Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Strategic Leadership
T2 - The accomplishment of strategy as a 'perennially unfinished proejct'
AU - Iszatt-White, Marian
PY - 2010/11/1
Y1 - 2010/11/1
N2 - Based on an ethnomethodologically informed ethnography of further education college principals, this paper explores the nature and accomplishment of strategic leadership work as an ongoing, processual activity. In particular, the paper focuses on the ‘pre-implementation’ phase of the strategizing process, and suggests how the practices of clarifying, rehearsing, upholding, adapting and elaborating are integral to maintaining the spirit of the strategy in the face of unforeseen events. In so doing, it adopts the notion of strategy as a ‘perennially unfinished project’ (Knights and Mueller, 2004: 55), and explicates the constant need for improvisation and adjustment in order to successfully implement, not the letter of a strategic plan, but its intent. It also echoes Suchman’s seminal thesis on plans as ‘resources for situated action [that] do not in any strong sense determine its course’ (Suchman, 1987: 52).
AB - Based on an ethnomethodologically informed ethnography of further education college principals, this paper explores the nature and accomplishment of strategic leadership work as an ongoing, processual activity. In particular, the paper focuses on the ‘pre-implementation’ phase of the strategizing process, and suggests how the practices of clarifying, rehearsing, upholding, adapting and elaborating are integral to maintaining the spirit of the strategy in the face of unforeseen events. In so doing, it adopts the notion of strategy as a ‘perennially unfinished project’ (Knights and Mueller, 2004: 55), and explicates the constant need for improvisation and adjustment in order to successfully implement, not the letter of a strategic plan, but its intent. It also echoes Suchman’s seminal thesis on plans as ‘resources for situated action [that] do not in any strong sense determine its course’ (Suchman, 1987: 52).
KW - strategic leadership
KW - strategy-as-practice
KW - situated practice
KW - ethnomethodology
KW - pre-implementation
U2 - 10.1177/1742715010379310
DO - 10.1177/1742715010379310
M3 - Journal article
VL - 6
SP - 409
EP - 424
JO - Leadership
JF - Leadership
SN - 1742-7150
IS - 4
ER -