Strategy Innovation with Employee Involvement

Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of this article is to investigate how employees can be involved in strategy innovation processes and how new strategy practices (new tools and procedures) are used to change strategy praxis.
Design/methodology/approach: A theoretical framework encompassing and combining concepts of strategy innovation, continuous innovation and strategy as practice (SAP) is developed and used to conceptualise dilemmas of short versus long term and analyse a longitudinal case study of a strategy process.
Findings: Even if managers still dominate, some processes of direct involvement of employees occur, in particular when employees are asked to supplement overall strategic goals and when they directly shape several sub-strategies. Strategy practices found include strategy planning, an open space workshop and organised strategy projects. Especially the latter two are important in facilitating the employee involvement. The case, however, also exhibits enterprise-situated praxises, like the mitigation of taboos.
Research limitations/implications: The empirical material is a single in-depth case study that makes no claim for generalisability.
Originality/value: A longitudinal study of strategy formulation processes in SMEs is rare, and documenting and analysing employee involvement even rarer.
Keywords: Strategy as practice, employee involvement, strategy innovation.
Paper type: Research paper