Researchers working on these themes seek to understand the paradoxes, recursiveness, unintended consequences, and competing logics associated with the development of strategy and organisational change.

Sub-themes

  • Processes of strategic change
  • The development and practices of creative industries
  • Digital transformation and organisations
  • The impact of calculative practices on strategy making
  • Organisational and institutional change
  • Power, accountability, and strategic change
  • Discursive aspects of strategic change

The 21st century has been characterised by turbulence and change. Global economic pressures and societal issues have thrown up apparently intractable or 'wicked' challenges.

These range from issues of adapting to more complex operating business environments, responding to the demands of climate change and sustainability, digital transformation, through to the apparent failure of many business models and incessant leadership crises.

The Strategy group seeks to understand the paradoxes, recursiveness, unintended consequences, and competing logics associated with the development of strategy and organisational change.

Drawing on institutional theory, routines, power and politics, and critical discursive analysis, among others, our group seeks to unmask the complexities of strategic change and to reflect on the practical lessons that can be drawn from major strategic challenges. These have led to publications in top business and management journals, including:

  • Academy of Management Journal
  • Academy of Management Review
  • Administrative Science Quarterly
  • Human Relations
  • Journal of Management Studies
  • Organization Science
  • Organization Studies

Sample projects

  • Distributed and collective action
  • Everyday talk, strategic meetings, and strategic change
  • Organised creativity: festivals of Edinburgh
  • The reception of creative products and the identity of their producers
  • The mechanisms of dynamic inertia
  • Transformation of the Scottish civil justice system
  • Exploring the integral role of humour to sensemaking and change process
  • Strategic change within the BBC: from cultural patricians to market savants
  • Path to partnership in Big Four accounting firms: a Bourdieusian exploration of elites