Institutional analysis of formal strategy practices

Abstract

This theoretical essay addresses the issue of business strategy formal practices institutionalization. It was adopted an institutional analysis perspective in order to observe how normative mechanisms are utilized by signifi cant social agents for the dissemination and institutionalizationof formal strategic practices in organizations. Formal business management practices were defi ned as all the managerial tools and concepts that are formally instituted in managerial practices as belonging to the process of elaborating and visualizing business strategy. In this sense, we highlight the strategic planning process disseminated from the nineteen seventies onwards, as the most representative model of the diffusion and institutionalization of this type of organizational practice. We conclude our essay by raising issues that are relevant for the study and practice in the field of strategy in organizations concerning the relationship between theory and practice, based on the institutional analysis perspective.