On the problem of participation in strategy: a critical discursive perspective
Article Type: Abstracts From: Strategic Direction, Volume 25, Issue 9
Mantere S., Vaara E. Organization Science (USA), March-April 2008, Vol. 19 No. 2, Start page: 341, No. of pages: 18
Purpose – Explores why organizations limit involvement of members/employees in strategy formation. Design/methodology/approach –States there is academic consensus that participation improves strategy development, bases the study on analysis of 12 Finnish organizations’strategy formation processes and their associated discourses, interviews company representatives, and analyses documentary data. Suggests that discourses can impede or promote strategy formation, and asks what kinds of discourses impede participation and what kinds promote participation. Questions interviewees on their roles in strategy processes, their conceptions of strategy and associated organizational practices, and their working environments and the impacts of strategy on them. Findings – Tabulates participation levels in the 12 organizations, identifies associated discourses impeding or promoting participation, names impeding discourses “mystification”, “disciplining”and “technologization”, and entitles promoting discourses, “concretization”,“dialogization” and “self-actualization”, defines each name/title, e.g. mystification refers to obfuscation of an activity so that its meaning is open to only a privileged few, provides vignettes of the organizations’ strategy processes, and supports conclusions, and the discourse typology, with interviewee quotes. Details the effect on participation levels of the six discourses, and links strategy discourses to other organizational social practices. Originality/value – Advises organizations to analyse their strategy processes, and, where necessary, change to one that increases employee involvement and engagement. Article type: Research paper ISSN: 1047-7039 Reference: 38AJ142
Keywords: Corporate strategy, Employees Involvement,Finland, Language, Participative management
