The Massification of Strategy

Introduction

The papers in this special issue affirm the importance of materiality for strategy practice. Both human bodies and material artefacts are revealed as playing essential roles in the making and representing of strategy. This piece focuses particularly on material artefacts, one kind of ‘mass’. The material artefacts of strategy do literally have mass, in the concrete form of laptops, flipcharts, whiteboards and so on. Thus the title word massification is intended to reinforce the new recognition of the role of material artefacts in strategy practice: as in the special issue as a whole, mass is introduced into the previously abstract world of strategy research.

However, the term massification also points to two contingent aspects of strategy's masses. In the first place, many of strategy's masses have become objects of mass production, used in all kinds of organizations throughout the world. The same computers, the same software and the same sticky notes are used nearly universally. The proliferation of these artefacts across large populations of organizations has implications for the practice of strategy very widely. Second, these masses are increasingly tools of mass participation. Brown paper wall-charts, editable PowerPoint decks and the new social media enrol employees at all levels of the organization, as audiences but also as contributors. In this sense, these material artefacts provide the means to engage the organizational masses.

I continue in this piece by expanding on the primary meaning of massification, strategy researchers' increasing recognition of material artefacts. But I also explore the implications of the mass production of material artefacts and the mass participation that some of them, at least, allow. I conclude with some potential avenues for strategy-as-practice research agenda. The mass nature of strategy's artefacts implies a broader scope for strategy-as-practice research, with opportunities for structured comparison between different sites and episodes and larger claims about the effects of strategy practice.

Three massifications

The first massification addresses Latour's (1992) famous question, ‘where are the missing masses?’ Latour was complaining of a general neglect of mundane artefacts within the social sciences, but strategy researchers particularly have marginalized materiality. Thus Mintzberg (1994, p. 240) insists that strategies are abstract affairs, ‘existing only in the minds of people’. For Weick (1995, p. 4), strategies are cognitive ‘frameworks’, helping to make sense of the complex and unexpected. In these accounts, strategy is an insubstantial thing, thought rather than matter. Yet once we bother to look we find Latourian masses everywhere in strategy. Just from this special issue, we see the role of laptops and Group Explorer software in workshops (Paroutis, Franco and Papadopoulos, 2015); Excel spreadsheets (Demir, 2015); and even the previously taken-for-granted arrangements of desks and chairs (Jarzabkowski, Burke and Spee, 2015). Thus the primary massification involves above all the recovery of Latour's ‘missing masses’, putting them back centre stage in strategy practice.

The second massification is contingent: many of strategy's material artefacts are now mass-produced. Every strategist has a laptop, the barely distinguishable products of such global giants as Dell and Lenovo. Strategists mostly use standard software packages such as PowerPoint and Excel, supplied by the quasi-monopolist Microsoft. In their strategic discussions, they often resort to the specially designed pin boards, colour cards and shaped sticky notes produced by companies such as Metaplan (Ackerman and Eden, 1998). The very mundanity of these artefacts reinforces their far-reaching effects: they are everyday and everywhere. And their effects are not always healthy. Kaplan (2011) cites evidence that PowerPoint presentations tend to foreshorten evidence, exaggerate linearity and obscure significant detail in strategy presentations. The proliferation of PowerPoint-enabled strategy work may therefore negatively affect the quality of strategic thinking around the world. Similarly, the new universality of computers and the internet is changing the shape of the strategy consulting industry as a whole. Thus the traditional model of an integrated strategy consulting firm represented by McKinsey or the Boston Consulting Group is increasingly challenged by the kinds of internet-based networks of seasoned professionals pioneered by Global Business Network originally and now pursued by the rapidly growing Eden McCallum (Schwartz, 1996). For strategy, then, the repercussions of mass-produced technologies range from cognition to organization. The more everyday they are, the more pervasive their effects on strategy practice.

The third massification is one of increasing participation in strategy, facilitated by a growing range of material artefacts. Originally, strategy work was seen as an elite function, detached from operations (Chandler, 1963; Williamson, 1970). However, some material technologies allow for far wider participation than once expected. At the most modest, the brown paper wall-chart exercises pioneered in the 1980s by consultants United Research, and later popularized by Gemini and Strategos, permit employees at all levels to interact with senior managers and consultants in modelling their businesses (Skarzynski and Gibson, 2008). PowerPoint strategy presentations are now widely shared within organizations, easily forwarded and edited across departmental boundaries and hierarchical levels (Kaplan, 2011). Technologies drawn from social media allow strategy jams and dialogues that stretch throughout the organization. For example, at Barclays Bank, social media were recently used to support a ‘jam’ that engaged 10,000 employees as active contributors, participating across nearly 4000 distinct conversation threads (Bjelland and Wood, 2008; Stieger et al., 2012). Thus material technologies appear to be reinforcing a tendency towards more ‘open’ strategizing, facilitating the large-scale input and engagement of employees from initial strategy formation through to eventual strategy implementation (Whittington, Cailluet and Yakis-Douglas, 2011). Even if ultimate control remains at the top, strategy becomes the business not just of elites but of the organizational masses.

Research implications

The case for taking ‘mass’ seriously has been well made already in this special issue (Dameron, Lê and LeBaron, 2015). My final remarks therefore concentrate on the research implications of two contingent effects of this massification: the standardization of strategy practice through the mass production of certain material artefacts and the mass participation that some of these artefacts seem to allow.

The mass-produced nature of strategy's material artefacts offers an opportunity to extend strategy-as-practice research beyond apparently isolated micro-episodes (Seidl and Whittington, 2014). In a world of mass production, strategy episodes are rarely wholly idiosyncratic. By focusing on strategy's standard artefacts – the Excel spreadsheets, the PowerPoint presentations, the brown paper exercises and the Metaplan boards – strategy-as-practice researchers can link episodes and sites together. The same artefacts will be used in many times and many places. What researchers find in some sites will be relevant to many sites. Moreover, researchers' claims may be strengthened by comparison across sites and episodes. Structured comparisons can be used to investigate the difference that particular material technologies make. For example, how are PowerPoint-supported strategizing episodes different from those relying on alternative media, such as the allegedly more dynamic and collaborative Prezi platform or even traditional flipcharts? What is the significance of switching from one medium to another within the same episode? Given their pervasiveness, understanding the relative effects of such technologies could have far-ranging practical implications.

One potential focus for such comparison of materiality is its role in mass participation, something for which high hopes have been expressed (Bjelland and Wood, 2008; Stieger et al., 2012). From a practice perspective, material technologies are not deterministic but are prone to unintended consequences and local interpretation (Orlikowski, 2002). The various social media technologies used in strategy (event-based jamming, ongoing collaboration tools, wikis, blogging and so on) may aim to enrol large numbers of employees in strategizing activity, but their relative effectiveness is unclear, as are their repercussions longer term within organizations. We know that diffusing strategy responsibilities within organizations by traditional means can have significant and uncomfortable effects on how employees see their professional identities (Oakes, Townley and Cooper, 1998). Allying the sensitivity and intimacy of established strategy-as-practice research methods, such as ethnography, with careful cross-case analysis could be particularly revealing with regard to the local interpretation and full ramifications of these various technologies of strategy mass participation. The practice perspective has modest expectations for the straightforwardness of technology-assisted participation. Comparing variations in technology across sites and episodes is a potentially powerful means of revealing the difference mass participation really makes.

In sum, this special issue offers a promising response to Latour's (1992) question: the ‘missing masses’ of strategy are being found. And the growing appreciation of materiality expressed by strategy's massification opens up new research opportunities. The mass-produced nature of strategy's material artefacts provides a path for strategy-as-practice researchers to link the idiosyncrasies of particular episodes to the generalities of artefactual use. Focusing on standard technologies offers a means of broadening the reach of strategy-as-practice research. One urgent issue raised by some of the new technologies is the nature of the mass participation they appear to allow. Especially if combined with structured comparison, the established strengths of strategy-as-practice research methods are particularly well suited to providing in-depth scrutiny of the complex realities of increased participation in strategy. Thus materiality offers an agenda both broad and deep for continuing strategy-as-practice research.