Organisational strategy making and first-line manager challenges: A building and dwelling perspective

Abstract

This study explores challenges confronted by first-line managers as strategy-makers within organisational frontline contexts, referred to as sites where customers and clients as end-users are served on a day-to-day basis. In the study, Heideggerian building and dwelling perspectives are used as conceptual foundations. A building perspective implies deliberate strategy making based on goals usually determined by upper-level management. From a dwelling perspective on the other hand, strategy making is conducted non-deliberately by actors immersed in a relationally constituted nexus of social activity, as practical coping. Challenges confronted by first-line managers as strategy-makers within organisational frontline contexts as dwelling contexts are discussed, and implications for organisational strategy making as well as for the education of strategy-makers are elaborated.