Strategy as social practice in organizations: links between social representations, strategies and everyday tactics

Abstract

The aim of this article is to propose a theoretical and methodological approach that allows the study of strategizing in organizations. It is based on an approach that regards strategy as a social practice, in which both the macrosocial and microsocial contexts and their boundaries are displayed by the subjects ever since they joined those very contexts in which they conduct their practices. This approach sometimes emphasizes the microsocial level of practices involving the activities of people and, at other times, the macrosocial level of the contextual influences upon these practices. This points to the need to establish boundaries between the two levels, a task usually performed a priori by the researcher (WILSON and JARZABKOWSKI, 2004). Thus, this article offers a proposal that allows one to acknowledge the space of social subjects in order to determine these boundaries. To this end, the following theoretical contributions are linked in the text: thoughts on the idea of management as a social practice (REED, 1989) and of social representations that offer an alternative for dealing with the contextual limitations that involve the activities of people within and outside organizations (MOSCOVICI, 1961); and the everyday strategies and tactics of these very same people, showing ways in which the activities involve the relations of converging and diverging interests (CERTEAU, 1994).