The strategy cycle: Planning, paradox and poetry in the practice of strategists

Robert Chia (Chapter 1, this book) lays out a thought-provoking call to continue to develop management and organization research in the ‘European tradition’. We would suggest an urgency marked by the observation that technology and globalization mean that “organizations are morphing furiously into new forms” (Barley, 2016, p. 2), whilst our organizational research struggles to keep up. Chia contrasts the ideal of rigour with the idea of rigor mortis, urging fellow researchers to push for innovative thinking. In so doing, he alerts us to the potential dangers of a somewhat totalizing orthodoxy that only recognizes, funds and publishes work adhering to the protocols of what is generally considered to be methodologically sound scientific enquiry and which might deliver significant impact (MacIntosh et al., 2017).