A hermeneutic reading into "What strategy is": Ambiguous means-end relationship

Abstract

Given the underutilization of hermeneutic research in organizations and the recognition that we do not know what strategy is, we undertake a hermeneutic reading of authorial texts to develop a robust understanding of strategy. We enter into a self-reflexive dialogue with the text to accomplish a fusion of horizons where we hope to turn our prejudices into productive prejudices. In this dialogue, we utilize competing strategy paradigms within a framework that treats the means-end relationship and its underpinning rationality as central to our understanding. This study portrays strategy as a series of intended actions operating along the instrumental/objective - interpretive / subjective continuum, depending on the nature of the means-end relationship. We further contribute to knowledge by demonstrating how to apply hermeneutics to understand complex organizational concepts, and through the intendedness of strategy we emphasize management agency and dispense with the "emergent strategy" notion, common in the literature.