Switching Strategic Perspective: The Reframing of Accounts of Responsibility
研究高层对战略的模糊态度如何让中层团队在解释责任时拥有空间，早期夸大责任与期望，后期在战略失败时降低期望，通过重新框架从义务转向能力再转向问责，揭示语言策略如何影响战略议程。
We provide an empirical study of the reframing of accounts of responsibility for strategy. We found that top management ambivalence about strategy provided a middle management team with wide scope for interpretation of responsibility for developing and implementing a strategic initiative. In the early stage, responsibility as well as expectations about the strategy’s successful outcome were ‘talked up’. In the later stage, when it was considered that the strategic initiative was failing, the middle management implementation team engaged in ‘talking down’ of expectations. We show that reframing from initial duty to capability to later accountability shaped and reflected actors’ changing goals. By focusing on responsibility we increase understanding of the division of labour in the actual practice of strategizing, including where and how strategizing is done. Most important, we show how protagonists’ goals drive the framing and reframing of strategic agendas, and how linguistic devices such as disclaimers and self-handicapping influence this process.