Strategic discourse and the making of strategy
Résumé
To what extent and how communication, and in particular strategic discourses, contribute to the making of strategy? Does talking of strategy help the doing of strategy? In this chapter, we rely on Austin’s view of performativity and use it as a framework to comprehend the effects of strategic discourses on strategic outcomes. Using this framework, we critically review past works to appreciate to what extent and how strategic discourses can be said to be performative. This analysis reveals a paradox: On the one hand, while many managers believe adopting the ‘rules of statements’ of strategy discourse will engender the reality they describe, research shows it is rarely the case – strategic discourses have limited illocutionary power. On the other hand, strategic discourses have important perlocutionary effects – for instance, they have significant impact on organizational members’ identity.