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The role of strategy workshops in strategic change (David Seidl with Donald MacLean,Robert MacIntosh – Glasgow University)
- Although strategy workshops have been the setting for many studies on strategy there are only very few studies that have actually examined strategy workshops in their own right – as a particular social practice that in one way or other might or might not affect the development of the organization. Of those few accounts that one finds on strategy workshops, most are anecdotal, usually stressing their uselessness (e.g. Mintzberg 1994; Mintzberg and Lampel 1999). It has only been for the last few years that strategy workshops have become a separate topic of research. In this collaborative research project we examine the different roles of strategy workshops in strategic change based on in-depth, processual studies of multiple case companies.
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The Role of Meetings in Strategy Process (Karen Schweg, Stéphane Guérard, David Seidl)
- In the strategic management literature, meetings have not explicitly been considered part of the strategy process except in providing a “neutral” frame within which decision-making processes take place (Schwartzman, 1989). Contemporary work, however, suggests that meetings do not just provide empty shells for decision-processes which could as easily have taken place elsewhere, but that they actively influence organizations (Boden, 1994; Schwartzman, 1989). This influence is reflected through different functions, such as sense-making (Weick 1995), information gathering (Adams, 2004; Tepper, 2004) and agenda setting (Wodak 2001), that have been associated with meetings. More recently, studies have shown that meetings may directly affect the strategy process by stabilizing existing strategies or by shaping strategic change (Hodgkinson, Whittington, Johnson, & Schwarz, 2006; Jarzabkowski & Seidl, 2008). In an early work (1973) Mintzberg was one of the first to recognize explicitly the role of meetings in strategy formation when he wrote: “Three kinds of activities took place primarily at scheduled meetings – ceremony, strategy-making, and negotiation. The reasons are clear. All three are time-consuming and involve many participants, often from diverse places. Scheduling the meeting was the only way to bring these people together.” (p.42). While the literature indicates that meetings do affect strategy formation, there are no coherent theories or measurable constructs that thoroughly examine how series of meetings affect strategy-making processes. This research project intends to fill this gap by asking how series of meetings influence different phases of strategy process.
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CEO Integration and Strategic Change as Interrelated Processes in CEO Succession (Shenghui Ma, David Seidl, Stéphane Guérard)
- The post-succession period plays an important role in the strategy process, since it is “typically characterized by formulation and implementation of strategies where new CEOs seek to have the greatest impact” (Herrmann & Datta, 2002: 552). However, initiating strategic change without established authority and interpersonal relationships is a big challenge for new CEOs. Despite a large number of studies on CEO succession (see Kesner & Sebora, 1994, and Giambatista et al., 2005 for reviews), we know little about the post-succession process since most research “failed to examine what new leaders do” (Miller, 1993: 656). Adopting a Strategy-as-Practice perspective, we are interested in exploring how the most prominent strategists, CEOs, shape strategy in the succession context. We argue that it is necessary to take strategic change and CEO integration as dual but interrelated processes after CEO succession, to better understand the post-succession process. As Hart (1991) noted, “the tension between […] [the] need for creativity [i.e. change initiatives] and the need for a new leader’s integration into the social group remains a factor in the succession equation” (p.469). However, past research has typically focused either exclusively on CEO integration or on strategic change, although the two aspects are obviously highly interrelated. Through in-depth qualitative analysis we intend to uncover what new leaders do, to find out how these two processes interact and to better capture the dynamic and complexity of the post-succession process.
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The emergence of routines (Katharina Dittrich, Stéphane Guérard, David Seidl)
- Since the publication of “An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change” by Nelson & Winter (1982) routines have been recognized to hold the potential for understanding not only organizations, but also their development. While we know that routines bring both stability and change (Feldman, M. 2000; Feldman, M. S. & Pentland, B. T. 2003), and are constitutive of organizational life, there is surprisingly little work on the question of their emergence. To address this gap, this research project seeks to understand how organizational routines emerge. The research design is based on a comparative, longitudinal, ethnographic case-study where routines in a start-up company are being studied.
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