Putting Strategy into Action – The Role of Artefacts for Business Format Replication

• Date: 01 June 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12119
• Published date: 01 June 2018

PuttingStrategyintoAction–The Role of

Artefacts for Business Format Replication

MARTIN FRIESL,

1

JOANNE LARTY

1

and CLAUS JACOBS

2

1

Lancaster Univers ity Management School, UK

2

University of Bern, Switzerland

In order to facilitatethe implementation of replication strategies,organizations often use a varietyof artefacts such

as manuals and handbooks. Existing research has largely focused on the extent to which artefacts can act as

knowledge repositories that help to facilitate replication. This body of literature has made significant contributions

to our understanding of the role of replication, but has focused more on highlighting key challenges involved in the

codification of knowledge. This paper demonstrates that artefact based replication is a double edged sword. While

replication is enabled by ‘configuring’artefact-action relationships (focusing, situating, coordinating) our analysis

also reveals that replication is constrained by ‘decoupling’artefact-action relationships (accounting, differentiating,

disengaging). Our findings contribute to research on replication and provide a more nuanced understanding of why

the implementation of replication strategies might fail. We also add to the recent debate on socio-materiality in

strategy research more generally.

Keywords: replication; artefacts; practice; strategy implementation

Introduction

Strategiesof multi-unit firms are oftenbuilt around a set of

valuable routines that underpin the business format of the

organization (Amit and Schoemaker, 1993; Eisenhardt

and Santos, 2002).In such cases, strategy implementation

includes replicating those routines across dispersed units

(Nelson and Winter, 1982; Argote and Ingram, 2000;

Helfat and Peteraf,2003). This is often called a replication

strategy (Winter and Szulanski, 2001). Examples include

IKEAs approachto internationalization(Jonsson andFoss,

2011), Intel’s production of computer chips (McDonald,

1998) or the growth strategies of large franchise

organizations (Winter and Szulanski, 2001; Winter et al.,

2012). In order to facilitate the implementation of repli-

cation strategies, organizations often codify information

about routines in a range of artefacts such as manuals,

handbooks or standard operating procedures. These

artefacts are intended to guide, facilitate and coordinate

the replication of routines across organizational units

(Zander and Kogut, 1995; D’Adderio, 2001, 2003; Zollo

and Winter, 2002; Baden-Fuller and Winter,2005).

Existing research has questionedthe efficacy of artefact

based replication. This is due to the difficulties of

codifying contextually embedded, causally ambiguous

and partly tac it knowledge (No naka and Takeuch i, 1995;

Szulanski, 1996; King and Zeithaml, 2001; Winter and

Szulanski, 2001; Baden-Fuller and Winter, 2005). Yet,

the focus of many studies has remained on the

characteristics of artefacts as ‘knowledge repositories’,

rather than the actual use of those artefacts in practice.

This is an important difference. While prior research

emphasises the important role of observable working

examples of organizational units, which serve to

demonstrate everyday practices including the use of

artefacts(Nelson and Winter, 1982; Winter and Szulanski,

2001; Szulanski and Jensen, 2004; Zenger and Lazzarini,

2004; Jensen and Szulanski, 2007), an explicit focus on

how actors use artefacts in practice has largely remained

a‘black box’(D’Adderio, 2008; Güttel et al., 2012).

The purpose of this paper is to unpack this ‘black box’

by using a practice perspective to explore how the use of

artefacts impacts on the implementation of a replication

strategy.

For practice theorists, artefacts are central to everyday

activities, practices and routines (Giddens, 1984; Knorr-

Cetina, 2001; Reckwitz, 2002; Pentland and Feldman,

2005; Orlikowski, 2007). This implies that the

implementation o f replication s trategies is inh erently

material, shaped by the artefacts actors use. By drawing

on practice theory, this paper argues that research on

Correspondence: MartinFriesl, Lancaster UniversityManagement School,

UK. E-mail: m.friesl@lancaster.ac.uk

European Management Review, Vol. 15, 221–235, (2018)

DOI: 10.1111/emre.12119

©2017 European Academy of Management