From the perspective of strategy-as-practice research, this study has shed light on the previously unexplored area of external actors influencing the strategizing activities of organizations, and moreover, small organizations in particular. The main contribution of this study to the field draws from the aspects that the strategy-as-practice literature has not thus far recognized partners and competitors as explicit practitioners, and the general scarcity or third actor research within the strategy-as-practice literature.
As it is virtually impossible to provide an exhaustive answer to the research questions, this study aims to provide links and suggestions that could be used to complete the present
theoretical framework. In the case of the first research question, the most apparent conclusion is that, as assumed in the literature, conversations are a major strategic practice that the external actors and organizations employ in their reciprocal strategizing. This emerged in the case of all actor groups presented in this study, and has surely implications on the theoretical, as well as practical side. From the theoretical side the matter is twofold.
What comes to discussions, their mere recognition as an important practice, or the stream in which the practices are employed is not sufficient. Even if there are some studies concerning discussions as a strategizing practice (e.g. Hoon 2007), this study has illustrated the highly ambiguous nature of these discussions, and the factor how practitioners often draw on their personal relationships, i.e. their own informal networks of acquaintances when forming these networks. Thus the strategizing reality within the network of these acquaintances cannot be effectively captured and analyzed without a deeper approach, such as discursive analysis advanced by Laine & Vaara (2007) and Samra-Fredericks (2005) for instance. Thus the claim that this study makes is that it is not enough to analyze what was said, as instead the researchers should get down to the level of how it was said, and what constitutes the meaning in that particular message.
Aside from the research methodology, the other theoretical implication caused by the importance of informal discussions and the respective networks is that in contrast to what was assumed in the tentative theoretical framework presented in this study, the practices that the actors draw on cannot be classified merely into formal and informal. Further, as the competitors and partners have hitherto been effectively excluded from the analysis, this study suggests that their influence might in the case of SME’s be more important than one might think. From the theoretical side, they seem to employ similar practices with other external actors, but the level of trust varies depending on the actors.
The final conclusions of theoretical implications are related to both research questions. As this study illustrated the importance of informal networks, this is undoubtedly a factor suggesting that the practice adaptation as described by Jarzabkowski & Wilson (2006) and Seidl (2007) for instance is bound to happen as these actors disseminate practices. This would suggest that the gap between what the organizations think they are doing and what they are actually doing might, due to the various external pressures, be greater than in the case of more simplified and structured actor networks that bigger and more formal
organizations participate in. Thus this makes the research of SME’s strategizing activities highly complex.
Finally, as the outcomes in this study ranged from establishment of new production plants to personal decision making encouragement and organizational-fine tuning, the outcomes are rather diverse to say the least. The outcomes were quite often related to organizational outcomes, as defined by Jarzabkowski & Spee (2009). Further, other types of outcomes emerged as well, such as the individual outcome of personal decision-making encouragement, or the institutional outcome of legislative changes. Based on this, and the suggestion of employing more in-depth research methodologies, such as discourse analysis, the line of thought leads to the conclusion that the outcomes could probably be a feasible unit of research in terms of bounding the scope of analysis and recognizing the desired concept to be analyzed. This does not implicate that studying everyday actions would not be feasible, but in order to add to the concrete side of strategy-as-practice, this study suggests that connecting the how with why would generate results that could better inform the reality faced by the organizations. This applies especially to small organizations; as their motives for actions can sometimes be rather ambiguous, and further, do not necessarily always meet.
From the contribution side, this study made some mentionable additions to the field; first of all, explicitly addressing the relationship between small organizations and external actors is definitely a contribution to the field. As the current research has not recognized this matter before, the perspective of this study was indeed novel. As the small organizations differ from the bigger ones not only in size, but also in the levels of hierarchy, it is vain to discuss the actions of middle managers in a strategizing process if the focal organization does not have such a group in the first place. Further, introducing such practices as infiltration as a means of information gathering added to the theoretical understanding, as it has not been examined earlier.
Another contribution was to recognize the connection between business network research and strategy-as-practice. As the strategy-as-practice literature seeks for ways to integrate itself to the wider strategic management literature, this would be a great opportunity, and further, connecting these two lines of research would also contribute to the depth of analysis in strategy-as-practice, as it would allow the researchers to better examine the
delicate interaction between the formerly unrecognized actors, such as competitors and customers, and the organizations.
Finally, this study contributed to the theoretical side of strategy-as-practice by further assessing the concept of liminality, and combining that to the group of trusted men. While the practices employed within this interaction were left slightly vague, recognizing this factor is clearly a contribution, and further analyzing the matter would constitute an important research topic.