Enacting Power through Discursive Practices and Sensemaking in Organisational Strategy Work

Abstract

This thesis investigates the enactment of power through discursive practices in language and sensemaking in the strategy work of directors and senior managers. Using a single case research and an interpretative perspective, the research examines how organisational practitioners deploy language and discourse as a means of enacting strategy influence. It explores how these discursive practices, embedded within socio-cultural norms and organisational hierarchies, shape how strategy issues are framed, negotiated, and executed.

Drawing on the Strategy-as-practice perspective, this research conceptualises strategy as an ongoing, socially situated event, or ‘strategizing’. In line with this approach, the analysis focuses on how discourse practices, sensemaking processes, and power asymmetries unfold during formal strategy interactions. Empirical material was gathered through observational texts from meetings and semi-structured interviews, concentrating on formal events while recognising the residual influence of informal discourse.

The findings demonstrate that directors and senior managers enact power through discursive strategies framing, interruption, and rhetorical positioning. These practices legitimise particular interpretations while silencing alternative perspectives. The thesis further reveals how discourse, sensemaking, and sociomateriality intersect in these processes, showing how practitioners draw on tools, organisational structures, and social positioning to reinforce authority and guide strategy outcomes.

By integrating discourse analysis, sensemaking theory, and Bourdieu’s theory of social space, this research contributes to the Strategy-as-practice literature by providing a more nuanced understanding of how power is enacted, contested, and reproduced in strategizing. It opens up ‘black box’ and provides new insight into the interplay between language, materiality, and strategy agency, and sheds light on the often-opaque mechanisms that shape strategy direction within complex organisational settings

Date of Award	25 Jun 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bath
Supervisor	Michael Mayer (Supervisor) & Zeynep Yalabik (Supervisor)