Opening Strategy: Evolution of a Precarious Profession
| Author | Basak Yakis‐Douglas,Ludovic Cailluet,Richard Whittington |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2011.00762.x |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
Opening Strategy: Evolution of a
Precarious Profession
Richard Whittington, Ludovic Cailluet
1
and Basak Yakis-Douglas
Saı
¨d Business School, University of Oxford, Park End Street, Oxford OX1 1HP, UK, and
1
University of
Toulouse 1, Rue du Doyen Gabriel Marty, 31000 Toulouse, France
Corresponding author email: richard.whittington@sbs.ox.ac.uk
This paper takes the long view on the development of strategy as a profession, from the
1950s to today. We identify strategy as a structurally precarious profession, subject to
cyclical demand and shifts in organizational power. This precariousness has increased
with the secular shift towards more open forms of strategy-making, with more
transparency inside and outside organizations and more inclusion of different actors
internally and externally. We analyse four forces – organizational, societal, cultural
and technological – driving the evolution of strategy as a profession and discuss
implications for the future of strategy work, for effective strategies, for strategy’s
professional bodies and for strategy research.
Introduction
An anniversary is a good time to take the long
view. On this 25th anniversary of the British
Academy of Management we apply such a
perspective to strategy – something that, after
all, defines itself as essentially about the big
picture and the long term. In particular, we
consider the evolution of strategy as a kind of
professional work since its origins in the 1950s to
today. We deliberately adopt the essay form: our
purpose is to range widely, to speculate a little
and, we hope, to provoke further research. In this
spirit, our headline description of the last half-
century or so is that strategy work has become
more ‘open’. However, by comparison with the
related phenomenon of ‘open innovation’ (Ches-
brough, 2003), we warn that this opening of
strategy is not an unalloyed good for organiza-
tions. For many, greater openness comes willy-
nilly and unwelcome. Looking into the future,
moreover, the opening of strategy is by no means
secure.
Our primary focus is on strategy ‘profes-
sionals’, those in-house strategic planners and
external strategy consultants whose whole pur-
pose is to assist with organizational strategy. It is
these professionals that are on the front-line with
regard to changes in strategy work. An important
step in our argument, therefore, will be to
demonstrate that, contrary to some popular
wisdom (e.g. Hamel and Prahalad, 1994), these
professional strategists are still an important
group. Strategic planning and consulting are the
sites of innovation, not simple decline. On the
other hand, we propose that the strategy profes-
sion is structurally precarious and that the
opening up of the strategy process is making it
even more so.
The next section introduces these strategy
professionals more fully, explaining their parti-
cular professional status and charting their
historical ups and downs. We continue by
developing our theoretical concept of ‘open
strategy’, reflecting two critical dimensions of
This paper has benefited from comments received at
seminars at the Ashridge Strategic Management Centre,
particularly from Andrew Campbell, the University of
Auckland and the University of Technology, Sydney. The
usual disclaimers apply. It has also benefited from funding
from the Millman Foundation, New College, Oxford.
British Journal of Management, Vol. 22, 531–544 (2011)
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8551.2011.00762.x
r2011 The Author(s)
British Journal of Management r2011 British Academy of Management. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.
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