Sweating the “small stuff”: High-reliability organizing as a foundation for sustained superior performance

Abstract

Achieving and sustaining superior relative performance is central to strategic organization research. Recently, strategic organization researchers have turned their attention to the broader set of people doing strategy work, how they do it, and what contributes to superior performance. We deepen this focus by arguing that operational activity on the front line is strategic. To illustrate how everyday operations become strategic, we draw on insights from high-reliability organizing to illustrate how leaders, through practices and behaviors, support a more strategic front line and a specific set of discursive practices known as mindful organizing. The everyday mindful work of front line operations is a crucial source of emerging opportunities and threats that underlie superior relative performance. We discuss the methodological implications of applying high-reliability organizing approaches to study strategic organization and how strategic organization research can broaden and enrich research on high reliability.