Strategy Processes and Practices

Strategy process research has yielded a richer understanding of the emergence of strategies from throughout the organization and over extended periods of time; strategy-as-practice research has helped us understand the range of actors involved in strategy and the tools they draw on in their strategy work. The purpose of this chapter is to encourage research that combines insights from these two traditions. First, the chapter offers brief overviews of process and practice research. Then, the chapter reviews the most recent work from 2018 onward. Most of the text, however, goes to discussing future research that combines process and practice perspectives and that focuses on four themes: temporality and spatiality, actors and agency, cognition and emotionality, and language and meaning. These themes are woven together by two “red threads”—strategy digitalization and strategy inclusion—that we expect will have significant impact on strategy formation.