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Research summary: When faced with complex strategic problems that exceed their individual sensemaking capacities, organizations often engage in inter-organizational collaboration. This enables them to pool the participants' different perspectives and to grasp the problem at hand more comprehensively. Drawing on data collected from two longitudinal case studies, we examine how those who participate in inter-organizational sensemaking processes are selected and how the particular selection of participants affects the dynamics of the sensemaking process in turn. In our analysis, we show how the selection of specific problem issues influences who joins or withdraws from the collaboration and we identify a mechanism that accounts for changes in the particular dynamics of the sensemaking process over time. Our findings help explain how the process of inter-organizational sensemaking can yield different outcomes. Managerial summary: The ability to make sense of the business environment is central to strategic management. As the complexity of the environment increases and interpreting it becomes more difficult, organizations increasingly turn to inter-organizational collaboration, which allows them to pool their expertise in order to explore strategic issues. We examine how the participants in projects of joint exploration are selected and how the selection of participants affects the process of exploration in turn. More specifically, we describe how the aspects on which collaborating organizations choose to focus influence who joins and who withdraws from a collaboration. We also identify a mechanism that accounts for differences and changes in the dynamics of the sensemaking process over time. These changes affect how the collaborators come to understand their organization's business environment.

The initiation and implementation of the strategizing process in a country should be accompanied by a comprehensively developed, high-quality state mechanism of strategic management. The existence of an institutional mechanism, which provides for the creation of organization structures in the public authorities system, the division of their functions and responsibilities, clearly defined interaction of structures designed to achieve common strategic development goals, is a prerequisite for a successful strategic process in the country. Providing institutional support for strategizing in a complex socio-economic system, which is still developing, requires coordination and balance in the activities of all the strategic management entities, thus becoming relevant in the current conditions of Ukraine’s development. The article aims at studying the structure and functions of the executive authorities in the field of strategic management. Recommendations have been developed to improve the institutional support for the strategic process in the country by implementing the EU institutional organization principles, designed by the ESDN, and the PDCA Cycle in public administration. The author identifies Ukraine’s strategizing participants; develops recommendations for supplementing the public authorities’ functions in the strategizing field; suggests creating an organizational structure which would support strategizing; and creates a consistent institutional support scheme helping to implement strategizing at the national level.

The aim of the article is to summarize theoretical proposals on the definition of the concept of strategizing, to study its genesis and the need to use it in the complex modern conditions of life of enterprises, to clarify the components and stages of the strategizing process and their features, to determine the purpose of strategizing in the conditions of the experience economy as the most progressive model of economic relations, which ensures the growth of added value and profit of enterprises. The object of the research is a complex socioeconomic phenomenon of strategizing and the process of its implementation; the subject is theoretical provisions, conceptions, methodology of enterprise strategizing and their application in the conditions of the experience economy. The following main methods were used in the research process: system approach, method of structural-logical analysis, theoretical generalization, scientific abstraction, concretization and comparative analysis, historical and logical analysis, process approach, theoretical generalization. The article presents the modern features of the internal environment and the external environment of enterprises, which determine the development of the concept of strategizing and the process of its implementation. The main stages of development of strategic management of enterprises with identification of strategizing have been proposed. In chronological order, the definition of the concept of strategizing and its stages and components from its origin to the present (2023) in the scientific works of foreign and domestic scholars is examined and systematized, taking into account the latest trends in changes in economic relations and the feasibility of using in the model of the experience economy. On the basis of generalization of the proposals of scholars and the existing economic realities, an understanding of the concept of strategizing enterprises as the main way of strategic thinking about the future of enterprise is proposed, the main components and stages of the process of its course include the definition of the mission, vision, goals of the enterprise’s life, analysis of factors of the internal and external environment in accordance with the set goals, determination of the strategic instruments (system of strategies) of the enterprise’s life, substantiation of criteria for the selection of strategies, which in the conditions of the experience economy are aimed at highlighting the attractiveness of the enterprise, the strength and value of its brand and the level of reputation, making decisions on the final composition of the set of strategies, forecasting the trajectories of the enterprise in accordance with the adopted strategies and taking into account possible scenarios of the course of events, the implementation of organizational and communication foresightings, the implementation of adopted strategies in accordance with the approved strategic plan of the enterprise.

Research summary: This article brings together the competitive dynamics and strategy-as-practice literatures to investigate relational competition. Drawing on a global ethnography of the reinsurance market, we develop the concept of micro-competitions, which are the focus of competitors' everyday competitive practices. We find variation in relational or rivalrous competition by individual competitors across the phases of a micro-competition, between competitors within a micro-competition, and across multiple micro-competitions. These variations arise from the interplay between the unfolding competitive arena and the implementation of each firm's strategic portfolio. We develop a conceptual framework that makes four contributions to: relational competition; reconceptualizing action and response; elaborating on the awarenessmotivation-capability framework within competitive dynamics; and the recursive dynamic by which implementing strategy inside firms shapes, and is shaped by, the competitive arena. Managerial summary: Competition is often seen as war: \"attack,\" \"retaliation,\" and \"dethronement.\" Yet competition can also be relational, incorporating collaboration and reciprocity. We show these dynamics in a syndicated financial market, reinsurance, where multiple competitors get the same price for a share of the same deal. Our competitors have rivalrous motivations to win business and relational motivations to ensure buoyant pricing, maintain market health, and enable long-standing client relationships to persist. These motivations are grounded in the strategizing practices with which firms implement their strategic portfolios and compete on deals. Competitors' rivalrous or relational motivations are highly dynamic, shifting throughout the competition on any deal and across the multiple deals on which they compete. Cumulatively these practices shape the entire market for these volatile, uncertain financial products.

How do things become ‘strategic’? Despite the development of strategy-as-practice studies and the recognized institutional importance of strategy as a social practice, little is known about how strategy boundaries change within organizations. This article focuses on this gap by conceptualizing ‘strategifying’ – or making something strategic – as a type of institutional work that builds on the institution of strategy to change the boundaries of what is regarded as strategy within organizations. We empirically investigate how corporate social responsibility has been turned into strategy at a UK electricity company, EnergyCorp. Our findings reveal the practices that constitute three types of strategifying work – cognitive coupling, relational coupling and material coupling – and show how, together and over time, these types of work changed the boundaries of strategy so that corporate social responsibility became included in EnergyCorp’s official strategy, became explicitly attended to by strategists and corporate executives and became inscribed within strategy devices. By disambiguating the notions of strategifying and strategizing, our study introduces new perspectives for analysing the institutional implications of the practice of strategy.

Changes in the activities of economic entities demand the development of a new theoretical basis, methodologies, methodological support, and practical recommendations that would be capable of responding to the challenges of the present day while also providing the opportunity to shape strategic perspectives for their development. Therefore, the article highlights the main contemporary transformational changes in economic relations, new economic models, and dominant trends in key economic processes. On this basis, it is proved that one of the promising models of the economy of today is the experience economy, the complexity of which demands changes in the strategic management processes of enterprises, manifested in strategizing and its new direction which is strategic thinking. The use of strategizing is appropriate for developing enterprise growth strategies, taking into account the new economic model – the experience economy. Therefore, the aim of the article is to highlight proposals for the formation of a methodology for strategizing the development of enterprises in the context of the evolvement of an experience economy in Ukraine. The object is the process of strategizing the development of the enterprise, and the subject is a complex, dynamic, integral, and subordinated system of various methods, principles, levels, and forms of methodologies for cognition and functioning of the strategizing process, which are implemented taking into consideration the specific conditions of the formation of the experience economy. The methods used in the article include analysis, synthesis, abstraction, theoretical generalization, a structural-logical approach, and systemic and comprehensive approaches to substantiate the methodology of strategizing the development of enterprises in the context of the experience economy. The main new results presented in the article are the paradigm of strategizing the development of enterprises in the context of the experience economy, along with its characteristics, functions, and principles of implementation. On the basis of a substantiated paradigm, the presented scientific and methodological approach has been developed in accordance with the stages of strategizing, methods, considering the characteristics and advantages of the experience economy model regarding rational and emotional experience from the enterprise development.

The paper seeks to study organizational identity attainment through strategic linguistic practices, understood as performative strategizing. The article focuses on the interaction of organizational identity and strategy by analyzing the evolution of an electronic engineering company from its founding to maturity over eighteen years. Combining action research and grounded theory, the study identifies the features inherent to organizational identity attainment. The author observed strategic linguistic practices in the company, studied archival documents, and delved deeply into strategy formation as a practitioner, interacting directly with strategists to comprehend organizational identity attainment. The research shows that self-fulfillment, effective communication, and readiness for external challenges are the main features of organizational identity attainment through performative strategizing.

PurposeModern intra- and inter-organizational arrangements require firms to cross boundaries, but this process represents a crucial and complex challenge, especially for organizations that face pluralistic tensions. Scholars still lack sufficient knowledge of how boundaries can be crossed and what kind of boundary management is necessary within pluralistic contexts. This paper aims to enrich the understanding of these issues by exploring how strategy maps can be mobilized and used as boundary objects to elicit boundary-spanning practices that foster cross-boundary collaboration in pluralistic organizations.Design/methodology/approachThis paper employs the case study methodology to capture the dynamics of cross-boundary management elicited by the use of a strategy map within a pluralistic social/healthcare organizational context.FindingsThis study identifies four practices of boundary spanning (i.e. identifying and crossing problem boundaries, orchestrating collective responsibilities, acknowledging a common understanding of convergent values and goals, and evolving into action) in the analysed pluralistic context and investigates the conditions under which cross-boundary interactions can mobilize a shared zone of knowing via strategy maps.Originality/valueThis paper suggests a complex (and not linear) processual model of boundary management in pluralistic contexts in which the use of the strategy map mobilizes a dynamic of centrifugal and centripetal movements which engage plural actors in a shared site of collaborative knowing. The study contributes to a conceptualization of boundary management in pluralistic contexts as a progressive social accomplishment.

PurposeThis article aims to better understand how empowered middle manager engage in change translation? Relying on the notions of building and dwelling strategizing, the authors analyze the micro-practices of middle managers during organizational change, when middle managers are freed from time-consuming administrative activities.Design/methodology/approachThis empirical study relies on a qualitative embedded case study approach that involves comparing two banking units belonging to a large French bank. The qualitative data were collected from three different sources: exploratory and semi-structured interviews, observations and secondary data. The coding analysis enables to distinguish middle managers' dwelling and building strategizing during organizational change.FindingsThe study’s findings show how managers translate organizational change relying on both building and dwelling strategizing. By doing so, managers enable to adapt the prescribed strategy to local circumstances and foster front-line empowerment.Research limitations/implicationsEven though the findings are based on the analysis of a single organization, the authors provide several theoretical insights. First, the authors contribute to the recent academic debate in strategy-as-practice literature by showing the recursive relation between building and dwelling strategizing. The authors also shed a new light on middle managers' strategizing by emphasizing the idea that middle managers are not only passive change “translators” but that middle managers enact a real agency in the organizational change process.Practical implicationsFrom a managerial perspective, the study’s findings enable to enlight what empowering middle managers means in practice. Indeed, the authors show clear empirical illustrations of how middle managers can be empowered by both organizational structure and top-management support. The results also reveal how empowering middle managers enable to empower their team by three different activities: (1) federate the team spirit to facilitate collaboration; (2) develop employees' capabilities and (3) adjust managers' activity according to employees' needs.Originality/valueWhile multiple current new ways of organizing encourage to transform organizations from inefficient bureaucracies into flatter and more dynamic project-based teams, calling into question the importance of middle managers' strategic role, this study provides an original case study of an organization that chose to run against the tide and created an additional middle management level.

While the strategy-as-practice research agenda has gained considerable momentum over the past five years, many challenges still remain in developing it into a robust field of research. In this editorial, we define the study of strategy from a practice perspective and propose five main questions that the strategy-as-practice agenda seeks to address. We argue that a coherent approach to answering these questions may be facilitated using an overarching conceptual framework of praxis, practices and practitioners. This framework is used to explain the key challenges underlying the strategy-as-practice agenda and how they may be examined empirically. In discussing these challenges, we refer to the contributions made by existing empirical research and highlight under-explored areas that will provide fruitful avenues for future research. The editorial concludes by introducing the articles in the special issue.