General Strategy Concepts and the Ecology of Strategy Discourses: A
Systemic-Discursive Perspective
David Seidl*
University of Munich
* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
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Abstract |
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Drawing on Wittgenstein, Lyotard and Luhmann the article develops a
systemic-discursive perspective on the field of strategy and the respective role of
general strategy concepts. The perspective suggests that the field of strategy
should not be conceptualized as a unified field but rather as fragmented into a
multitude of autonomous discourses. Owing to their autonomy, no transfer of strategy
concepts across different discourses is possible. Instead, every single strategy
discourse can merely construct its own discourse-specific concepts. Different
discourses, however, draw on the same strategy labels, which leads to 'productive
misunderstandings' (Teubner). On the basis of the particular perspective advanced
here, the entire field of strategy is re-described as an ecology of strategy discourses.
Key Words:
discourse, language game, social-systems theory, strategy as practice, strategy concepts
