Double Stimulation in Strategic Concept Formation: An Activity-Theoretical Analysis of Business Planning in a Small Technology Firm

In this article, we study the relationships between culturally existing general strategy concepts and a small information and communication technology firm's specific strategic challenge in its management team's search for a new strategy concept. We apply three theoretical ideas of cultural historical activity theory: (a) the idea of double stimulation, which we relate to the relationship of culturally evolved artifacts and the problem situation at hand in the processes of problem solving and agency building; (b) the dialectical interplay between the process and the product of generalizing; and (c) the difference between empirical and theoretical generalizations, which is related to the quality and explanatory power of concepts. The analysis shows that the use of empirical generalizations as intellectual tools in strategic planning and the lack of firsthand observational and experiential data about the clients' problems hampered the management team's attempt to find a new strategy to avoid a future crisis for the business.