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The Process Affordances of Strategy Toolmaking when Addressing Wicked Problems

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  • Gary T. Burke
  • Carola Wolf

Abstract

Studies have examined how managers use strategy tools, but we know much less about how managers create strategy tools de novo. We undertook an ethnographic study of a business facing a wicked problem and investigated the sociomaterial practice of collective toolmaking. We identify how strategy toolmaking oscillates between different problem domains and reveal how this manifests process affordances, which are ‘unintended’ by‐products of the toolmaking process. Counterintuitively, by intentionally making a strategic tool, actors unintentionally create a sociomaterial springboard for 'spin‐off strategizing' and ‘the discovery of latent ambiguities’, generating strategic value beyond the tool produced. These insights illuminate how the practice of collective toolmaking can stimulate wayfinding, indirectly helping managers to respond to wicked problems, characterized by high degrees of complexity, ambiguity, and indeterminacy.

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  • Gary T. Burke & Carola Wolf, 2021. "The Process Affordances of Strategy Toolmaking when Addressing Wicked Problems," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 359-388, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jomstd:v:58:y:2021:i:2:p:359-388
    DOI: 10.1111/joms.12572
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Fernandez-Vidal, Jorge & Gonzalez, Reyes & Gasco, Jose & Llopis, Juan, 2022. "Digitalization and corporate transformation: The case of European oil & gas firms," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).

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