Author(s)

Huifen Wang, Guoliang Luo, Huanping Hong

Management School, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.

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.

SAP, Socio-Materiality, Critical Realism, Bourdieu’s Practice Theory, Symbolic Power, Discourse, Sense-Making

Wang, H. , Luo, G. and Hong, H. (2016) Beyond Socio-Materiality and Sense-Making: Planting Symbolic Power and Critical Realism into Strategy-As-Practice Logic. Open Journal of Business and Management, 4, 177-187. doi: 10.4236/ojbm.2016.42020.