Recontextualising a strategic concept within a globalising company: a case study on Carlsberg's ‘Winning Behaviours’ strategy

Abstract

A corporate strategy is often formulated on the executive floor at headquarters. However, in order to make it live in an organisation, middle management and employees must be involved and make sense of it. These actors thus contribute to, participate in and enact the strategy in processes where it may take on new meanings and forms. This article investigates how ‘Winning Behaviours’, a strategic concept developed on the initiative of top management at the Carlsberg Group in order to improve global integration in the multinational organisation, was recontextualised. It draws upon interviews and observations as well as documents collected at the company headquarters in Denmark and in its subsidiaries in China and Malaysia. Here, expatriate and local managers tried to give sense to the Winning Behaviours in various ways, and employees brought their own local leadership ideals into play when they tried to make sense of the preferred behaviours and turn them into daily practices. The process of creating a new strategic concept and making it live in other sociocultural contexts was facilitated by headquarters staff in the Human Resources and Communications departments, who thus played an important role as change agents in the ‘glocal’ strategy process.

Keywords::

• corporate values
• recontextualisation
• sensegiving
• strategic change

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Markus Pudelko for constructive comments and to Lisa Ernst for competent language editing. This article draws upon empirical material from a research project on ‘Cultural Intelligence as a Strategic Resource’ (2008–2011), carried out by a team of researchers at Copenhagen Business School. Previously published conference papers and book chapters about the Winning Behaviours case have been co-authored with Martine Cardel Gertsen. However, the author alone is responsible for the analysis, reflections and perspectives presented in this journal article.