Strategy-as-Power

Ambiguity, Contradiction and the Exercise of Power in a UK Building Society

Datos Bibliográficos

ID20500172
AutoresDarren Mccabe (0000-0001-9938-2085, Keele University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2010
Volumen17
Número2
Páginas151-175
Fecha de publicación2010-03-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaOrganization (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1350-5084 • E-ISSN: 1461-7323
EditorialSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1350508409338885
OpenAlexW2135443173
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas13
Referencias citadas54

‘Strategy-as-practice’ (s-a-p) scholars have urged us to attend to the messy realities of strategy so as to increase the relevance of research for practititoners. This article, whilst recognizing the need to focus on what managers do, develops a critique of this literature. It argues that the s-a-p approach (Whittington, Jarzabkowski, Johnson, Balogun) and the earlier ‘Power School’ (Mintzberg, Pettigrew, Pfeffer) share much in common as both present power as the possession of management. This overstates the ability of managers to control others whilst understating the scope for resistance. Second, it asserts that both approaches would benefit from greater sensitivity towards the unequal context through which strategies emerge and that they serve, in part, to reproduce. Third, the article provides an empirical study of strategy in a UK Building Society. It attends to how power is exercised in ambiguous and contradictory ways that both supports and thwarts managerial endeavours. Through considering the uncertainty that results from this, the case reflects on the possibilities for resistance. The central argument is that if we explore practice only from management’s perspective, then we are in danger of not only reinforcing the status quo but also of being irrelevant to practitioners and wider constituents

Ambiguity · Contradiction · Economics · Epistemology · Political science · Positive economics · Public relations · Sociology · Status quo · Complex Systems and Decision Making · Law · Management and Organizational Studies · Management Theory and Practice