Title: Organisational strategy making and first-line manager challenges: a building and dwelling perspective

Authors: Åge Svein Gjøsæter; Øyvin Kyvik

Addresses: Faculty of Business Administration and Social Sciences, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Postbox 7030, 5020, Bergen, Norway ' Faculty of Business Administration and Social Sciences, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Postbox 7030, 5020, Bergen, Norway

Abstract: This study explores challenges confronted by first-line managers as strategy-makers within organisational frontline contexts, referred to as sites where customers and clients as end-users are served on a day-to-day basis. In the study, Heideggerian building and dwelling perspectives are used as conceptual foundations. A building perspective implies deliberate strategy making based on goals usually determined by upper-level management. From a dwelling perspective on the other hand, strategy making is conducted non-deliberately by actors immersed in a relationally constituted nexus of social activity, as practical coping. Challenges confronted by first-line managers as strategy-makers within organisational frontline contexts as dwelling contexts are discussed, and implications for organisational strategy making as well as for the education of strategy-makers are elaborated.

Keywords: strategy making; first-line managers; organisational frontlines; Heideggerian building and dwelling perspectives; practical coping; management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSCM.2021.117834

International Journal of Strategic Change Management, 2021 Vol.7 No.3, pp.179 - 192

Accepted: 01 Apr 2019
Published online: 04 Oct 2021 *