The Structure and Significance of Strategic Episodes: Social Systems Theory and the Routine Practices of Strategic Change
运用卢曼的社会系统理论，特别是“事件”概念，研究战略实践与组织常规运作的关系，分析战略事件如何启动对常规结构的反思与变革，并构建了分析不同类型事件的框架。
theory and the routine practices of strategic change In this paper we draw on Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory, and in particular his concept of an ‘episode’, to guide research into strategic practice and its relationship to the operating routines of an organization. Episodes, in Luhmann’s theory, provide a mechanism by which a system can suspend its routine structures and so initiate a reflection on and change of these structures. Applying this theory to the organisational process of strategic change, we draw attention to the routine nature of strategic episodes and to their organisational role as the effective locus of strategic practice and the interaction between strategic and operating routines. We continue to develop a framework for the systematic analysis of different kinds of episode in terms of key aspects of their initiation, conduct and termination. 2 The structure and significance of strategic episodes: social systems theory and the routine practices of strategic change This paper responds to a recent call for an exploration of strategy as a form of