How do things become strategic? ‘Strategifying’ corporate social responsibility

How do things become ‘strategic’? Despite the development of strategy-as-practice studies and the recognized institutional importance of strategy as a social practice, little is known about how strategy boundaries change within organizations. This article focuses on this gap by conceptualizing ‘strategifying’ – or making something strategic – as a type of institutional work that builds on the institution of strategy to change the boundaries of what is regarded as strategy within organizations. We empirically investigate how corporate social responsibility has been turned into strategy at a UK electricity company, EnergyCorp. Our findings reveal the practices that constitute three types of strategifying work – cognitive coupling, relational coupling and material coupling – and show how, together and over time, these types of work changed the boundaries of strategy so that corporate social responsibility became included in EnergyCorp’s official strategy, became explicitly attended to by strategists and corporate executives and became inscribed within strategy devices. By disambiguating the notions of strategifying and strategizing, our study introduces new perspectives for analysing the institutional implications of the practice of strategy

Inhabited ecosystems: propelling transformative social change between and through organizations

Two research streams examine how social movements operate both “in and around” organizations. We probe the empirical spaces between these streams, asking how activism situated in multi-organizational contexts contributes to transformative social change. By exploring activities in the mid-1990s related to advocacy for domestic partner benefits at 24 organizations in Minneapolis–St. Paul, Minnesota, we develop the concept of inhabited ecosystems to explore the relational processes by which employee activists advance change. These activists faced a variety of structural opportunities and restraints, and we identify five mechanisms that sustained their efforts during protracted contestation: learning even from thwarted activism, borrowing from one another’s more or less radical approaches, helping one another avoid the traps of stagnation, fostering solidarity and ecosystem capabilities, and collaboratively expanding the social movement domain. We thus reveal how activism situated in multi-organizational contexts animates an inhabited ecosystem of challengers that propels change efforts “between and through” organizations. These efforts, even when exploratory or incomplete, generate an ecosystem’s capacity to sustain, resource, and even reshape the larger transformative social change effort

Dealing with the Post-Honeymoon Blues:Tensions and Governance in Industry-University Alliances

Industry-university (IU) alliances are often subject to tensions caused by the dissimilarities between industry and university partners. Interestingly, due to a honeymoon effect, these tensions may not necessarily emerge immediately. However, shortly after the alliance is initiated, the likelihood of tension seems to increase rapidly. Thus, early detection of potential tensions seems crucial to the success of IU alliances. This paper explores how these tensions emerge and can be effectively managed through an exploratory study of two IU alliances in the energy sector. Based on our cases, we identified four types of dissimilarities (i.e., orientation-based, routine-based, administrative, and personal) that may lead to different types of tensions (i.e., orientation, routine, transaction, and distinctive), which in turn may be addressed through different governance mechanisms (i.e., communication, flexibility, contracts, and hierarchy). Beyond contributing to the literature on IU alliances, our exploratory study may help managers of these alliances in identifying potential tensions and effective governance practices

Framing the decision to contract out elderly care and primary health care services – perspectives of local level politicians and civil servants in Finland

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In the literature there are only few empirical studies that analyse the decision makers’ reasoning to contract out health care and social services to private sector. However, the decisions on the delivery patterns of health care and social services are considered to be of great importance as they have a potential to influence citizens’ access to services and even affect their health. This study contributes to filling this cap by exploring the frames used by Finnish local authorities as they talk about contracting out of primary health care and elderly care services. Contracting with the private sector has gained increasing popularity, in Finland, during the past decade, as a practise of organising health care and social services.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Interview data drawn from six municipalities through thematic group interviews were used. The data were analysed applying frame analysis in order to reveal the underlying reasoning for the decisions.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Five argumentation frames were found: <it>Rational reasoning; Pragmatic realism; Promoting diversity among providers; Good for the municipality; Good for the local people</it>. The interviewees saw contracting with the private sector mostly as a means to improve the performance of public providers, to improve service quality and efficiency and to boost the local economy. The decisions to contract out were mainly argued through the good for the municipal administration, political and ideological commitments, available resources and existing institutions.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study suggests that the policy makers use a number of grounds to justify their decisions on contracting out. Most of the arguments were related to the benefits of the municipality rather than on what is best for the local people. The citizens were offered the role of active consumers who are willing to purchase services also out-of-pocket. This development has a potential to endanger the affordability of the services and lead to undermining some of the traditional principles of the Nordic welfare state.</p