Exploring the long-term effect of strategy work: The case of Sustainable Sydney 2030

Strategy has become an important concern and practical tool in urban management and govern- ance, with the literature highlighting implementation as a hallmark of effective strategy. Whilst such a strategy–action link (which we label here as ‘implementation nexus’) has been well estab- lished, other long-term effects have been documented in less detail. Our study of Sustainable Sydney 2030 finds that strategy was effective to the extent to which it changed the institutional a priori of what a collective of actors engaged in city-making knows, what it can articulate and how its members relate to each other.

The Values of Strategy: Valuation Practices, Rivalry and Strategic Agency

The concept of value is held dear by strategy theorists and practitioners alike as they share a concern about value creation, value propositions, value add, value chains, shareholder value and a plethora of other value constructs. Yet, despite its centrality, the concept of value has attracted limited attention in strategy scholarship. Most commonly, notions of value as profit or utility, inherited from economic theory, are assumed rather than analyzed. This paper advances the discussion of value in the strategy discourse by conceptualizing value as a correlate of valuation practices. Following this view, value is neither understood as the property of an object nor as a subjective preference; rather, values are constituted through valuation practices including rankings, ratings, awards, reviews and other valuation mechanisms that bestow values upon things in the first place. The paper explores this idea through analyzing valuation practices and their constitutive mechanisms; and it exploits this idea for the conceptualization of rivalry and strategic agency.

Strategy’s futures

If asked: “What is the time?” you will look at your phone or at your wrist and provide a swift answer; yet if asked: “What is time?” you will most likely struggle to provide a coherent answer, no matter where you look. This vignette is attributed to Augustinus, who, in the space of two lines, makes us painfully aware what difficult an idea time actually is. In this essay we set out to bring some of the subtleties and complexities of time to the discipline of strategy – a discourse that has been firmly focused on the future (and hence engaged with time) yet has shown little appetite nor much ability to problematize time adequately. We ask: what is the complex nature of time, and how does that nature alter strategy?

Strategy as performative practice: The case of Sydney 2030

This article focuses on the relation between strategy-as-practice and its power effects in the context of a strategy project (Sustainable Sydney 2030) undertaken by the City of Sydney. The following three interrelated questions guided the enquiry: How is strategy practised? What knowledge is it based upon? And what are its power effects? Based on a detailed empirical analysis of the strategy-making process, the article charts how strategy rendered the city knowable and how performative effects of strategizing mobilized the public and legitimized outcomes of the process while silencing other voices. The article’s theoretical contribution is threefold: first, it shows that strategizing is performative, constituting its subjects and shaping its objects; second, that strategizing has to be understood as aesthetic performance whose power resides in the simultaneous representation of facts (traditionally the domain of science) and values (the realm of politics); third, and consequently, that strategy is a sociopolitical practice that aims at mobilizing people, marshalling political will and legitimizing decisions. The article concludes with reflections on five practical implications of the study.

Reading Clausewitz, reimagining the practice of strategy

Strategy and organization theory enjoy a reawakening interest in historical analysis. In this essay, we suggest that this engagement should include strategy’s linkage to the history of military strategy. We develop our argument through an exegesis of Carl von Clausewitz’ treatise On War. We claim that Clausewitz’ theorization of strategy advances the ongoing scholarly conversation on the practice of strategy in three specific ways.