Ann Langley

Strategizing in pluralistic contexts: Rethinking theoretical frames:

Pluralistic organizations characterized by multiple objectives, diffuse power and knowledge-based work processes present a complex challenge both for strategy theorists and for strategy practitioners because the very nature of strategy as usually understood (an explicit and unified direction for the organization) appears to contradict the natural dynamics of these organizations. Yet pluralism is to some extent always present in organizations and perhaps increasingly so. This article explores the usefulness of three alternate and complementary theoretical frames for understanding and influencing strategy practice in pluralistic contexts: Actor-Network Theory, Conventionalist Theory and the social practice perspective. Each of these frameworks has a predominant focus on one of the fundamental attributes of pluralism: power, values and knowledge. Together, they offer a multi-faceted understanding of the complex practice of strategizing in pluralistic contexts.

Explaining diffusion patterns for complex health care innovations.

Why are some less solidly supported health care innovations widely adopted while others with apparently stronger scientific support remain underused? Drawing on four case studies, the authors argue that the way in which the distribution of benefits and risks map onto the interests, values, and power distribution of the adopting system is critical to understanding how innovations diffuse.

Leadership and Strategic Change under Ambiguity

This paper draws on a case study of a large public hospital to examine the processes of leadership and strategic change in organizations where goals are unclear and authority is fluid and ambiguous. The case history describes the evolution of leadership roles during a period of radical change in which a general hospital acquires a university affiliation while moving towards a more integrated form of management. The study traces the tactics used by members of the leadership group to stimulate change, and the corresponding impact of these tactics on both the progress of change and on leadership roles themselves. It is suggested that strategic change in these organizations requires collaborat ive leadership involving constellations of actors playing distinct but tightly-knit roles. Yet, collaborative leadership is fragile and can easily disintegrate due to intemal conflict or to discreditation associated with more unpopular (although potentially effective) change tactics. Thus, under ambiguity, radical trans formations may tend to occur in a cyclical non-linear pattern with periods of substantive change alternating with periods of political realignment. The paper concludes with a series of five propositions concerning the collaborative, cyc lical, interpretative, and entropic nature of leadership and strategic change pro cesses under ambiguity.

Leadership in the Plural

This paper reviews the literature on forms of leadership that in one way or other imply plurality: that is, the combined influence of multiple leaders in specific organizational situations. We identify four streams of scholarship on plural leadership, each focusing on somewhat different phenomena and adopting different epistemological and methodological assumptions. Specifically, these streams focus on sharing leadership in teams, on pooling leadership at the top of organizations, on spreading leadership across boundaries over time, and on producing leadership through interaction. The streams of research vary according to their representations of plural leadership as structured or emergent and as mutual or coalitional. We note tensions between perspectives that advocate pluralizing leadership in settings of concentrated authority and those concerned with channeling the forms of plurality naturally found in diffuse power settings such as professional organizations or inter-organizational partnerships. It i...

Process thinking in strategic organization

We need more process thinking in research on strategic organization. Others have said this before in different ways (Pettigrew, 1992; Van de Ven, 1992; Meyer, Gaba and Colwell, 2005), but when one looks at the majority of empirical work published in the major journals in strategy, it seems that the message bears repeating. Even Strategic Organization, a journal that represents an ideal outlet for this type of research and which, according to the editors, actively welcomes it, has been able to publish only a limited number of empirical papers that embody what I would call process thinking over the first four years of its existence – in my estimate, no more than one or two papers per year. This essay will summarize the case for more process thinking in strategic organization, suggest some ideas for making process thinking more central, and draw attention to some illustrative studies that have shown the way. I begin however with a definition.

Strategy as Practice and the Narrative Turn

This paper argues that organizational communication research, and in particular a perspective that focuses on narrative, can contribute in important ways to understanding the practices of strategy. Narrative is believed to be critical to sensemaking in organizations, and multiple levels and forms of narrative are inherent to strategic practices. For example, narrative can be found in the micro-stories told by managers and others as they interact and go about their daily work, in the formalized techniques for strategy-making whether or not the techniques are explicitly story-based, in the accounts people give of their work as strategy practitioners, and in the artefacts produced by strategizing activity. After exploring applications of narrative approaches to strategy praxis, practices, practitioners and text, we review two concepts that might serve to integrate micro and macro levels of analysis. Overall, narrative is seen as a way of giving meaning to the practice that emerges from sensemaking activities, of constituting an overall sense of direction or purpose, of refocusing organizational identity, and of enabling and constraining the ongoing activities of actors.

The Corruption of Managerial Techniques by Organizations

Public sector organizations are under pressure to adopt private sector tools to sustain legitimacy despite uncertainty about the compatibility of the techniques with this context. We explore the consequences of the misfit between the theories underlying two widely adopted managerial techniques (strategic planning and quality management) and the pluralistic power structure and values of public hospitals. We identify four scenarios of adaptation and use qualitative data to examine their empirical prevalence. We suggest that when the compatibility gap is large, there is greater likelihood that formalized techniques will be captured by and integrated into existing organizational dynamics (corruption of the technique) than that the technique will change these dynamics in a way consistent with its objectives (transformation of the organization). We examine the implications of our observations for understanding the role of managerial techniques in organizational change.

Integration mechanisms and R&D project performance ☆

Abstract Information processing theory suggests the need for different types of integration mechanisms in R&D project management depending on levels of uncertainty and equivocality. This paper examines the use of these mechanisms and their links to project performance in a sample of 121 R&D projects in a large research laboratory. Overall, it is found that formal leadership, planning and process specification, and to a lesser extent information technology use are related to project performance while the positive effects of horizontal structures are apparently balanced out by their costs. The integration mechanisms studied act on performance partly through their effect on horizontal communications. Modest support was found for the contingency hypotheses derived from information processing theory. It appears that managers adjusted their use of horizontal structures, planning and process specification, and informal leadership to project uncertainty but not to project equivocality. The positive effects of horizontal communications on performance were found to be greatest under high project equivocality as would be predicted by information processing arguments. Moreover, with the exception of formal leadership, the use of integration mechanisms did not enhance performance in contexts of low uncertainty and low equivocality.

Governance, Power, and Mandated Collaboration in an Interorganizational Network

This article explores the challenges of mandated collaboration among public health care organizations. This in-depth longitudinal multiple case study examines the interests and values of various organizational actors in three collaborative initiatives, focusing on the mobilization of power within the governance frameworks available to them. The authors elaborate on three alternate readings of the processes examined: The managerialist views poor interorganizational collaboration as a failure to adequately manage the process; the symbolic focuses on the value of collaborative initiatives even in the absence of instrumental results; and the third examines the systemic web of power relationships reproduced over time.

Templates and Turns in Qualitative Studies of Strategy and Management

Purpose – This chapter presents four different approaches to doing and writing qualitative research in strategy and management based on different epistemological foundations. It describes two well-established “templates” for doing such work, and introduces two more recent “turns” that merit greater attention. Design/Methodology/Approach – The chapter draws on methodological texts and a detailed analysis of successful empirical exemplars from the strategy and organization literature to show how qualitative research on strategy processes can be effectively carried out and written up. Findings – The two “templates” are based on different logics and modes of writing. The first is based on a positivist epistemology and aims to develop nomothetic theoretical propositions, while the second is interpretive and more concerned to capture and gain insight from the meanings given to organizational phenomena. The two “turns” (the practice turn and the discursive turn) are not as well defined but are generating innovative contributions based on new ways of considering the social world. Originality/Value – The chapter should be helpful to researchers considering qualitative methods for the study of strategy processes. It contributes by comparing different approaches and by recognizing that part of the challenge of doing qualitative research lies in writing it up to communicate its insights in a credible way. Thus while describing the different methods, the chapter also draws attention to effective forms of writing. In addition, it introduces and assesses two more recent “turns” that offer promising routes to novel insight as well as having particular ontological and epistemological affinities with qualitative research methods.