Strategy Making as a Social Learning Process: The Case of Internal Corporate Venturing

Abstract

Juxtaposing interview and observational data with written documents concerning three internal corporate ventures suggests that strategy making in the emergent stage can be viewed as a social learning process in which managerial action and cognition are intrinsically intertwined. Strategic action at higher levels in the managerial hierarchy benefits from interpretative efforts of strategic action at lower levels. A social learning model of strategy making helps to elucidate the uses of strategic planning in organizations and provides an extended theoretical context for several major findings in organizational decision making and strategic management theory.