STRATEGY FORMATION AS A COLLECTIVE PROCESS AND MULTIPLE CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES: A QUALITATIVE STUDY IN AN EXCLUSIVE FURNITURE STORE

Abstract

Understanding an organization and its strategy formation processes implies to go beyond its tangible elements, eg, physical structure and product offerings. The organizational complexity demands a deeper understanding to explain some intangibles such as organizational culture. Organizational culture as a system of symbols and meanings (ALVESSONl, 2003), defines how strongly a company conducts its business. Moreover, according to Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel (2000), the formation of strategy can be seen as a process of social interaction based on common understandings to members of an organization, presenting cultural characteristics. Moreover, considering the studies of Martin and Frost (2001), organizational culture has three different perspectives: the perspectives of integration, differentiation and fragmentation. Through a qualitative research in an exclusive planned furniture store, this study identifies and evaluates the cultural perspectives offered by Martin and Frost, considering the formation of strategy as a collective (cultural) process. The results demonstrate, although the predominance of differentiation perspective (subcultures), its relation to different situations of integration (consensus), and fragmentation (a mixture of consensus and conflict) produces complementary outputs, interfering in various ways to realize the strategies: plan, pattern, position, perspective and trick. From this analysis, this paper provides a better understanding of some cultural elements that underlie the formation of an organization's strategies, especially when cultural perspectives are considered.