Strategy as Practice research is interested in the activities that constitute strategy making. The turn towards practices in the strategy literature echoes an increased interest in human practices in the social sciences (Schatzki et al., 2001) and, more recently, in organizational and management research. Strategy as Practice responds to calls for research into the minutiae of organisational life and the practices that constitute the ‘internal life of process’ (Brown and Duguid, 2000; Chia and MacKay, 2007; Feldman and Pentland, 2003; Tsoukas and Chia, 2002). It particularly resonates with Weick’s (1979) suggestion to make more extravagant use of verbs and gerunds, such as ‘to organise’ and ‘organising’, and to become ‘stingy’ in the use of nouns such as ‘organisation’ in order to re-envisage organisations as processes rather than states. The departure from such static and reified concepts in practice research is intended to bring back the actor into the research landscape (Whittington, 2006). Schatzki (1997, p. 284) argues that practice-theoretical approaches are united by the proposition that practical understanding and intelligibility are articulated in practices; they are situated in manifolds of activity.

Strategy as Practice research is interested in the detailed micro activities that constitute strategising and the link between these activities and wider social organisational and social contexts, also referred to as macro. Strategy as practice research, inter alia, draws upon - but is not limited to - sociological approaches (e.g. Bourdieu, 1990; Giddens, 1984; Schatzki, 2005) that attempt to overcome the micro-macro dualisms that characterise orthodox organisational research.Besides that, theoretical pluralism is encouraged with recognition of the potential contributions from a wide range of sociological and organization theories such as practice based, institutional, discourse, sensemaking, routines and cognition.One integrative framework developed within the Strategy as Practice literature defines its broad research parameters as studying: practitioners (those people who do the work of strategy); practices (the social, symbolic and material tools through which strategy work is done); and praxis (the flow of activity in which strategy is accomplished) (Jarzabkowski, 2005; et al., 2007; Johnson et al., 2007; Whittington, 2006). These three elements represent an entry into the study of strategizing activity that differs from existing ‘top-down’ approaches that work with reified notions of ‘the firm’ and of ‘strategy’.
 
Strategy as Practice research is moreover open to a variety of research methodologies and methods to the study of strategic practices, inviting scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds to contribute to our understanding of the actions and routines that constitute strategising.

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For references please visit the SAP-IN Bibliography.