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Exploring the Edges of Theory-Practice Gap: Epistemic Cultures in Strategy-Tool Development and Use

Helsinki School of Economics, Department of Marketing and Management, Helsinki, Finland, johanna.moisander{at}hse.fi

Sari Stenfors

SCANCOR, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA, stenfors{at}stanford.edu

This paper takes a strategy-as-practice perspective on the study of strategy tools and the theory-practice gap in strategic management research. Based on a case study, the paper argues that differences in epistemic culture may complicate communication and co-operation between academics and practitioners. These differences may also result in management scholars producing knowledge and strategy tools that lack practical pertinence for corporate actors, particularly in the context of modernist management scholars and contemporary post-bureaucratic knowledge organizations (PBOs). In PBOs, where flexibility, participative management style and consensus building dialogue are emphasized, modernist strategy tools designed for rational problem solving by individual decision-makers may be inadequate. In PBOs, practical strategy work calls for tools that support collective knowledge production, promote dialogue and trust, and function as learning tools. Overall, the paper concludes that the development of strategy tools that actually support practical strategizing calls for a more social model of knowledge and strategy work.

Key Words: epistemic culture • management tools • sociology of technology • strategic management • strategy as practice

Organization, Vol. 16, No. 2, 227-247 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1350508408100476


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