El producto en la distribución

A central element of SAP is understanding what practitioners of strategy actually do (Golsorkhi et al., 2010; Hambrick, 2004; Jarzabkowski, 2004; Johnson et al., 2003a). As Johnson et al. (2003a) note, this “constitute[s] the

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day-to-day activities of organisational life and which relate to strategic outcomes. [The] focus therefore is on micro-activities that, while often invisible to traditional strategy research, nevertheless can have significant consequences for organisations and those that work in them” (p. 3). The concern for the micro, is however, not at the exclusion of the macro. Rather, SAP seeks to complement areas that traditional strategic management scholarship has been unable to answer (cf. Jarzabkowski & Whittington, 2008b; Whittington, 2006).

2.3.2.1 Concerns in relation to ‘traditional’ perspectives of strategy

Strategy has traditionally been viewed as the property of an organisation; this frames strategy as something a firm has, rather than something it does

(Whittington, 2006). Yet, unease with the dominance of this macro strategic management view brought about criticisms of strategic management’s direction. Arguments emerged that the strategic management literature suffered from high degrees of abstraction. This was then compounded with scholars increasingly undertaking more sophisticated quantitative analysis of these abstractions (Johnson et al., 2003a). As a result, critical scholars saw the direction of traditional strategic management as working towards a theoretical cul-de-sac (Johnson et al., 2003a). This subsequently, and ultimately gave rise to SAP. The reasons for the rise of SAP are of significance for this thesis - as I will later articulate in sections 2.6-2.10, my work addresses a growing body of criticism towards elements of SHRM that mirror the position of those who formed and cultivated the field of SAP.

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In regards to the concerns of treating strategy as something an organisation has, inattention towards human beings was the principle motivation of disquiet (cf. Hambrick, 2004). Strategy research, after the highly successful influences of Michael Porter, typically became macro-economically orientated

(Jarzabkowski et al., 2007). As a result, work reflecting the importance of human beings within strategic management scholarship greatly diminished (Bettis, 1991; Ghoshal & Moran, 1996; Jarzabkowski, 2004; Jarzabkowski et al., 2007; Lowendahl & Revang, 1998; Tsoukas & Knudsen, 2002;

Whittington, 2003). Omissions of people and their actions in macro strategic scholarship were even noted to plague theories such as the resource-based view of the firm (Barney, 1991) – a core strategic management theory. The significance of this is that this theory is meant to account for the internal subtleties of people’s actions as a means to achieve competitive advantage (Jarzabkowski & Spee, 2009; Johnson et al., 2007; Johnson et al., 2003b). Jarzabkowski and Spee (2009) observed that, even in work that did include actors within the organisation, the focus had been very much on senior managers. They further commented on the unlikelihood of a small group of super agents (in this case senior managers) sitting in a room pulling all the strategic strings, while no one else in the organisation acted strategically. 2.3.2.2 SAP complementing traditional strategic management scholarship A rising dissatisfaction with traditional macro-economic approaches within strategic management scholarship was also a strong catalyst for the emergence of SAP. Specifically, this entailed concern with traditional strategic

management scholarship looking at multivariate effects on firm performance, yet omitting human actors and their actions (Jarzabkowski & Spee, 2009).

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With the broader ‘practice turn’ in social theory garnering impetus in the 1980s (Reckwitz, 2002; Schatzki, Knorr-Cetina, & von Savigny, 2001), SAP drew from the theoretical positions of this work (Whittington, 2006).

Influential practice scholars such as Pierre Bourdieu, Michel de Certeau, Michel Foucault, and Anthony Giddens, all generally shared a desire to move beyond dualism (Whittington, 2006). Whittington (2006) uses Schatzki’s (2005) terms of individualism and societism to shed light on dualism.

In this view, individualists attribute too much to individual human actors, neglecting macro phenomena, while societists are over- impressed by large social forces, forgetting the micro. Practice theorists aim to respect both the efforts of individual actors and the workings of the social. To the individualists, they insist there is such a thing as society; to the societists, they affirm the significance of individual activity (Whittington, 2006, p. 614).

2.3.2.3 SAP’s rejection of false dichotomies

SAP therefore is accepting of macro and micro levels of analysis. While SAP was formed as a means to balance the runaway dominance of the macro perspective, it was not moulded in opposition to it. Jarzabkowski and

Whittington (2008b), for example, have articulated the place for both practice and economic positions within management education. They advocate the dangers of embracing false dichotomies. They reject the notion that one must choose. They use an article titled “Dirty Hands ‘versus’ Clean Models” by Hirsch, Michaels, and Friedman (1987) to emphasise this point. It is argued that on the one hand sociological research is messy, as is reality itself. Such research can be plagued with contextual issues. On the other hand, economic theory makes for clean models - yet such models are highly prone to

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Indeed, Langley (1999) notes that in strategy process scholarship, choosing to jump in and draw out theory, starting at the foundations and moving upwards (Pettigrew, 1992; Van de Ven, 1992), is inherently messy. Yet, the philosophy behind doing so is to seek to accurately comprehend how and why events occur over time (Langley, 1999). To do so, these events must be observed directly (Mintzberg, 1979).

In rejecting this false dichotomy, and seeking to fill the void that macro- economic strategic research is unable to resolve, SAP as a field can be seen to embrace a common sense approach to organisation (Björkman et al., 2014). Just as common sense depicts that strategy is broader and deeper than the workings of few senior managers alone, the practice of strategy places emphases on “the common-sensical notion of practical activity and direct experience” (Orlikowski, Golsorkhi, Rouleau, Seidl, & Vaara, 2010, p. 24). Importantly however, this is not just a list of what people do, or anecdotal management experiences barren of theory - a concern Grant (2016) has towards practically informed positions (cf. Jarzabkowski & Whittington, 2008b). A quick review of the field will highlight that SAP draws upon diverse social and managerial theories within its agenda.