Orchestrating ongoing interaction flows of strategy formation in and between meetings

Abstract

Research has addressed how the practices and organization of strategy meetings shape strategy processes and outcomes. However, how interactive processes run between and feed into meetings—an integral aspect of how managers shape ongoing strategy emergence—remains relatively poorly understood. Through a strong processual-interactionist approach, we thus examine how in- and between-meeting practices interact and create combined effects in orchestrating ongoing flows of strategy formation. By considering strategy meetings as part of and punctuating chain-like, interactive processes of strategy formation, we develop an understanding of how in- and between-meeting practices dynamically interact—they enable, balance the effects of, and shape one another through the interaction flows in which they are engaged. The longitudinal case study reveals and explains the role of cross-over effects and coalescing between multiple simultaneous interaction flows, thereby advancing extant research on how series of interaction sequences shape strategy emergence and evolution.