Finding an emergent way through transformational change: a narrative approach to strategy

ABSTRACT

Current strategic media management has a tendency to draw on design or planning schools and focus primarily on competitive advantages, industry development, and strategic positioning. However, the way in which strategies emerge from everyday practices is poorly understood. To this end, we build a theoretical lens from the narrative approach to strategy-as-practice and the concept of “wayfinding”, and study how organisational narratives can help both managers and employees to construct meaning around emergent strategy during ongoing transformational change. Through interview data of an empirical case study, we identify narratives on three fronts – about (1) employees, (2) managers, and (3) the market – and elaborate on how these narratives may give meaning, offer guidance, and provide an actionable basis from which to find a way through ongoing transformational change. Our study contributes to the research on strategic media management by showing how narratives can help to make sense of emergent strategy and the way organisations find their way through ongoing change.

KEYWORDS:

• Strategic media management
• narrative approach to strategy-as-practice
• emergent strategies
• organisational change

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation (http://www.hssaatio.fi/en/).

Notes on contributors

Sven-Ove Horst

Sven-Ove Horst is Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Management Studies at Aalto University School of Business. He earned his doctorate from Ingolstadt School of Management, Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. His research interests center on practice-based approaches to strategy and management. Recently, he has explored strategy workshops, organizational change paradoxes, and emergent strategizing in complex and uncertain environments.

Rita Järventie-Thesleff

Dr. Rita Järventie-Thesleff is Professor of Practice at Aalto University School of Business, Department of Management Studies and she works also as the CEMS Academic Director at Aalto University. Her research interests include strategic change, strategy-as-practice, strategic communication, branding and sense-making. Prior to becoming an academic, Järventie-Thesleff has had a long career as a business practitioner with significant experience of senior positions in international trade.