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Chapter 22 - A Social-Symbolic Work Perspective on Strategy as Practice: The Objects of Strategy Work

from Part III - Theoretical Resources: Organization and Management Theories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2025

By
Tyson Rallens ,
Thomas B. Lawrence  and
Nelson Phillips
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

Tyson Rallens, Tom Lawrence and Nelson Phillips adopt a social-symbolic perspective on strategy work. Thereby, they offer a sorely needed analysis of what strategy work consists of. More specifically, the authors use the social-symbolic approach to illuminate the ‘objects’ that strategy practitioners work on. They identify three types of objects: strategy objects, strategic objects and strategists (as objects). They also explain how this work amounts to programmes of action and how objects of strategy work are embedded in ecologies of social-symbolic objects. They conclude by discussing how this approach can benefit future strategy as practice research and how such work can add to research on social-symbolic work more generally.

Keywords

strategy as practicepractice approachsocial-symbolic perspectivestrategy worksocial-symbolic worksocial-symbolic objectsstrategizing
Type
Chapter
Information
Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice , pp. 401 - 416
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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