Strategy as Practice— Asset Optimisation Process

Abstract

The aim of this chapter will be to employ a Strategy as Practice (SasP) perspective to consider the organisation’s ‘Asset Optimisation Process’ (AOP). The AOP process was a rationalisation of products and production capacity that was conducted within the organisation. The rationalisation outcome was delayed, subverted and reconfigured by networks of middle managers, trade unions and other actors. The chapter will draw upon and inform SasP literature (e.g., Nicolini, Organization Studies, 30(12), 1391–1418, 2009, Practice theory, work, and organization: An introduction, Oxford University Press; Whittington, Long Range Planning, 29(5), 731–735, 1996, Organization Studies, 27(5), 613–634, 2006) and combine Actor-Network Theory perspectives with SasP (see Nicolini 2012). By using ethnography in an insider account the chapter will demonstrate how practices are constructed and deployed as well as how a SasP perspective can be applied by researchers in other organisational settings.