TITLE:
Beyond Socio-Materiality and Sense-Making: Planting Symbolic Power and Critical Realism into Strategy-As-Practice Logic
AUTHORS:
Huifen Wang, Guoliang Luo, Huanping Hong
KEYWORDS:
SAP, Socio-Materiality, Critical Realism, Bourdieu’s Practice Theory, Symbolic Power, Discourse, Sense-Making
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Business and Management,
Vol.4 No.2,
April
1,
2016
ABSTRACT: Strategic practice is inherently a social practice shaped by the immediate social context, but capital
power does not have a stronger presence in socio-materiality and sense-making. We argue that
Bourdieu’s relational mode of thinking mode and Archer’s critical realism should be tapped into
Strategy-As-Practice (SAP) research. Strategic discourse researchers “have limited understanding
of how individuals become strategists, or even how some individuals in organizations come to be
perceived as ‘strategic’ whereas others come to be routinely classified as non-strategic and excluded
from studies of strategizing. Thus we have much to learn from paying closer attention to
strategic discourse and subjectivity” [1]. This paper describes Bourdieu’s practice theory and
suggests that by this lens we can better understand strategy as power relation construction
through which symbolic capital is translated into symbolic value in a strategy transformation organization.
Such shift of power relations is viewed as accepting relational mode of thinking and
critical realism in strategic practice. From symbolic power perspective, character status and role
prestige are ascribed to strategy. Implementation of strategy is configuration of power relation
designed by strategists. By exploring strategy as social inclusion and distinction, we review strategy
discourse beyond social-materiality. We also apply symbolic capital of Bourdieu’s theory to
explain world-making beyond sense-making of strategy. We argue that strategies are not based on
conscious calculation but rather results from unconscious dispositions towards a particular way of
social recognition and inclusion. Strategic discourse analysis maybe has not initially recognized that
strategy discourse is a form of symbolic capital used by strategists who wish to bolster social status.