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Reframing Strategic Inertia: The Politics of Innovation and the Case of GM Biotechnology A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Management William Lewis Essex Business School University of Essex January 2017 For my Parents Acknowledgements On the third rock from the Sun, careening through the cosmos, I have spent these last four years working on the following thesis. I have at times gone forwards, other times retraced my steps; I have gone down tangents and cul de sacs, and sometimes what felt like in circles, spirals both up and down. My supervisors, family and fellow researchers have most likely watched askance at my research rodeo – yet, we got here in the end, an end that will hopefully also be a beginning. Thank you all for your ineffable help, for taking time out of your own trajectories to motivate my own; it could not be more appreciated. Abstract Which innovations are accepted and which are rejected, and why, are at the heart of this thesis. The thesis focuses on the core concepts of the strategy discourse, and, with an approach drawing on Political Discourse Theory, frames orthodox approaches to organisational strategy as variations of a system that leads, ultimately, to stagnation. The contribution of this thesis is to identify the core concepts of strategy discourse, and a web of connections that govern them. The thesis makes a further contribution by critiquing the legitimacy of the current meaning of the core concepts, and the legitimacy of the web that dominates their combinatorial meanings. The thesis makes a final contribution by rearticulating the core concepts, imbuing them with new meaning, and in so doing proposing an alternative to orthodox organisational strategies, an alternative strategy that is less susceptible to stagnation, and more amenable to innovation. The intention is not to have the final say on strategy, but to restart the conversation. Chapter Overview 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………...….2 2. Literature Review………………………………………………………………………….41 A review of the strategic management literature, identifying the favoured approaches, and recurring concepts, along with gaps in research. 3. Strategic Management Genealogy …………………………………………………….….69 A tracing of the core concepts in the history of strategic management discourse, to the discourses from which they were appropriated and interpreted. 4. Political Discourse Theory: A Critique of SM ………………………………………..….98 An evaluation of the core concepts, and the implications they have for the concept of strategy in organisation and management discourse. 5. Method: Case Study of GM Biotechnology……………………………………………...150 An account of the methods used for the generation of data on the case organisation, placed in context of the political controversy regarding GM biotechnology, and an explanation of how the theoretical framework is applied to the data. 6. Data Analysis…………………………………………………………………………….179 The generated data is analysed as a vignette to accompany the threotical framework, illustrating how the core concepts of strategy are performed in the organisation, and the implications these performances have for the capacity for innovation, with regard to the construction of shared values. 7. Discussion and Conclusion………………………………………………………………232 An evaluation of the findings of the analysis, placed in context of the theoretical framework and the literature review, to demonstrate the contribution of this thesis to the field of strategic management research. Tables and Figures Table 1: Table of Equivalences…………………………………………………….……….149 Figure 1: Mural………………………………………………………………………....…..184 1 i. Innovation is not the product of logical thought, even though the final product is tied to a logical structure (Einstein, in Pais, 1982: 131) ii. The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men / Gang aft agley (Burns, Tae a Mouse: 1875) iii. The wisest follow their own direction (Euripides) 2 1 | Introduction The grey sky domed overhead as a cold breeze picked up, stuttering through the alley, scattering the late-Autumn leaves and leafing through the old, discarded newspapers strewn between the industrial bins and the part-clogged drains. I pulled the collar of my coat tighter around my neck, raised my pace, and turned left, right and right again, through the network of backstreets, before emerging about half a mile north of Holborn underground station. Like a river basin, with a plethora of tributaries, a central stream of trudging feet increased in volume along Southampton Row as I – one of many – joined a steady flow of people making their way through the drizzle to their various destinations, keeping the Sisyphean wheel of the London mill turning. Narrowly dodging the loss of an eye to the hands of numerous commuters clasping umbrellas, wielded with the sensitivity and consideration traditionally reserved for a mace, I took the next available alley that was not an excessive detour and, along with others with the same idea, passed by billboards for the latest Hollywood reboots and groups huddling together like penguins outside office entrances, smoking shoulder to shoulder. Before too long I reached the building at which I was currently employed. I presented my pass to security, passed through the electronic gate, headed upstairs to the third floor and towards my designated desk. On my arrival at about ten minutes past nine, there was a sharing of glances among the other employees. I logged into the computer in front of me and checked my emails – I was in an ongoing debate with a client regarding the validity of the information they had provided me, which showed little sign of abating. Another chain of emails – from my ‘middle manager’ – informed me that the approach I recently innovated to doing my work was not protocol, and encouraged me to do things as I had been trained and instructed 3 to do, as everyone else did. I sat back and stared out of the window as the rain began to subside, replaced by a welcome sliver of silver sunshine, and longed to be free. The world had not always been this way, surely? Of course, historically, there are a myriad of examples of zealous control as a form of social organisation. Yet, day to day routine this pervasive, as structured as it is in modern corporate offices, reminded me of ‘soft’ slavery. There might be an option to ‘climb the ladder’, but arguably this just means changing one set of routinised practices for another set of routinised practices. I do not feel free to choose, to determine my own actions, apart from within a predetermined set of routinised practices set by other people, most of whom I have never met. I feel chained by routine to the post of protocol, the further I move from the post, the more tension builds in the chain, until I am prohibited from moving any further away. The alternative is to be cut loose, and to be left to fend for oneself, outcast from society. Not much of a choice. As self-indulgent as it may sound, the world around me had begun to feel like Endgame by Samuel Beckett – a play that ponders whether routine is a genuine means of providing meaning to one’s life, and concludes that no, it isn’t, yet we nonetheless become melded to our routines, drawing certainty and comfort from them, a form of shelter against the uncertainty of the universe – a crampon to ward against the shifting powder, the Brownian motion, of real life. Something in my chest refused to quell, I had not been able to shake this feeling for months, that society has become ever more afraid of spontaneity, that office life, the dominant form of work in neoliberal societies, is endemic of this trepidation of the novel, of the unseen, the unpredicted – we fear change and seek to control it, by creating an illusion (or delusion) of control. This is a game that only works if everyone is subject to it, and buys into the pretence. The game might ‘work’, but only in the sense that the pretence takes hold and maintains itself – uncertainty is not actually replaced by control just because we tell 4 ourselves it can be and has been. The response to an unpredicted financial crash? Tighter control. The response to terrorist threats? Tighter control. The response to the forecasted population crisis…? In what I can only describe as a moment of clarity (or despair) my resolve became fast, I could no longer play the game – this was no way to live – I could find no meaning to life in these arbitrary routines. I wondered whether other people feel the same way, or not, maybe some do and some don’t – how many? I left the job and took a different direction, perhaps I could find satisfaction in another form of work. A few years later it came to my attention that the change I had had rejected that day had since become part of standardised practice at the company. I’m not sure how I feel about this. The approach I was instructed not to use was how I wanted to complete my set task at that time, but who is to say that there is not someone sat in that office today, tasked to follow the procedure I proposed, who feels they have an innovative way to complete the task that is perhaps more suited to their way of working, but are told by their middle manager to do as they’re directed – that their innovation is not protocol. These events got me thinking – when and how does innovation cease to be innovative; moreover, what defines innovation, who defines innovation? My previously rejected innovation had become incorporated. Why, what changed? Furthermore, in being incorporated it had been standardised, had become routine. Innovation and standardisation are mutually exclusive concepts – the routine cannot be innovative; and the innovative is never routine. Has my innovation, as routinised practice, contributed to a sense in others of alienation from their right to self-determination? 5 When/if the now standardised practice denies opportunities for change, it no longer represents innovation, it even begins to have shades of repression.

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