Moving forward: reconciling future and past : temporal work in strategy as practice and process
submitted by Simon A. Betschart (from Muotathal (Schwyz))
This dissertation presents an investigation of temporal work in strategizing and examines how management reconciles future and past. To ensure future value creation, management - via strategizing - engages in the creation and enactment of projections of the future. While this strategizing is concerned with the future, it is also inextricably linked to the past: Strategizing happens in an established organizational context that is enabling but also restraining. To ensure future value creation and move forward accordingly, an organization's management must engage in temporal work and create strategic accounts by reconciling future and past. However, these aspects of temporal work in strategizing are under-researched. Therefore, this dissertation addresses this research gap with the following research question: How does management reconcile future and past in strategizing in order to make it productive for future value creation? To answer the research question, this dissertation draws on strategy as practice and process (SAPP) as a theoretical lens. A theoretical framework is developed to explain how future and past are reconciled in strategizing. Hence, different perspectives on time are reviewed, and the significance of temporality as well as its enactment in relation to an organization's strategy work are examined. To complete the framework, a future-oriented notion of sensemaking is outlined alongside five key organizational dimensions, which provide the context for the reconciliation of future and past. Based on an empirical case study with Belimo, a Swiss engineering company, this dissertation identifies nine practices to reconcile future and past: mobilizing history, adjusting the organizational setup, inducing decisions, creating strategic accounts, setting boundaries, zooming in and zooming out, mosaic working, aligning innovation with strategy and organization, submarining. To illustrate these practices in practice, a a process map of a strategic innovation project is depicted in which the practices are located. Hence, the practices are contextualized within the theoretical framework, which results in the discovery of four temporality dynamics: stabilization work, integration work, future work, and (re)creation work. The research indicates that the configuration of the practices to reconcile future and past strongly influences the strategy work of an organization. Management can contribute to successful strategizing by actively configuring the above nine practices and by consciously arranging the temporality dynamics. However, this refinement requires that management emphasizes temporal work in its strategizing.
Year of publication: |
2020
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Authors: | Betschart, Simon A. |
Publisher: |
2020: St. Gallen |
Subject: | Befristete Beschäftigung | Temporary employment | Betriebliche Wertschöpfung | Value creation | Strategisches Management | Strategic management |
Saved in:
freely available
Extent: | 1 Online-Ressource (circa 199 Seiten) Illustrationen |
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Type of publication: | Book / Working Paper |
Type of publication (narrower categories): | Hochschulschrift ; Graue Literatur ; Non-commercial literature |
Language: | English |
Thesis: | Dissertation, University of St.Gallen, 2020 |
Notes: | Zusammenfassung in deutscher und englischer Sprache |
Source: | ECONIS - Online Catalogue of the ZBW |
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012297748
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