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Reinstating the Radical: Trajectory, Debates, and Proposals for Strategy as Practice

Li, Q. & Jarzabkowski, P. ORCID: 0000-0001-8674-6628 (2025). Reinstating the Radical: Trajectory, Debates, and Proposals for Strategy as Practice. Journal of Business Research, 187, article number 115055. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.115055

Abstract

Strategy as practice (SAP) has developed from a relatively radical idea emphasising situated and knowledgeable strategy practices to a well-recognised field explaining a wide range of strategy activities and practices. Despite this remarkable trajectory, SAP continues to be shaped by ongoing onto-epistemological debates. This essay follows the call to embrace SAP’s early roots in social practices and proposes reinstating the radical in SAP research. We briefly review SAP’s trajectory, showing how advocates and critics have co-constructed the field as it is today. Based on this review, we identify two ongoing debates of intentionality and the macro-micro divide and highlight the onto-epistemological nature of these debates and the methodological challenges to move beyond the debates. Finally, we propose three research ‘bridges’ across these debates to further advance the radical SAP agenda and its growth as a vibrant intellectual community open to a wide range of research and phenomena as part of the field’s continuous process of becoming.

Publication Type: Article
Additional Information: This article is available under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND license and permits non-commercial use of the work as published, without adaptation or alteration provided the work is fully attributed.
Publisher Keywords: Strategy as practice; intentionality, macro-micro divide, social practice, knowing and knowledgeability
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
Departments: Bayes Business School
Bayes Business School > Management
SWORD Depositor:
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