Quantitative Methods Round Table – SAP
Richard Whittington (RW) served as moderator.
RW provided a brief introduction to Strategy as Practice (SAP) and noted specifically the
four levels of SAP analysis [with notes on possible quantitative practices put in brackets.]
1) Praxis – activity [ex: survey of activity, as done by Paula J]
2) Practices [seems good for survey work]
3) Practitioners [data on people involved could be used for analysis]
4) Practice – the profession of strategy
Much of the discussion centered on where quantitative methods can apply in these four
levels of analysis.
These notes were taken by Brian King of McGill and are organized according to the three
questions we were given to answer – not a linear record of how the discussion unfolded.
Discussion that did not fall into answering these questions is included in the “other
thoughts” category
A) How does this method contribute to the SAP field?
Quantitative methods can contribute in two ways: bringing legitimacy to studies (given
the dominant paradigm in management literature is quantitative) and also it can bring
greater understanding by bringing another lens to the researcher.
Mintzberg talks about qualitative and quantitative being “left foot / right foot” for a
researcher – using only one approach gives only one part of the picture. This probably
true for SAP research – some quantitative work (even if it is relatively simple) will help
us understand better what is going on in practice.
Participants see one benefit being large data sources and therefore potentially greater
validity.
There is relatively little information available on how strategy tools are used in practice
(beyond the Bain survey). RW notes how little we really know about SWOT and how it
is used in practice. Paula J is doing a survey – this should bring more light on tools – but
there is still a lot more we do not know.
B) What does it allow? Not allow?
While quantitative methods bring legitimacy and possibly increased validity, it comes at
the possible expense of richness. Given it is practice based, it’s important to make sure
that what is being studied reflects what is going on in the field.
Quantitative does have the potential to allow the use of technology: we can look at who
edits PowerPoint, who gets into the Facebook discussion, even use Twitter to possibly
track the activities of strategists. We could look at the supply chain for strategy tools and
possibly track their deployment. This has the potential to make a lot more data on
planning exercises available to the researcher.
C) What are the challenges of using this method?
There are many challenges in bringing quantitative methods to SAP research.
One big challenge is determining the dependent variable. Much strategy research is
focused on performance. So how do you measure this? And does this mean the
performance of the strategist (whose career may benefit from the work) or the company?
Survival is another possible measurement, but again it is hard to operationalize.
RW mentioned research where the dependent variable is “sustaining strategic issue”, an
example of a way to use a different methodological approach.
There is also a timing (latency) problem, where a cause may only cause and effect
months later hence it can’t be measured.
OTHER THOUGHTS ON THIS TOPIC
One participant asked about the theories used in SAP research. Here RW mentioned that
he has seen (1) structuration theory (2) activity theory and (3) communities of practice,
see Jane Dutton’s work. There was some discussion of this, the link between learning (an
enormous topic in itself) and SAP.