Process thinking in strategic organization

but when one looks at the majority of empirical work published in the major journals in strategy, it seems that the message bears repeating. Even Strategic Organization, a journal that represents an ideal outlet for this type of research and which, according to the editors, actively welcomes it, has been able to publish only a limited number of empirical papers that embody what I would call process thinking over the first four years of its existence – in my estimate, no more than one or two papers per year. This essay will summarize the case for more process thinking in strategic organization, suggest some ideas for making process thinking more central, and draw attention to some illustrative studies that have shown the way. I begin however with a definition. What do I mean by process thinking? Unfortunately, the word process has come to take on such a variety of meanings that communication can be difficult. I do not want to embark on a taxonomic discussion here as others have done this before (Van de Ven, 1992; Van de Ven, 2005; Chia and Langley, 2004), but I do need to specify what I mean by process thinking in this essay. For me, process thinking involves considering phenomena dynamically – in terms of movement, activity, events, change and temporal evolution. This corresponds to Van de Vens (1992) third definition of process (the