Strategy as Practice

′Given the book is the first to deal with ′strategy-as-practice′ in depth, it becomes vital to set the contours of the field and lay the path for future research, both achieved in an admirable fashion. More importantly, it also raises several questions and forces the reader to embark on an invigorating thought process -the hallmark of an interesting book for the serious reader.′Srinivas GuntaIIMB Management Review Reviews for Higher education Market:′This volume will appeal to researchers, students and those engaged instrategic management in higher education. The case study materialprovides a detailed portrait of the ways in which senior managers engagein strategic development. Overall, the volume provides rich insights onstrategic management in higher education′-Professor Bob Burgess, Vice-Chancellor, University of Leicester′This is a completely original account of three contrasting universities′ approach to creating and managing strategy in modern conditions. The problem of multiple strategies which interact with one another will be recognised by every practitioner but have not been described in this way before." Strategy as Practice" represents an important contribution to higher education literature because it theorises decisions and strategies which are for the most part instinctive responses to external realities′- Professor Michael Shattock was Registrar of the University of Warwick before taking up his Visiting Professorship at the Institute of Education, University of London, where he is Director of the MBA in Higher Education Management. Overall, I found this book insightful and intriguing. As an interestedoutsider, I appreciated the aim of the activity-based framework and its keyconcepts. While I believe that many scholars will similarly recognize thesignificance of the theoretical apparatus developed, the real value of the booklies in the fact that it raises more questions than it answers. This is especially helpful in emerging areas of research, and in this case, Jarzabkowski has astutely signaled an agenda for future scholarship that will no doubt fuel thecontinued growth of this subfield.

• IntroductionStrategy as Practice: A New PerspectiveDEFINING AND THEORETICALLY LOCATING AN ACTIVITY-BASED VIEWCore Social Theory Themes in Strategy as PracticeLocating Activity in the Strategy LiteratureSHAPING STRATEGIC ACTIVITY IN PRACTICEEstablishing the Research ContextImplications of Procedural and Interactive StrategizingShaping Strategy and the Strategizing MatrixMultiple Strategies Shape Each OtherTHEORIZING AN ACTIVITY-BASED VIEW OF STRATEGY AS PRACTICEDeveloping a Strategizing FrameworkTaking the Research Agenda Forward