It’s strategy. But is it practice? Desperately seeking social practice in strategy-as-practice research

Abstract

Over the past years, strategy-as-practice research has become a cornerstone for better understanding how strategy emerges from the sayings and doings of individuals in organizations. While tremendous progress has been made, we believe that the process that has led us to where we are today has left a crucial debate for understanding strategy as a “practice” behind. Inspired by other recent challenges to the field, we address a central question that has concerned the strategy-as-practice community from its early beginnings, but for which an adequate answer has yet to be provided: What is practice? We answer this question by suggesting that strategy-as-practice scholars place a knowledgeability principle at the core of their conceptualization of practice. We believe that taking the notion of practice more seriously in our research in this way will help not only reinvigorate, but also revitalize our field by deepening our understanding of the relationship between practice research and strategic organization.