Mastery,submission,and subversion: On the performative construction of strategist identity

Abstract

While research on strategy-making has begun to focus attention on identity construction, we nevertheless lack a critical understanding of the ways in which socio-historical understandings of strategy are (re)constructed at the level of identity. In this article, we draw on Judith Butler’s theorizing on performative subject formation—first to explore identity constructions grounded in the simultaneity of submitting to and mastering the socio-historical discourses of strategy and second to consider the subversion of discourses and identities enabled by this simultaneity. We distinguish between three performative identity constructions and demonstrate that by submitting to specific understandings of strategy discourses such as the illusion of control (the analytical strategist), omnipotence (the strategic leader), and personal glory (the state-of-the-art strategist), managers face the unattainability of these projects, which drives them to increase their mastery of the dominant discourses in order to win acceptance from others. Highlighting the dynamics of identity construction in strategy-making, we argue that subversion of the dominant discourses and identities is at best subtle. This enables us to better comprehend the persistence of dominant conceptions and related problems in strategy-making such as the overemphasis on technical rationality, anxiety in the face of uncertainty, heightened expectations of heroism, and the inability to engage in genuine dialogue with others and to consider broader social and societal issues as part of strategy-making.

Introduction

Strategy process and practice research have started to focus on identities, subjectivities, and the agency of managers and other organizational members (Vaara and Whittington, 2012). Some studies highlight the power of strategy discourse to constitute its objects and subjects (Dameron and Torset, 2014; Ezzamel and Willmott, 2010; Knights and Morgan, 1991), while others provide a more agential stance by focusing on how managers identify with certain identity categories to promote strategies and strategic change (Beech and Johnson, 2005; Maguire and Hardy, 2005; Rouleau, 2010; Samra-Fredericks, 2003, 2004). Without focusing on the processes of identity construction per se, still other studies elaborate on how the strategic agency of top and middle managers is enabled and constrained by strategy practices (Balogun and Johnson, 2005; Hoon, 2007; Jarzabkowski, 2008; Mantere, 2008; Rouleau, 2005; Whittington et al., 2006). Nevertheless, little is known of the complex processes of identity construction, which involve both identifying with and resisting the subject positions located within strategy discourses (Ezzamel and Willmott, 2008; Laine and Vaara, 2007; McCabe, 2010; Samra-Fredericks, 2005; Thomas and Davies, 2005a, 2005b). In particular, there is a paucity of knowledge regarding how socio-historical understandings of strategy are (re)constructed at the level of identity and the consequences thereof for strategy-making in organizations.

In our study, we draw from Judith Butler’s (1990, 1993, 1997) theorization of performative subject formation to examine the dynamic conduct of socio-historical strategy discourses at the level of identity. ¹ Butlerian theorization enables us to conceptualize strategy-making as the continuous process of becoming a strategist. More specifically, we elucidate the performative construction of a strategist’s identity in and through managers’ talk about strategy, which we consider a site for strategy-making. Butler’s work provides us with the concepts of submission and mastery as well as subversion and hence allows us to explore the dynamics of identity construction and the relationship between self and social in strategy-making.

Judith Butler draws from a Foucauldian understanding of discourse that emphasizes the ways in which discourse constructs subject positions and identities. She underlines, however, that both discourse and subjectivity are performatively produced; discourse and subjectivity are constructed by reiterative acts that cite socio-historical discourses as established formations of knowledge (Butler, 1990, 1993). Butler further underscores the continuity of the process of becoming a subject; in order to maintain one’s existence as a subject, one is forced to continuously reiterate socio-historical discourses as the conditions of existence. In consequence, Butler emphasizes simultaneous submission and mastery in subject formation. This means that reiterative citational acts provide submission to a discourse, and such submission requires increased mastery of the discourse, which in turn reproduces submission to it (Butler, 1997). However, according to Butler, this submission is also a precondition for agency. Furthermore, the continuous process of reiteration and the indeterminacy of terms afford an opportunity for subversion, or doing otherwise, which is accomplished in and through resignification, reappropriation, and misappropriation of the terms (Butler, 1993). We apply Butler’s insights in our empirical study, which is based on interviews with senior executives of family-owned companies.

Our study contributes to critical research on identity in strategy-making by elucidating how socio-historical understandings of strategy discourses are (re)constructed at the level of identity. First, we demonstrate the simultaneity of submitting to and mastering the socio-historical discourses of strategy, such as a discourse of strategic analysis and planning, an individualistic discourse of strategic leadership, and a state-of-the-art discourse. We explicate how submitting to specific understandings of strategy—such as the illusion of control, omnipotence, and personal glory—are both conditions for strategy-making and consequences thereof. Second, we demonstrate how subversion stems from submitting to strategy discourses as well as resignifying and reappropriating terms. However, since subversion threatens the existence of strategists, our study shows the subtle nature of this subversion. In all, our study enables us to better comprehend the persistence of dominant conceptions and related problems in strategy-making such as the overemphasis on technical rationality, anxiety in the face of uncertainty, heightened expectations of heroism, and an inability to engage in genuine dialogue with others and to consider broader social and societal issues as part of strategy-making.

The article is structured as follows: We first outline strategy research through an identity perspective and specify our performativity perspective with inspiration from Judith Butler. We then explicate our empirical materials and analysis and specify and illustrate our points. Finally, we discuss our findings, draw conclusions, and provide ideas for further research.

The identity perspective on strategy-making

Strategy-making has been studied under the label of strategy process studies since the 1970s (Floyd et al., 2011; Mintzberg and Waters, 1985; Pettigrew, 1973), and we have seen the emergence of the strategy-as-practice stream of research in the last 10 years (Carter, 2013; Golsorkhi et al., 2010; Jarzabkowski and Spee, 2009). At the same time, organization and management studies have begun to draw from postmodern and anti-essentialist understandings of identity (Alvesson, 2010; Alvesson et al., 2008; Coupland and Brown, 2012; Thomas, 2009; Ybema et al., 2009). However, such an identity approach is still relatively rare within strategy studies.

The focus on identity within strategy studies can be positioned along the structure-agency continuum. Research emphasizing structure underscores the power of discourses in constituting the objects and subjects of strategy. In their groundbreaking study, Knights and Morgan (1991) explored how strategy discourse as a body of knowledge constitutes the objects of strategy and ‘the subjectivity of organizational members as particular categories of persons who secure their sense of reality through engaging in this discourse and practice’ (p. 263). This work has been followed by studies highlighting the power effects of strategy discourse on people (Allard-Poési, 2010; Clegg et al., 2004; Ezzamel and Willmott, 2004, 2010; Gomez, 2010; Kornberger and Clegg, 2011; Mantere and Vaara, 2008). For instance, Mantere and Vaara (2008) have shown how different discourses of strategy either inhibit managers from becoming strategists or enable them to do so. In turn, Allard-Poési (2010) has elucidated how strategic management discourse makes people ‘objectify their subjectivity’, that is, express their intentions in a way that implies commitment to the organization’s goals.

Other studies rely on a more agential stance in focusing on how managers identify with certain identity categories to promote organizational strategies and strategic change (Beech and Johnson, 2005; Maguire and Hardy, 2005; Rouleau, 2010). For example, Maguire and Hardy (2005) examine how individuals defined as ‘champions’ identify with identity categories that are seen to provide them with resources for promoting collaboration strategy. Both Beech and Johnson (2005) and Rouleau (2010) focus on the transformation of management’s identities during strategic change processes, while Samra-Frederiks (2003, 2004) demonstrates a dynamic construction of strategist identity that enhances certain organizational strategies in the stream of conversational actions. There are also practice theoretical strategy studies that examine how strategy practices and activities enable or constrain the strategic agency of top and middle management (Balogun and Johnson, 2005; Hoon, 2007; Jarzabkowski, 2008; Mantere, 2005, 2008; Rouleau, 2005; Suominen and Mantere, 2010; Whittington et al., 2006). As these studies highlight strategic agency in strategy-making, they are important to acknowledge although they have not specified processes of identity construction in relation to strategy as such.

Relatively few critical studies focus on the complex processes of identity construction that involve both identifying with the subject positions located within strategy discourses and resisting them. Thomas and Davies (2005a, 2005b) illustrate how strategic change in public services was complied with and resisted at the level of identity when individuals drew from different understandings of self. Laine and Vaara (2007), Ezzamel and Willmott (2008), and McCabe (2010) demonstrate both the power of strategy discourses to define the objects and subjects of strategy and the expressions of resistance within strategy discourses and practices. In turn, Samra-Fredericks (2005) offers a rare demonstration of the power effects of strategy discourse—as presented by Knights and Morgan (1991)—in the course of situational interaction and shows how a manager constructs a competent strategist identity to enhance certain organizational strategies. Still, Dameron and Torset (2014) elucidate how strategists construct paradoxical tensions between planned and emergent strategizing, positioning themselves at either of these extremes or evoking the different poles of the paradox simultaneously.

We aim to contribute to this emerging stream of research. Despite the advances made, researchers—without slipping themselves into determinism or voluntarism—face the continuous challenge of theorizing how and why managers identify with and/or resist discourses (Thomas, 2009). In particular, there is a paucity of knowledge regarding how socio-historical understandings of strategy and strategy-making are (re)constructed at the level of identity and the consequences thereof for strategy-making in organizations. We respond to this challenge by drawing from Judith Butler’s theorization of performative subject formation. It allows us to conceptualize strategy-making as a continuous process of becoming a strategist and offers an opportunity to examine the dynamic simultaneity of submitting to and mastering the socio-historical discourses of strategy and also subverting them.

A performativity perspective on strategist identity construction

The idea of performativity is typically seen to originate from Austin’s (1962) speech act theory, and it has generated a great deal of interest in post-structuralist philosophical and sociological analysis. We are especially inspired by Judith Butler’s (1990, 1993, 1997) insights on performativity, which she has developed in her work on gender and identity. Butler draws from a Foucauldian understanding of discourse that emphasizes the ways in which discourse constitutes subject positions and identities. However, she underlines how both discourse and subjectivity are performatively produced (Butler, 1990). Performativity refers to those reiterative acts that cite (Derrida, 1977) ² the established formations of knowledge and by so doing produce discourse and subjectivity. Subjection exploits the desire for existence, where existence is always conferred from elsewhere (Butler, 1997: 20–21). Maintaining one’s existence as a subject also requires a constant process of reiterating the conditions of existence (Butler, 1997). Hence, Butler underscores the continuity of becoming a subject, which we examine in the context of strategy-making.

In subject formation, Butler (1997) emphasizes simultaneous mastery and submission. She explains it as follows:

The more practice is mastered, the more fully subjection is achieved. Submission and mastery take place simultaneously, and it is this paradoxical simultaneity that constitutes the ambivalence of subjection. Where one might expect submission to consist of yielding to an externally imposed dominant order, and to be marked by a loss of control and mastery, it is paradoxically marked by mastery itself … the lived simultaneity of submission and mastery, and mastery and submission, is the condition of possibility for the subject itself. (Butler, 1997: 116–17)

Submission and mastery are based on one’s desire to be seen as appropriate in the gaze of the other. What is appropriate is constructed in and through reiterating ‘the discursive norms that precede, and are in excess of, [the performer]’ (Lloyd, 1999: 201), in our case the manager-cum-strategist. Hence, what is generally not visible to strategists is that autonomy and choice—or more specifically, the illusion of them—stem not so much from the individual but from reiteration of the conventions of strategy discourses.

Reiteration is at the heart of reproduction because it cites established formations of knowledge. However, Butler (1993) also locates the possibility for resistance within this same process of reiteration. While she acknowledges that context conditions subversion, she draws from the notion of citationality (Derrida, 1977), which disputes the incessant repetition of the same but opens the very possibility of difference (Mills, 2003: 260). It is the indeterminacy of the terms by which one is called into being and their resignification, reappropriation, and misappropriation in the process of reiteration that provide an opportunity to create new meanings.

Hence, in addition to reproducing the order—the dominant forms of knowledge—citational practices provide unlimited possibilities to repeat otherwise (Derrida, 1977). This collapses the dualism of subjection–resistance. Resistance is not seen as an authentic space outside the discourse that is uncontaminated by consent (Fleming and Sewell, 2002; Holmer-Nadesan, 1996; Kondo, 1990). It is also important to note that Butler’s linguistic definition of performativity differs from Goffman’s (1967) theatrical account of performance. For Butler, there is no doer who might be said to pre-exist the deed. In other words, while performance presupposes a pre-existing subject, performativity contests the very notion of subject: ‘Identity is performatively constituted by the “expressions” of its results’ (Butler, 1990: 25). However, performance is subsumed within performativity since performances can also be seen as part of the performative constitution of identity (Gregson and Rose, 2000). Hence, individual performances are preceded by performativity or predicted on the basis of it (Lloyd, 1999).

In applying Butler’s ideas on performativity to strategy-making, we depart from her original work on gender and identity. Butler’s idea of performative subject formation has been referred to extensively in studies of gender in organizations and management (e.g. Katila and Meriläinen, 2002; Kenny and Bell, 2011; Pullen and Knights, 2007). Her theoretical ideas have also been drawn on to destabilize and subvert stabilized understandings of, for example, the work, practices, and discipline of management (Parker, 2001) or the inequalities of global trade (Kenny, 2009). Butler has further inspired inquiries on the dynamics of identification in and through various discourses such as project management (Hodgson, 2005) and ethical living (Kenny, 2010). Extending Butler’s theoretical ideas to the context of strategy, we do not claim to do full justice to her work, and our application of her insights is neither exhaustive nor exclusive, especially as Butler is widely acknowledged to be self-controversial (Benhabib, 1995; Mills, 2003; Salih, 2002). In our view, however, Butler’s ideas and concepts can offer a great deal to the emergent debate on discourses and identities around strategy-making. Specifically, we argue that a focus on mastery, submission, and subversion provides a useful framework for critical analysis of managers’ identity construction within their talk about strategy. This leads us to formulate our research questions as follows: How are identities performatively constructed in and through the strategy talk of managers? What are the dynamics of mastery, submission, and subversion that such performativity involves?

Empirical materials and analysis

Our study began with a broad interest in how top management in Finland constructs contemporary business challenges and solutions. We were fortunate to get access to discussions with top managers through direct personal contacts with family-owned companies as well as with the Finnish Association of Family-Owned Companies. Our empirical materials are based on interviews with senior executives in five family-owned industrial companies based in Finland. The materials comprise in-depth narrative interviews with 19 executives including chairmen of the board, CEOs, COOs, and executives in charge of business areas and functions. In the empirical part of this article, we refer to our interviewees as top managers or managers. The purpose of the interviews was to examine how top managers describe the way their company does business and how they intend to maintain a viable business in the future. After warm-up questions on the background and current position of the interviewee and on key characteristics of the company in question, the following themes were covered: (1) key issues in developing the business and operations of the company, (2) fundamental and acute challenges in current operations and business environment, (3) strategic planning in the company, and (4) successes and failures in managing (family-owned) companies. The interviews lasted 90 minutes on average. They were voice-recorded and transcribed verbatim by an outside expert. For reasons of confidentiality, the companies and the top managers remain anonymous in this article.

The first author conducted the interviews. She is inspired by post-structuralist theorization of knowledge and subjectivity, and she has almost 20 years of experience as a strategy consultant. Thanks to her practitioner background, the interviews can be seen as discussions between two experts (Alvesson, 2003). Since both participants in the interviews were well versed in strategy-making, the interviewees did not use abstract and universalist strategy language in accounting for their actions in a logical manner (see Chia and Rasche, 2010: 36–37). Rather, the discussions focused on the substance of the business in hand. Strategy research has called for this kind of relationship between the researcher and the practitioner, where the researcher embodies the same practices as the practitioner (Johnson et al., 2010). In all, then, the interviewer in our study (in her capacity as practitioner as well as researcher) was involved in co-producing discourses and meanings with the interviewees.

We consider the interviews as talk in and through which strategy-making happens as specific socio-historical discourses are (re)constructed. We call upon Foucault’s recognition of discourses as a form of knowledge within which specific concepts are used to create objects and subjects (Foucault, 1972). The three other authors of this article were intrigued by the intensity with which conventional strategy terms such as analysis, change, decision-making, plans, responsibility, strategy, and strategy process appeared in the interview transcripts. After discussing how we could develop a more profound understanding of the use of very conventional strategy language, we turned to Butler’s theorization of the simultaneity of submitting to and mastering the established formations of knowledge in subject formation. This theoretical orientation led us to reread the empirical materials. Our study is informed by the understanding that empirical material is interpreted through theory, which in turn ‘is embedded in the empirical contingencies of history and culture as these are articulated in the particularity and limits of available discourses’ (Ezzamel and Willmott, 2008: 200). This means that it is not just interpretation of data, but also its generation, which is theory-laden (Ezzamel and Willmott, 2008). It was this strong background interest in the relevance of the post-structuralist understanding of the interplay between the social and self in strategy-making that informed the generation of our data. Together with the empirical insights, it led us to interrogate (but not to ‘test’) Butlerian concepts in relation to our empirical material. Butlerian theorizing enabled us to conceptualize strategy-making as the continuous process of becoming a strategist. Furthermore, Butler’s concepts of simultaneous mastery/submission, and the possibility of subversion, provided us with the conceptualization with which to examine the dynamics of identity construction and the relationship between the self and the social in strategy-making. Consistent with the principles of abductive research, we formulated our ultimate research questions as we engaged iteratively in analyzing our material and in learning how Butlerian theorizing would help us make sense of and construct what we thought was noteworthy and relevant therein.

Drawing from Butler, the performative construction of identity means that, for example, a reiterative linguistic act such as ‘analysis’ (in the context of strategy-making) (re)constructs both the discourse of ‘strategic analysis and planning’ and the identity of ‘the analytical strategist’. However, since Butlerian theorization does not offer advice for a detailed analysis of interview transcripts, we strengthened our textual analysis by drawing insights from socio-semiotics (see, for example, Cooren, 1999; Cooren and Fairhurst, 2004; Törrönen, 2001) to specify both the discourses and identities within interview transcripts. ³ We began the analysis by writing down various expressions in the transcripts and clustering them according to themes, for example, strategy content, strategic trajectory, business development initiatives, strategy process, and the challenges encountered in business development, strategy-making, and personal leadership.

In order to identify discourses that construct the various themes differently, we created narratives out of the themes. We drew from Greimas (1983, 1987) and others (Cooren, 1999; Cooren and Fairhurst, 2004; Törrönen, 2001), who have argued that any coordination of activities potentially occurs through a sequencing of events, that is, a narrative. Since these narratives highlight different conditions of action (i.e. necessity as having to, willingness as wanting to, knowing how, and the means for being able to or not), performance (to do), and its consequences (e.g. assessment), they provide us with clues to discourses. For example, we argue that the following narrative represents a widely shared discourse of ‘strategic analysis and planning’: ‘The manager has to understand the situation (having to). He does analysis and creates a strategic plan for the business (to do). The success is later verified by previous calculations (assessment)’. In this manner, we were able to identify and construct various socio-historical discourses in our material. The following strategy discourses appeared to be dominantly reproduced in and through reiterative acts: a discourse of strategic analysis and planning, an individualistic discourse of strategic leadership, and a state-of-the-art discourse. These three discourses were cited in the course of all individual interviews.

Next, we focused on identity construction in and through the talk. We identified how the interviewed top managers related themselves to the content of talk by using various expressions of modalities (Cooren, 1999; Cooren and Fairhurst, 2004; Greimas, 1983, 1987; Törrönen, 2001). Modality refers to the effect one linguistic element has on another. Hence, expressions of modalities represent how speakers convey mood or attitude to propositions. Thus, in and through focusing on the various expressions of having to, wanting to, knowing how to, and being able to, we were able to trace how managers identified with the issues that they talked about. A linguistic act such as ‘we need to come back to figures’ produces the identity of ‘the analytical strategist’, since the modalizing expression ‘need’ imparts necessity to ‘figures’, which we interpret to signify identification with them. To elucidate the performative constitution of identities, we chose some of the speech acts to represent and exemplify submission to the discourses of strategy and mastering as well as subverting them. In the following sections, the speech acts are translated from Finnish into English. We have also indexed the specific nature of our empirical ‘site’—family-owned companies—where appropriate in the analysis.

Before turning to elucidate the performative construction of strategists’ identities, we wish to state two reservations. First, while the interviews could be regarded as performances conducted by the managers and the interviewer for each other, we regard these performances as part of the performative construction of the strategist’s identity (Gregson and Rose, 2000). In other words, there is no doer who might be said to pre-exist the deed (Butler, 1990). Second, the claims we make in this article are based on a specific reading of the interview transcripts, and we do not wish to give the impression that no other readings are possible. In the spirit of post-structuralism and in this specific case of Butlerian thinking, our definitions are inherently open to resignification.

Mastery, submission, and subversion within the strategy talk of managers

In the following, we elucidate how the performative construction of strategist identity involves simultaneous submission to discourses of strategy and mastery of them. We demonstrate that by submitting to the dominant understandings of discourses such as the illusion of control (‘the analytical strategist’), omnipotence (‘the strategic leader’), and personal glory (‘the state-of-the-art strategist’), top managers face the unattainability of these projects, which drives them to increase their mastery in order to obtain the acceptance of others. We also show how subversion stems from submission to these discourses and is accomplished by reappropriating and resignifying the terms of strategy-making.

The performative construction of the analytical strategist

In our interviews, top managers refer extensively to analyses, calculations, plans, and definitions of strategies: ‘We carry out a large number of studies in order to make the right choices and to come up with enlightened solutions’ (Michael, Sales Director). A discourse of strategic analysis and planning and the appropriateness of a technical-rational and analytical strategist are constructed through these repetitive acts. The manager submits to the illusion of being able to know everything by maintaining unequivocally that ‘all possible facts will be taken into consideration’ in making the right decisions (Stephen, Production Director). However, the unattainability of the ideal causes anxiety. Hence, to obtain a sense of security—that the managers are not at the mercy of something beyond their control—they attempt to master ‘a large number of studies’ and ‘all possible facts’. Crucially, this demonstrates the simultaneity of mastering and submission: mastering of ‘studies’ and ‘all possible facts’ is both a condition and a consequence of anxiety. Mastery reproduces submission to the impossibility of having all the ‘facts’ at one’s disposal.

Mastery and submission in becoming an analytical strategist stem from a desire to be seen as appropriate in the gaze of the other (Butler, 1997). The strategists see themselves—like in a mirror—through the socio-historical practice of strategic analysis and planning. Strategists desire for recognition by submitting to this practice and demonstrating their mastery of it. Within the practice of strategic analysis and planning, the ‘individual’ others are owners, fellow strategists, middle managers, employees, and clients—even the interviewer—who need to be convinced that the manager masters the practice. However, the quest to be seen as appropriate is always accompanied by the fear of failure, which is handled by attempting to increase mastery:

We’ve made lots of calculations … and we need to come back to the figures to see whether we’ve actually stuck to the calculations that we have used as a basis for our arguments … It would be embarrassing if we found that this whole thing is not going according to the plan. (Ben, CEO)

In this quote, the manager first displays his mastery of strategy, but also reveals his vulnerability by referring to ‘embarrassment’ in the case of failure. He attempts to increase his mastery by referring to the ‘figures’ and ‘calculations’ that are presented as a precondition for success. However, the greater the mastery, the more vulnerable the manager becomes. The risk of ‘embarrassment’ in the event of failure increases.

By talking about ‘ studies’,‘calculations’, and ‘facts’, managers submit to technical-rational knowledge, which both legitimizes decision-making and offers accountability for decisions. However, managers can never enjoy the luxury of certainty in a single truth or solution. They remain vulnerable within the practice of analysis and planning because they can never be confident that a sufficient amount of analysis has been accomplished so as to form an accurate picture of the situation. They also remain vulnerable in the eyes of owners, fellow strategists, and middle managers as they can be held responsible for their decisions at any time. At the same time, the groundings of these decisions are constantly changing; ‘facts’ become outdated and ‘calculations’ obsolete. Managers compensate for this incessant uncertainty by seeking to influence the production of information: ‘With this tool—key performance indicators—we can standardize concepts. It’s difficult but useful. […] It’s clear that people think in different ways. And we’ve got to standardize their thinking’ (Terry, CFO). This need for ‘standardization’—and, in particular, the conviction that it is possible—imparts significance to the tools and techniques that render operations abstract, and thus limits opportunities for defining and conceptualizing strategy in alternative, more context-specific ways. Submission to the understanding that strategic thinking can be standardized prevents managers from seeing the possibility and value of different interpretations of strategy.

In the interviews, the identity of the rational analytical strategist is complemented by precautionary talk: ‘We play it safe. We never make hasty decisions. We never rush into things. We consider our decisions carefully’ (Tim, CEO). There is a specific emphasis on ‘cautiousness’, which we see as a characteristic feature of the family-owned businesses in our materials. The pronoun ‘we’ suggests that the manager is not just a representative of the owners but a guardian of their wealth. Family ownership is portrayed as prudent:

In publicly listed companies you may come up with decisions pretty fast. You establish what you want to do and you do it. Here we discuss matters more. You need to bear in mind that this is their company. You have to understand that they want you to analyze the risks more thoroughly. (Jerry, CEO)

Hence, there is a constant struggle over how to accomplish a position where the strategist’s mastery is recognized and accepted by the owners. With the determinate statement ‘you establish what you want to do and do it’, the manager constructs the necessity of action in publicly listed companies. By contrasting this action-orientation with ‘discussions’ in family-owned companies, he produces restrictions for himself to act. However, this struggle can again be moderated by ‘analyzing the risks’, which provides the managers with a mode of action in the context of family-owned companies.

While managers yearn for effective and timely decision-making, the quest for action can be subverted by resignifying quick decisions as hasty and unprofessional when made by owner-managers: ‘Owners sometimes make decisions very quickly. I guess they make decisions on the basis of gut feeling and intuition. But after a couple of days they may change their mind and do something completely different’ (Stephen, Production Director). Decisions made by owners on the basis of ‘gut feeling and intuition’ are differentiated from ‘strategic thinking and analytical activities’, as the manager associates the development of the company with the professional CEO, who was hired to take over from the owner-manager: ‘Well, we’ve made a great leap forward in strategic thinking and analytical activities’. The manager resubmits to the understanding that strategic actions are accomplished only through analyses. This restricts alternative understandings, for example, the possibility of seeing the reliance of family-owners on ‘gut feeling and intuition’ as a sufficient basis for truly strategic decisions.

However, managers can also reappropriate the position of strategic analyst by emphasizing their own intuition. In the following example, analyses are not given a primary status in producing strategic knowledge and are instead subordinated to the manager’s own intuition and courage:

You cannot determine how big this business really could be on the basis of business intelligence and market research alone … Creating something different, something significant, always calls for a daredevil, someone who is prepared to put himself in the line of fire … At the end of the day, you either believe in it or you don’t. (Alec, CEO)

Thus, the strategist does and does not escape the dominating force of the category of analytical manager and of positioning the self within this category. References to ‘business intelligence and market research’ demonstrate how the understanding of strategy-making remains guided by the practice of rational analyses and planning. The manager shows that he masters this, and by so doing submits to the discourse. At the same time, he escapes the disciplinary forces of the discourse by downplaying the value of technical-rational knowledge alone and by emphasizing bold and courageous actions based on intuition: on being a ‘daredevil’. However, since this emphasis on intuition threatens the professionalism of the strategist vis-à-vis the owner-manager and his ‘gut feeling’, the strategic character of the manager’s intuition in contrast to the owner’s whims stems from submitting to the discourse of analysis and planning, and mastering it. At the same time, the ‘daredevil’ reconstructs the identity of a heroic strategic leader who knows best and who is to be personally praised (or blamed) for the success of the company. We will now specify and illustrate the performative construction of this identity.

The performative construction of the strategic leader

In our interviews, top managers reconstruct an individualistic discourse of strategic leadership by referring to their unique capability to understand the business better than others: ‘Well, if you have a ten per cent market share, it means that there is a lot out there that you can work on. I don’t believe in the excuses they [middle managers] make’ (Michael, Sales Director). The manager produces an assertive definition of the situation by using quantification and the declarative statement ‘it means’. He also elevates his own knowledge over others by dismissing their understandings as ‘excuses’. By bringing out his extraordinary capability to see what others do not see, the manager demonstrates mastery of strategic leadership and evokes the identity of a heroic strategic leader. At the same time, he submits to omnipotence; unambiguous information about the market exists, but it is only he who is able to craft this information into useful knowledge.

Strategy is then defined as a way to manifest the management’s superior knowledge. However, the task of the strategic leader is not only to survive on his own in generating the strategy but also in getting others to implement it:

My single most strategic task is to get these three guys [the management team] to work together in line with the strategy … And I was like ‘oh my god, have I really kept repeating this for three years?’… How on earth do I get these people to understand? (Peter, CEO)

Expressions such as ‘I’ve kept repeating’ and ‘how on earth do I’ construct the task of getting others to implement the strategy as the manager’s personal challenge. Managers try to cope with the anxiety thus created by mastering strategy communication: ‘A well-functioning strategy can be offered to people so that each and every employee will understand what their role is and how their work impacts upon the strategy’ (John, CEO). Hence, managers submit to the illusion of effective communication that can transmit strategy to others in an unequivocal way ‘so that each and every employee in this company will understand’.

Different interpretations in the organization are then construed to result from the leader’s inability to communicate clearly:

If middle management is unable to cascade our strategy, well, I’ve failed since the [strategy] document is so straightforward and clear and simple and commonsensical that there is no way you cannot understand what you are supposed to do to make it happen. (John, CEO)

The manager’s sense of his potential inability to get others ‘to make it happen’ produces an intensified need for mastering communication:

After we’ve decided on changes, these decisions must be communicated right away. They need to be made concrete. And, of course, we must find change agents out there, those who speak the same language as we do. Well, we must be coherent in everything that we do. (Michael, Sales Director)

By referring to the vocabulary of change management—‘change agents’ and ‘speaking the same language’—the manager submits to the understanding that there is a universal ‘coherent’ sequence of steps that paves the way from strategic decisions to implementation. Intensified communication serves as a means for the managers to accomplish their task. The continuous repetition of communication as one-way transmission of messages once again reproduces the strategic leader’s omnipotence.

When pressed by the interviewer who exclaims ‘You make it sound so easy!’, the manager intensifies mastery by replying as follows: ‘Well, you know, you prepare for counter-arguments and you figure out the answers beforehand. The big challenge is communication’ (Michael, Sales Director). The interviewer continues to challenge him by referring to established ways of doing things and how difficult it is to change them even after something has been agreed on. The manager responds by appealing to the importance of a strategic plan: ‘well, we must have a plan, mustn’t we?’ While the manager submits to the discourse of analysis and planning, the interviewer’s provocation makes him pause to reflect on the shortcomings of the current strategy:

I’m afraid that this current model may be a bit watered down … I guess the boys out there [referring to salesmen] no longer believe in it. I really must get [the strategy implemented] … well, I must find a new way to look at it.

By referring to the ‘plan’ and the ‘model’, the manager controls his anxiety. He reproduces the identity of the analytical strategist who can plan strategy and model the changes needed. With the deterministic expression ‘I really must get …’, he once more reconstructs the identity of a strategic leader who fights a personal battle to secure implementation of the strategy.

Against this backdrop, the identity of the heroic strategic leader can be subverted by reappropriating heroic leadership in a way that acknowledges other members of the organization as knowledgeable subjects:

In each project we look for the ‘voice of the field’ [gestures quotation marks with hands]. Those people in particular who are closest to the customer get involved in assessing even the wildest stuff to see whether there is any sense in it. (Alec, CEO)

Here, the strategist invites others to supplement his knowledge and to pepper strategy with comments and ideas based on their own experiences. The following is a typical example where the leader invites employees to take part in strategic discussions: ‘Well, I can’t achieve results without taking people on board already in the planning stage. I must do it, I must get them committed in the planning’ (Stephen, Production Director). However, linguistic practices such as ‘get involved in assessing even [the manager’s] wildest stuff [ideas]’ and ‘I must get them committed’ elucidate how subversion stems from the individualistic discourse of the strategic leadership rather than, for example, from the principles of dialogue based on an assumption of polyphony (multiple voices and diverse ideas) in strategy discussions. In contrast, the managers in our materials reconstruct their role as those who mastermind the strategy while others help them to fulfill this role. Next, we turn to examine how new strategy is mastered in and through citing the state-of-the-art discourse, which highlights visible change as an indicator of progress.

The performative construction of the state-of-the-art strategist

In our interviews, the performative construction of the state-of-the-art strategist is accomplished by demonstrating progress as a noticeable difference in comparison with the past: ‘[…]we have reached a totally new level with the new professional CEO’ (Michael, Sales Director). ‘A totally new level’ upgrades the conduct of business in relation to previous operations and reconstructs the state-of-the-art discourse. While the expression enhances the professionalism of the strategist when contrasted with the owner-manager, it simultaneously provides submission to the quest for personal glory. Furthermore, the manager is forced to continually re-enact the identity of the state-of-the-art strategist by demonstrating visible changes in strategy. In our interviews, this is accomplished by referring to fashionable ideas about service orientation and specifically to ‘lifecycle selling’. This reconstructs the ‘strategic’ need in industrial companies to change from a production-oriented manufacturing logic to service-oriented business logic:

We sell our products successfully, but that’s no longer enough. What I mean is that this lifecycle selling thing is going to be one of our greatest challenges. We need to be able to see the lifecycle of the product and build our strategic arguments for the client on that basis. (Alec, CEO)

Our examples demonstrate how strategists legitimize change by undermining the present. The unattainable fulfillment of personal glory is coped with by mastering change: ‘we need to be able to see the lifecycle’. This, in turn, continues to reproduce the manager as a strategic forerunner, which further provides submission to the quest for personal glory in strategy-making.

Moreover, by emphasizing service orientation, the manager submits to the understanding that the client has a voice in strategy-making. In the following quotation, the manager underscores his exceptional understanding of equal footing with the client: ‘Many say that clients do not know any better than us. Well, they don’t, but there is a lot you can achieve in business by just listening to them’ (Peter, CEO). However, while submission to the state-of-the-art discourse (here, of service orientation) is reconstructed by emphasizing the discussions with clients, mastering such discussions produces anxiety as it challenges the established subject position of the expert strategist whose task is to offer new solutions. The same manager describes how his middle managers told him that ‘You can’t ask the client. You don’t ask, you know [with strong emphasis on the last word]’ (Peter, CEO). The manager copes with anxiety by emphasizing his own extraordinary capability as a strategic leader: ‘One of my engineers said that if he asks for an appointment with the client it does not lead anywhere, but if the CEO does it clients are happy to invite him’ (Peter, CEO). Hence, the struggle may be temporarily resolved by submitting to the individualistic discourse of strategic leadership; it is only through the top strategist’s position that access to the client becomes strategic. However, our examples again elucidate the simultaneity of submission and mastery; although the anxiety of strategists about the adequacy of their strategic knowledge leads them to master discussions, it also simultaneously reproduces their concern.

The identity of the state-of-the-art strategist is based on the quest for personal glory, which is accomplished by showing strategic progress in and through visible change in relation to the past. Submitting to this understanding provides a precondition for strategic agency and also the possibility to resignify strategic performance by occasionally appreciating stability and the status quo: ‘At times we haven’t been able to reach a decision, and that has turned out to be a good thing. I’ve noticed that it can be beneficial not to rush into things’ (Jerry, CEO). The manager presents himself as the one who is able to tell the difference between the necessity of change and reliance on current solutions. Furthermore, while close contacts with clients are emphasized as the mark of the state-of-the-art strategist today, discussions can be subverted by resignifying them as extremely laborious: ‘It takes an awful lot of work … And it’ll be the death of me! [Laughs]’ (Peter, CEO). The need to listen to the client is also subverted by making it clear that discussion is not enough:

Feedback and ideas from clients play a significant role in innovative business. Still, a large part of [strategy-making] needs to be intrinsic, based on your vision and your dedication, your assumptions about where the world is heading. The problem with feedback from clients is that our competitors can get exactly the same information. And if that alone were the driver of innovative business we’d all be the same. (Alec, CEO)

Subjugating the client’s voice with the intuition of the manager resignifies discussions and client’s knowledge. In the end, the manager needs to remain a step ahead of the client in order to become a true state-of-the-art strategist.

Finally, managers can subvert client discussions by resignifying them as unprofessional conduct of business by the owner-managers:

Of course, the owner [the previous CEO] had his strong points. He was very good with the clients, and he could get things done in a charismatic way. However, if we look at this from a purely business point of view, we have reached a totally new level with the new professional CEO. (Michael, Sales Director)

By constructing the owner-manager’s interaction with clients as ‘ charismatic’ in contrast to ‘pure business’ and ‘ the new professional CEO’, it is resignified to lie outside the professional conduct of strategy. This elevates the extraordinary capability of the strategist, which is accomplished by submitting to and mastering the discourse of strategic analysis and planning, the individualistic discourse of strategic leadership, and the state-of-the-art discourse.

Discussion and conclusion

In strategic management research, top managers are typically understood as autonomous individuals with high degrees of freedom to make decisions and manage the organization strategically. This understanding—at least to some extent—also characterizes most studies on the roles, identities, and agency of strategists (Floyd and Wooldridge, 2000; Maguire and Hardy, 2005; Mantere, 2005, 2008). Post-structuralist studies have, in turn, focused attention on how strategic management discourses and practices are impregnated with power, which produces particular kinds of subjectivities (Knights and Morgan, 1991) that may also be resisted (Ezzamel and Willmott, 2008; Laine and Vaara, 2007). However, it has proven to be difficult to theorize—without falling into either determinism or voluntarism—on actors ‘choosing’ to identify with some discourses and to resist others (Thomas, 2009). We have responded to this challenge of agency by drawing from Judith Butler’s theorization of performative subject formation, which offers ideas and concepts that are useful in exploring how socio-historical understandings of strategy are (re)constructed at the level of identity.

We have offered a contribution to critical research on identity in strategy-making by demonstrating the dynamic relationship between the self and the social and by elaborating on its consequences. We have shown in this article how at the heart of identity construction is the ambivalence of submission and mastery, which take place together in the same moment rather than as separate acts. We have illustrated how the subject’s desire for recognition in the gaze of the other drives submission to the dominant forms of knowledge and their mastery. Autonomy and choice—or more specifically, an illusion of them—stem not so much from the individual but from the conditions of possibility provided by the socio-historical discourses of strategy-making.

We have distinguished between three identities that are performatively constructed in and through top managers’ strategy talk: the analytical strategist, the strategic leader, and the state-of-the-art strategist. Although the context of family-owned companies certainly has unique features such as cautiousness and construction of professionalism of hired managers in relation to owner-managers, we argue that such identity construction is also likely to characterize organizational strategy-making in other settings. This is because these performative identities manifest how well-known discourses of strategy, such as a discourse of strategic analysis and planning, an individualistic discourse of strategic leadership, and a state-of-the-art discourse, are recurrently constructed at the level of identity. The performative construction of the identities elucidated in this article demonstrates how managers desire to be seen as appropriate in the gaze of the other by using the established and dominant vocabulary of strategy-making. By doing so, they submit to specific understandings of strategy such as illusion of control (within the discourse of strategic analysis and planning), omnipotence (within the individualistic discourse of strategic leadership), and personal glory (within the state-of-the-art discourse). It is noteworthy how submitting to these understandings of strategy are both conditions for and consequences of strategy-making. In the following, we elaborate on these conditions and consequences.

First, in and through the performative construction of the analytical strategist, managers submit to technical-rational knowledge production and the illusion of control. However, the unattainable ideal of possessing all knowledge makes the managers anxious. They try to cope with their anxiety by increasing their mastery of analysis and urging standardized knowledge. Still, greater mastery also reproduces submission to the impossibility of possessing all facts. Hence, submitting to the technical-rational knowledge and illusion of control is not just a consequence of mastering analysis but a condition for it. This restricts other understandings of strategic thinking. Feelings, intuition, social interaction, and local, peripheral understandings of business challenges are not seen as proper forms of knowledge in strategy-making.

Second, in and through the performative construction of the strategic leader, top managers submit to the idea of omnipotence, that is, to rely on one’s own ability to see something that others do not see and make it happen in and through communication. The managers construct communication as their personal challenge, which enhances submission to an understanding that they need to survive on their own. They try to cope with the anxiety thus created by mastering strategy communication. They submit to the illusion that through communication, strategy can be transferred to others and implemented in an unequivocal way. In this way, submitting to the omnipotence of the strategic leader is both a condition for the transmission-type of one-way communication and a consequence thereof. This dynamic prevents managers from fully understanding the socially constructed nature of strategy, that is, that it comes into existence in and through a variety of interpretations, actions, and practices. It keeps managers from devoting themselves to open dialogue within which strategy knowledge could be constructed in interactions that cannot be predicted.

Third, in and through the performative construction of the state-of-the-art strategist, managers submit to a quest for personal glory. This drives them to demonstrate strategic progress as a noticeable difference in relation to the past, which in turn reproduces the quest for personal glory. In our materials, the managers emphasize service orientation (e.g. in the form of ‘lifecycle selling’) as a state-of-the-art recipe for success. This means submitting to an understanding that client relationships must be nurtured and clients listened to. Submitting to the idea that there are limits to the strategist’s knowledge leads to discussions with clients. However, mastering these discussions recreates uncertainty with regard to one’s own expertise. This, in turn, is coped with by emphasizing the manager’s extraordinary position in relation to others—thus submitting to the individualistic discourse of strategic leadership, which reconstructs the manager’s omnipotence.

Furthermore, our study demonstrates how managers can resist subject positions and identities by diluting the dualism of subjection–resistance. Submission to the socio-historical discourses of strategy provides preconditions for agency. The constant process of reiteration—and ‘the failure of terms [such as ‘analysis’ in our material] to fully capture that which they purport to name and the correlative potential for terms to be misappropriated and resignified’ (Mills, 2003: 254)—always affords the possibility to cite otherwise and to subvert dominant forms of knowledge. The discourse of strategic analysis and planning is at times subverted by subjugating analysis to intuition in strategic knowledge production. The individualistic discourse of the strategic leader is at times subverted by reappropriating the position of heroic leader in a way that acknowledges others as knowledgeable subjects alongside the manager. The state-of-the-art discourse is at times subverted by resignifying strategic performance in a way that acknowledges the value of the current way of doing business. However, subverting the norms of conduct contained within strategy discourses provides an inherent threat to the social existence of the strategist. Hence, subversions in strategy-making tend to be subtle. Furthermore, they come close to other existing conceptions of strategy-making. For example, intuition has been acknowledged in the discussions of strategy as practical coping (Chia and Holt, 2006) or emergent (e.g. Burgelman, 1983; Mintzberg and McHugh, 1985). Emphasizing discussion with other organizational members and clients, in turn, can also be seen to reconstruct a discourse within which other members of the organization or customers are acknowledged as knowledgeable subjects and invited to participate in strategy-making. In existing strategy research, the discourse of participation has been studied as a part of current management ideology and practice in general (Musson and Duberley, 2007), and it has been emphasized in strategy-as-practice research in particular (Jarzabkowski, 2008; Laine and Vaara, forthcoming, 2015; Mantere, 2008; Mantere and Vaara, 2008; Whittington et al., 2011). However, the practices of participation have been criticized for being instrumentalist (Järventie-Thesleff et al., 2011) as they tend to provide only a limited possibility for employees and other actors to engage in open dialogue in strategy-making. This is reinforced by our study, which shows the subtlety of subverting technical-rational knowledge production and the omnipotence of strategic leader. This is important to acknowledge since existing practices and research tend to assume that the transition from conventional (top-down) to more dialogical strategy work is smooth and achievable in a rather short time frame. Hence, although the identity of strategic leader is at times subverted by referring to others as valuable sources of information, the strategists never lose their pre-eminence in knowledge production.

Still, there is a shade of deviation from the socio-historical discourses of strategy in our material. Subverting the state-of-the-art discourse by granting value to the previous ways of running the business in the cautious context of family-owned companies can be seen to deny the ethos of heroism and conquest to some extent. As advocated by some strategy scholars (Carter, 2013; Clegg et al., 2013), this might be understood to carry the promise of socially aware strategists who understand strategy in its cultural, organizational, and political context and who are able to practice it with ethical wisdom—a position advocated by some strategy scholars (Carter, 2013; Clegg et al., 2013; Vaara and Durand, 2012). However, enactment of the socially aware strategist can be seen to demand changes within the wider web of discourses. Hence, our analysis highlights the dominance of traditional discourses of strategy, such as a discourse of strategic analysis and planning, an individualistic discourse of strategic leadership, and a state-of-the-art discourse as well as the persevering understandings within those discourses with regard to illusion of control, omnipotence, and personal glory. In all, our study offers a way to better comprehend the persistence of dominant conceptions and related problems in strategy-making such as overemphasis on technical rationality in knowledge production, anxiety in the face of uncertainty, heightened expectations of heroism, and an inability to engage in genuine dialogue with others and to consider broader social and societal issues as part of strategy-making.

While our study aims at providing insights for theorizing on identity construction within strategy-making, future research could focus on specific practices such as strategy meetings and workshops and examine identity construction therein. Bodily performances within those practices would be a particularly intriguing research topic; it could deconstruct the dualism of materiality/discourse (Alaimo and Heckman, 2008; Barad, 2003). It would also be important to capture more surprising and unexpected forms of resistance in the process of becoming a strategist. Finally, although Knights and Morgan (1991) already demonstrated the gendered underpinnings of socio-historical strategy discourses, Judith Butler’s ideas and concepts of the performative construction of gender in strategy-making could highlight the material consequences of the gendered discourses for men and women within strategy-making.