The Practice Turn In Strategic Alignment Research: Fostering A Strategy-As-Practice Perspective

Strategic Alignment (SA) in the literature has been predominantly envisaged as a result of a formal deliberation process which finds a fit with a particular given strategy. This falls short of acknowledging other social forces that may shape SA and neglects the view that strategy can be emergent. This paper aims to contextualize SA in line with a contemporary perspective in strategy research which draws on practice theory and is widely labelled strategy-as-practice (SAP). We will discuss the motives behind this reorientation, outlining core principles in SAP, and concluding the paper by elaborating the suitability of SAP for the future SA research agenda.

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