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Chapter 24 - Analytical Frames for Studying Power in Strategy as Practice and Beyond

from Part III - Theoretical Resources: Organization and Management Theories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2025

By
Stewart Clegg  and
Martin Kornberger
Edited by
Damon Golsorkhi ,
Linda Rouleau ,
David Seidl  and
Eero Vaara
Damon Golsorkhi
Affiliation:
emlyon Business School
Linda Rouleau
Affiliation:
HEC Montréal
David Seidl
Affiliation:
Universität Zürich
Eero Vaara
Affiliation:
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
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Summary

Stewart Clegg and Martin Kornberger focus on one of the most important but still understudied dimension in strategy as practice: power. They investigate how power theories can inform the study of strategy as practice, and vice versa. Understanding strategy as the ‘art of creating power’, the study of the ways in which power and strategy interact and how one leads to the other should be a central concern for scholars of strategy. Whilst providing an overview of the key writings that have emerged at the interface between power and strategy, the authors also attempt to point towards several possible future lines of inquiry. Their contribution is structured following a rather simple heuristic device (strategy as noun, strategizing as verb, strategic as adjective) which emphasizes the different agents, mechanisms and effects that can guide the analysis of power and strategy.

Keywords

strategy as practicepractice approachpower

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Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice , pp. 435 - 452
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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