectivity: a critique’, Organization Studies, 12/2: 251–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knights, D. and Morgan, G. (1995), ‘Strategic management, financial services and information technology’, Journal of Management Studies, 32/2: 191–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knights, D. and Willmott, H. (1989), ‘Power and subjectivity at work: from degradation to subjugation in social relations’, Sociology, 23/4: 535–58.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: 210–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kornberger, M. and Clegg, S. (2011), ‘Strategy as performative practice: the case of Sydney 2030’, Strategic Organization, 9/2: 136–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kostova, T. and Roth, K. (2002), ‘Adoption of an organizational practice by subsidiaries of multinational corporations: institutional and relational effects’, Academy of Management Journal, 45/1: 213–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knight, E., Paroutis, S. and Heracleaous, L. (2018), ‘The power of PowerPoint: a visual perspective on meaning making in strategy’, Strategic Management Journal, 39: 894–921.CrossRefGoogle 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
Laine, P.-M., Meriläinen, S., Tienari, J. and Vaara, E. (2016), ‘Mastery, submission, and subversion: on the performative construction of strategist identity’, Organization, 23: 505–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, A. (2011), ‘Organization as discursive constructions: a Foucauldian approach’, Organization Studies, 32/9: 1247–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, X., Bo, L., Shen, D. and Soobaroyen, T. (2023), ‘Bridging “home” political and economic rationalities with “host” demands and constraints: the case of regional Chinese state-owned multinational corporations’, British Journal of Management, 34/2: 1042–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ligonie, M. (2018), ‘The “forced performativity” of a strategy concept: exploring how shared value shaped a gambling company’s strategy’, Long Range Planning, 51/3: 463–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lilley, S. (2001), ‘The language of strategy’, in Westwood, R., and Linstead, S. (eds), The Language of Organization: 66–88. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linstead, S. and Brewis, J. (2007), ‘Passion, knowledge and motivation: ontologies of desire’, Organization, 14/3: 351–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lüscher, L. S. and Lewis, M. W. (2008), ‘Organizational change and managerial sensemaking: working through paradox’, Academy of Management Journal, 51/2: 221–40.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
McCabe, D. (2010), ‘Strategy-as-power: ambiguity, contradiction and the exercise of power in a UK building society’, Organization, 17/2: 151–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCabe, D. (2016), ‘Numericalizing the other: a critical analysis of a strategy discourse in a UK bank’, Organization, 23/4: 525–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKinlay, A. (2002), ‘“Dead selves”: the birth of the modern career’, Organization, 9/4: 595–614.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKinlay, A. and Starkey, K. (1998), ‘“The velvety grip”: managing managers in the modern corporation’, in McKinlay, A., and Starkey, K. (eds), Foucault, Management and Organization Theory: 111–25. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Miller, P. (1987), Domination and Power. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Miller, P. and O’Leary, T. (1987), ‘Accounting and the construction of the governable person’, Accounting, Organizations and Society, 12/3: 235–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mouritsen, J. and Dechow, N., (2005), ‘Enterprise resource planning systems, management control and the quest for integration’, Accounting, Organizations and Society, 30/7–8: 691–733.Google Scholar
Munro, I. (2012), ‘The management of circulations: biopolitical variations after Foucault’, International Journal of Management Reviews, 14: 345–62.CrossRefGoogle 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
Quattrone, P. and Hopper, T. (2005), ‘A “time–space odyssey”: management control systems in two multinational organisations’, Accounting, Organizations and Society, 30/7–8: 735–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quattrone, P. and Hopper, T. (2006), ‘What is IT? SAP, accounting and visibility in a multinational organisation’, Information and Organization, 16/3: 212–50.Google Scholar
Raffnsøe, S., Gudmand-Høyer, M. and Thaning, M. S. (2016), ‘Foucault’s dispositive: the perspicacity of dispositive analytics in organizational research’, Organization, 23/2: 272–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raffnsøe, S., Mennicken, A. and Miller, P. (2019), ‘The Foucault effect in management studies’, Organization Studies, 40/2: 155–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, J., Sanderson, P., Barker, R. and Hendry, J. (2006), ‘In the mirror of the market: the disciplinary effects of company/fund managers meetings’, Accounting, Organizations and Society, 31/3: 277–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, N. (1999), Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self, 2nd edn. London: Free Association Books.Google 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
Rouleau, L. and Balogun, J. (2010), ‘Middle managers, strategic sensemaking, and discursive competence’, Journal of Management Studies, 48/5: 953–83.Google Scholar
Ruef, M. (2003), ‘A sociological perspective on strategic organization’, Strategic Organization, 2/1: 241–51.Google Scholar
Samra-Fredericks, D. (2003), ‘Strategizing as lived experience and strategists’ everyday efforts to shape strategic directions’, Journal of Management Studies, 40/1: 141–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samra-Fredericks, D. (2005), ‘Strategic practice, “discourse” and the everyday interactional constitution of “power effects”’, Organization, 12/6: 803–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Townley, B. (1995), ‘“Know thyself”: self-awareness, self-formation and managing’, Organization, 2/2: 271–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Townley, B. (2002), ‘Managing with modernity’, Organization, 9/4: 549–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Townley, B. (2005), ‘Théorie des organisations: la place du sujet’, in Hatchuel, A., Pezet, E., Starkey, K., and Lenay, O. (eds), Gouvernement, organisations et gestion: L’héritage de Michel Foucault: 63–91. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsoukas, H. and Chia, R. (2002), ‘On organizational becoming: rethinking organizational change’, Organization Science, 13/5: 567–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaara, E. (2010), ‘Taking the linguistic turn seriously: strategy as a multifaceted and interdiscursive phenomenon’, in Baum, J. A. C., and Lampel, J. (eds), Advances in Strategic Management, vol. XXVII, The Globalization of Strategy Research: 29–50. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing.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
Whittington, R. (1992), ‘Putting Giddens into action: social systems and managerial agency’, Journal of Management Studies, 29/6: 693–712.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittington, R. (2002), Practice Perspectives on Strategy: Unifying and Developing a Field, Working Paper. Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittington, R. (2018), ‘Greatness takes practice: on practice theory’s relevance to “Great Strategy”’, Strategy Science, 3/1: 343–51.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
×