Practice Perspectives on Strategy: Unifying and Developing a Field.

This paper proposes a practice perspective on strategy, alongside the established sub-fields of strategy content and strategy process. The distinctive claim of this practice perspective is that it takes seriously strategy work, strategy's workers and strategy's tools. The paper introduces five practice perspectives in contemporary social theory (those of Bourdieu, de Certeau, Foucault, Giddens and MacIntyre) and draws out their various implications for considering strategy as practice. It continues by developing from these five perspectives an integrated model of strategy practice, in which the three concepts of strategy praxis, strategy practitioners and strategy practices are central. The paper proposes linked research agendas around each of these central concepts, drawing both on the five social theorists and on management theories such as institutionalism and corporate culture. Two broad propositions for testing the practice perspective are specified, and the policy relevance of the practice perspective for areas such as management training, the international diffusion of good practice and the organisation of strategy work is indicated. The concluding section also considers the implications of the practice perspective for the enduring conundrum, 'what is strategy?'.