Making sense with practice: from an “…as practice” to a “practice as…” perspective Amaury Grimand (Professeur des Universités – IAE de Poitiers) Jérôme Méric (Professeur des Universités – IAE de Poitiers) Ewan Oiry (Professeur des Universités – IAE de Poitiers) OAP WORKSHOP – ROME 26-27 July 2014

Presentation outline Practice based approaches: empirical avenues or methodological dead-ends? Practice as strategy: a need for archetypal approaches to answer an ontological question. Eight archetypes of strategic practices (PAS) OAP WORKSHOP – ROME 26-27 July 2014

Context and research question SAP : moving strategy from ivory towers to the everyday. SAP : a composite research object (praxis, practices, practitioners, Whittington, 2006; communities, activities, individuals, Jarzabkowski, 2005). Practice as a syncretic (not synthetic, not eclectic) concept: An asset for embracing complex phenomena, an integration vector for empiries and theories, …but also a pathway to “confusionism” if no boundary is set. Is any practice substantially strategic ? (hard to hold) Then, what is strategic practice ? (a need for practice as strategy approaches) OAP WORKSHOP – ROME 26-27 July 2014

Practice as strategy: a need for archetypal approaches to answer an ontological question. Ontological dead-ends: Geographism (confusing managerial activity and strategy) Nominalism (naming a too narrow or infinitely expansible field) Phenomenologism and consequentialism Ideologism One possible way out from paradoxes of SAP: ideal-typical approaches No claim for exhaustivity Complementarity OAP WORKSHOP – ROME 26-27 July 2014

Eight archetypes of strategic practices (PAS) 1. A rational construct, like an action plan (see the traditional approach of strategy by Martinet, 2002), 2. The construction of behavioral regularities, like routines (Feldman & Pentland, 2005), 3. A behavioral innovation, improvisation or bricolage (March, 1991), 4. The development of knowledge, learning, cognitive development (Argyris & Schön, 1974) 5. A sensemaking and sensegiving process by which individuals: seek to interpret and understand the reality in which they are evolving by acting (Weick, 1995); attempt to focus organizational actors’ managerial attention (Occasio, 1997) OAP WORKSHOP – ROME 26-27 July 2014

Eight archetypes of strategic practices (PAS) 6. The construction of an identity, an image of self (Sainsaulieu, 1977, Dubar, 1998), a way for people to call attention to their professionalism or to increase their legitimacy (Molloy and Whittington, 2005, Kaplan, 2011), 7. The setting up of power-domination relations (Crozier, 1964), a way to mediate social interactions (Orlikowski, 2007), 8. The locus of institutionalization or deinstitutionalization (Meyer & Rowan, 1977), structuration or destructuration processes (Giddens, 1984). OAP WORKSHOP – ROME 26-27 July 2014

Strategic practice as a sensemaking & sensegiving process (1) Main logic : individuals try to make sense of the managerial situations they face while acting. They also try to shape by their practices others’ perceptions and to focus their managerial attention (Occasio, 1997; Simons, 1995) Rather than a consequential perspective in which decision precedes action, sensemaking starts with human action, so that practices are always in the process of being defined Sensegiving is a process of influence toward a ‘preferred redefinition of organizational reality’ (Chittipeddi, 1991, p. 442) Most of the time this process of sensemaking & sensegiving draws upon the use of managerial artefacts (see Kaplan, 2011) OAP WORKSHOP – ROME 26-27 July 2014

Strategic practice as a sensemaking & sensegiving process (2) A managerial situation : Garreau & Mouricou (2012) study of the use of visual artefacts, notably maps, in project management Managers strategize using maps in both a sensemaking and sensegiving process As regards sensemaking, they use maps to reach a common understanding of the project, to make people identify with it, or to help them discuss the nature of their interactions and of their knowledge base By the way, they also use maps to challenge or promote a dominant organizational narrative, make constraints visible for anyone, create a sense of irreversibility. They also make a symbolic use of maps in order to assert their power OAP WORKSHOP – ROME 26-27 July 2014

Strategic activities emerging from behavioral regularities (routines) (1) Regular activities like routines may have strategic impacts Diversity, selection and retention explain how regularities can be innovative Becker, Faulkner, 2009 - improvisation in Jazz. You can play a song you do not know because of strong routines in Jazz improvisation (12 steps in most Blues Jazz tunes, this kind of tone is usually followed by this kind of tone) Feldman & Pentland, 2005 - One conceptual framework that can be used to analyze routines (ostensive and performative elements) OAP WORKSHOP – ROME 26-27 July 2014

2. Strategic activities emerging from behavioral regularities (routines) (2) The case of a consultancy in strategy (Méric, 2009) To analyze innovative practices But the statement of a “fixed” organization – nothing change. It is the key factor of a high quality consultancy This immobility implies numerous strategic interactions: Rules of decision (unanimity), Rules of recruitment (only best french business and engineering schools) Organization of space (reception at ground level, interviews at first level) OAP WORKSHOP – ROME 26-27 July 2014