Mobilizing Identities

Abstract

Some see the development and execution of strategy as necessarily driving outcomes of organizational activity, thereby ignoring counter-actions, stochastic disturbances and unintended consequences. We suggest an alternative to these deterministic assumptions based on a broader view of social organization and illustrated through case example. Strategy does imply some mobilization of network resources according to desired ends and projected events. Yet strategic action is also generated by some perturbation of a status quo ante and a decoupling from this slate of affairs. The central theoretical premise of the article is that any identity, as either an individual or grouping, emerges from persistent efforts to seek control in immediate and uncertain surroundings. Identities appear and evolve according to positions and movements among networks of social ties, which imply access to different sets of meanings. So distinct identities are triggered by disjunctions in social interactions and disruptions in the social or physical environment. And further levels of social organization are by-products. Anticipating deviations from established routine and coping with uncertain environments is the basis for strategic action. Strategies can be viewed as atlempts to secure a stable and lasting footing in an operating environment while simultaneously configuring organizational identities in line it strategic ends. Management in business, the military and fashion design supply case evidence.