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Lookup NU author(s): Professor John Sillince, Professor Frank Mueller
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We provide an empirical study of the reframing of accounts of responsibility for strategy. We found that top management ambivalence about strategy provided a middle management team with wide scope for interpretation of responsibility for developing and implementing a strategic initiative. In the early stage, responsibility as well as expectations about the strategy’s successful outcome were ‘talked up’. In the later stage, when it was considered that the strategic initiative was failing, the middle management implementation team engaged in ‘talking down’ of expectations. We show that reframing from initial duty to capability to later accountability shaped and reflected actors’ changing goals. By focusing on responsibility we increase understanding of the division of labour in the actual practice of strategizing, including where and how strategizing is done. Most important, we show how protagonists’ goals drive the framing and reframing of strategic agendas, and how linguistic devices such as disclaimers and self-handicapping influence this process.
Author(s): Sillince JAA; Mueller F
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Organization Studies
Year: 2007
Volume: 28
Issue: 2
Pages: 155-176
ISSN (print): 0170-8406
ISSN (electronic): 1741-3044
Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0170840606067989
DOI: 10.1177/0170840606067989
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