Completing the Practice Turn in Strategy Research

Abstract

This paper identifies a practice turn in current strategy research, treating strategy as something people do. However, it argues that this turn is incomplete in that researchers currently concentrate either on strategy activity at the intra-organizational level or on the aggregate effects of this activity at the extra-organizational level. The paper proposes a framework for strategy research that integrates these two levels based on the three concepts of strategy praxis, strategy practices and strategy practitioners. The paper develops implications of this framework for research, particularly with regard to the impact of strategy practices on strategy praxis, the creation and transfer of strategy practices and the making of strategy practitioners. The paper concludes by outlining the distinctive emphases of the practice perspective within the strategy discipline.