How do things become strategic? ‘Strategifying’ corporate social responsibility
Abstract
How do things become ‘strategic’? Despite the development of strategy-as-practice studies and the recognized institutional importance of strategy as a social practice, little is known about how strategy boundaries change within organizations. This article focuses on this gap by conceptualizing ‘strategifying’ – or making something strategic – as a type of institutional work that builds on the institution of strategy to change the boundaries of what is regarded as strategy within organizations. We empirically investigate how corporate social responsibility has been turned into strategy at a UK electricity company, EnergyCorp. Our findings reveal the practices that constitute three types of strategifying work – cognitive coupling, relational coupling and material coupling – and show how, together and over time, these types of work changed the boundaries of strategy so that corporate social responsibility became included in EnergyCorp’s official strategy, became explicitly attended to by strategists and corporate executives and became inscribed within strategy devices. By disambiguating the notions of strategifying and strategizing, our study introduces new perspectives for analysing the institutional implications of the practice of strategy.
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Appendices
| Sources of data | ||
|---|---|---|
| Interviews | ||
| Interview number and job title of the interviewees | Interviewer, date | Length |
| 1. Head of CSR, CSR team, EnergyCorp | Author 3, 2009 | 1 hour |
| 2. CSR analyst, CSR team, EnergyCorp | Author 3, 2009 | 1 hour |
| 3. Assurance provider | Author 3, 2009 | 1 hour |
| 4. Senior strategy analyst, strategy team, EnergyCorp | Author 3, 2009 | 50 minutes |
| 5. Responsible procurement manager, EnergyCorp | Author 3, 2009 | 1 hour 30 minutes |
| 6. Head of CSR, CSR team, EnergyCorp | Author 3, 2009 | 45 minutes |
| 7. CSR analyst, CSR team, EnergyCorp | Author 3, 2009 | 1 hour 30 minutes |
| 8. Head of CSR, CSR team, EnergyCorp (CSR analyst present) | Author 3, 2009 | 45 minutes |
| 9. Director of corporate affairs, EnergyCorp | Author 3, 2009 | 30 minutes |
| 10. CSR manager (formerly CSR analyst), CSR team, EnergyCorp | Author 1, 2012 | 1 hour |
| 11. CSR manager (formerly CSR analyst), CSR team, EnergyCorp | Author 1, 2012 | 45 minutes |
| 12. Former head of CSR, EnergyCorp | Author 1, 2012 | 30 minutes |
| 13. CSR executive, EnergyCorp | Author 1, 2012 | 30 minutes |
| 14. Corporate environment manager, EnergyCorp | Author 1, 2012 | 45 minutes |
| 15. Community relations manager, EnergyCorp | Author 1, 2012 | 45 minutes |
| 16. Chief economist, Watchdog Organization | Author 1, 2012 | 30 minutes |
| Internal artefacts (confidential artefacts noticed*) | ||
| Description | Format, date | |
| CSR review | .pdf, 2006 | |
| Board presentation on CR strategy (June 2008)* | .ppt, June 2008 | |
| Draft of board presentation on CR strategy* | .ppt, April 2008 | |
| Draft of board presentation on CR strategy* | .ppt, January 2008 | |
| Presentation of CR approach to corporate sales* | .ppt, November 2008 | |
| Board presentation on structure and KPIs* | .ppt, August 2009 | |
| Written overview of board presentation on structure and KPIs* | .doc, November 2008 | |
| Analysis of firm and competitors’ KPIs* | .xls, February 2009 | |
| Template of board performance report* | .xls, March 2009 | |
| CR podcast | Video | |
| Other archival data | ||
| Description | Number | |
| CSR reports from competitors | 30 | |
| Prior studies and reports on the UK electricity sector | 5 | |
| Group CSR reports (from 2004 to 2012) | 9 | |
| Corporate CSR reports (from 2004 to 2010) | 6 | |
| Articles from Utility Week (1997–2012) | 948 (counting) | |
CSR: corporate social responsibility; CR: corporate responsibility; KPI: key performance indicator.
*
confidential artefacts noticed.
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Biographies
Jean-Pascal Gond is a Professor of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at Cass Business School, City, University of London (UK). His research mobilizes organization theory and economic sociology to investigate CSR. His research in economic sociology is concerned with the influence of theory on managerial practice (performativity), the governance of self-regulation and the interplay of society’s commodification and markets’ socialization. He has published in academic journals, such as Business and Society, Business Ethics Quarterly, Economy and Society, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Inquiry, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Organization, Organization Science and Organization Studies, and French journals, such as Finance Contrôle Stratégie.
Laure Cabantous is a Professor of Strategy and Organization at Cass Business School, City, University of London. Her research explores the performative power of theories within organizations (i.e. their ability to shape business practices). She also has a long-lasting interest in decision-making (at the individual and collective levels), in particular under uncertainty. Her research has been published in journals such as Human Relations, the Journal of Management, the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Organization Science and Organization Studies.
Frédéric Krikorian is the Director, Sustainability, Public and Government Affairs at Gaz Metropolitain, a Canadian energy company, where he also managed renewable energy projects. He holds an MA. in corporate social responsibility (CSR) from the Nottingham University Business School where he studied the implementation of CSR practices and strategies in energy companies. He is also involved in various organizations promoting cleantechs and the transition to a low-carbon economy.
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