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Strategy As Practice Essay

Decent Essays

Strategy-as-practice (S-a-P) is an approach to strategy concerned about what strategic actors actually do and the kinds of activities they do when they strategize (Jarzabkowski, 2003; Johnson, Melin & Whittington, 2003; Whittington, 1996, 2002). Strategy is complex, to illustrate the complexity of the concept of strategy table 1.1 is offered with selected definitions of strategy (Louw & Venter, 2013:9). According to Ehlers and Lazenby (2010:3), “A strategy can therefore be defined as an effort or deliberate action that an organisation implements to outperform its rivals” According to the history, the concept of strategy was in its origin associated with the military (Louw & Venter, 2013:11). “The word strategy has been handed down from the …show more content…

The notion of strategy developed by the strategy as practice approach depicts strategy as an activity: strategy is not only an attribute of organisations but also an activity undertaken by people. Strategy as practice is to enable both illumination of a significant phenomenon that has previously been unclear and enables the improvement of something in which people personally, and society overall, have a great deal at stake (Carter, Clegg & Kornberger, 2008:84). Research into, and the application of, the doing of strategy attributes to shaping strategy and supports investigations into the impact on organisational performance and its environment (Jarzabkowski & Spee, 2009:76). This S-a-P approach focuses on examining the detailed processes and practices that contribute to sustained competitive advantage and their impact on strategic performance (Jarzabkowski & Whittington, 2002: C2). In the past, process researchers explored how organisations come first to recognise the need for strategic change and then how they actually achieve it however the practice approach draws on many insights of the process school, but returns to the managerial level, concerned with how strategists “strategize” (Whittington, 2002: C2). Strategy as practice (S-a-P) is an approach to strategy used by a community of researchers both in academics and in practice (Carter et al., 2008:85). Just as there are supporters of this approach to strategy, so too, are the critics. Strategy as practice has been criticised for: (i) displaying a high degree of ambiguity, (ii) for hindering the theoretical advancement of strategy and (iii) for failing to clearly define the concept of practice. It has been called a “naïve concept of strategy” that has left leading perspectives (Such as

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