Ideal-Practice Entanglement: When Emergence Fails to Enrich the Deliberate Planning Model

Abstract

ABSTRACT Responsiveness to emergence is often depicted as key to successful communication. According to extant research, deliberate planning and emergence can become mutually enriching if agile strategizing is embraced. The transition towards such mindset, however, might prove more difficult to attain than extant research suggests. In this paper, I explore the perseverance of the deliberate planning model despite cases of emergence that question its usefulness. Drawing on theory of organizational reform practice, I discuss why recurrent discrepancies between deliberate models and strategizing practice might never lead practitioners to challenge such models. Specifically, the study argues that communication strategizing needs to be approached as a dialogic practice shaped not only by complementarity, but also by processes of competition and antagonism. The contribution of the paper is two-fold; it increases awareness that emergence does not necessarily lead practitioners to challenge the deliberate model and it provides a research agenda that can advance knowledge of the coexistence of the deliberate model and emergence.