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This curated debate provides a discussion on impact and its relation to practice-based scholarship, i.e., scholarship grounded in the social theories of practice. Five experienced senior scholars reflect on conceptualizations of impact, how it can be created and disseminated, and on the role of practice-based scholarship in this process. The authors discuss the role of researchers as members of the academic system, their activities related to generating, developing, and challenging new theory, and their reflexive relation to the research context when explaining their research to stakeholders to create knowledge and thus, for impacting practice. To suggest ways of practicing impact, their contributions also conceptualize impactful theory and reflect on the relationship between the production and usage of knowledge. These insights are an important contribution to the debate on scholarly impact and provide critical guidance for impactful scholarly work beyond conventional concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, based on a Symposium held at the 2022 Academy of Management Meeting, we present a moderated discussion between established scholars in the field of grand challenges—Shahzad (Shaz) Ansari, Natalie Slawinski, and Eero Vaara—focusing on the role of institutional, paradox, and practice theories in research on grand challenges. Our goal for the symposium was to bring these theoretical perspectives into conversation, reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the lenses, and discuss potential intersections for future research on grand challenges. We present the panelists' prepared remarks as well as the interactive discussion covering four topics: the limitations of existing concepts and theories, materiality, impact, and relations between theory and practice. As part of these four discussion topics, we also present questions and reflections from the audience. We conclude by summarizing insights gleaned from the symposium about critical gaps and avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although we have seen a growing interest in participatory strategy-making, there is a paucity of knowledge about the role of polyphony and how it may be orchestrated. Our longitudinal analysis of a revealing case shows how narrative strategy-making unfolded in four temporally overlapping phases: First, a top-down effort to lead participatory strategy-making resulted in polyphony, which was nevertheless largely controlled from the top. Second, it was followed by autonomous narrative strategy-making in units, leading to polyphony that was less but still partly controlled from the top. Third, all this triggered an emergence of counternarratives offering alternatives to the overall narrative, thus generating 'genuine' polyphony not controlled from the top. Fourth, partly as a response, top decision-makers launched an update, again seizing more control in polyphony. Thus, our study advances prior research by elucidating how orchestration of participatory strategy-making both generates and reduces polyphony. By so doing, our analysis helps us to move from a dichotomous view of participation and openness towards a more nuanced appreciation of alternative voices and how they may or may not emerge or be controlled in strategy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By focusing on individual settlements rather than viewing them as part of a trajectory of change, prior research on institutional settlements has not fully captured the dynamics of longer-term institutional change; yet this would be important to better understand progressive legitimation dynamics—in other words, how successive settlements may increase legitimacy in a long-term trajectory of change. This is a crucial issue, especially for peripheral actors lacking the resources, status, or power of more central ones. Our historical analysis focuses on the long-term struggle of the Cree First Nation in Canada and explains how they succeeded in increasing their dispositional legitimacy in and through the settlements. This required work in three interrelated processes: expansive argumentation, including problematizing of the state of affairs and creating discursive resonance with the prevailing discourses and values; building momentum by generating attention and exerting pressure in networks of actors; and seizing opportunities to negotiate with the other side. Thus, we challenge previous research on settlements by showing how they should not merely be seen as endpoints but rather as stepping-stones in a trajectory of institutional change. More specifically, we develop a process model explaining how progressive legitimation unfolds in a series of settlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper elucidates the political dynamics of organizational identity breach and reconstruction. Drawing on the revealing case of UNICEF Germany, we develop a process model of four phases of identity breach and reconstruction: build-up of identity tensions, revelation of identity breach, identity reconstruction, and enactment of the reconstructed identity. Our analysis explains how each phase was characterized by specific political strategies employed by the managerialist and idealist organizational members, the effects of these strategies on the power balance and consensus or conflict over organizational identity, and how particular triggers explain shifts from one phase to another. By so doing, our analysis advances our understanding of organizational identity breach and reconstruction as political processes, and paves the way for new studies of political identity dynamics in other contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of an increasing interest in ambiguity, our knowledge of how organizations maintain strategic ambiguity to protect themselves from public scrutiny is still in its infancy. Through an in-depth historical study of the Sicilian Mafia between 1963 and 2018, we develop a model of strategic ambiguity maintenance. We focus on three struggles between the Mafia and state representatives, and show how these struggles centered on different types of ambiguity: ambiguity as opacity, equivocality, and absurdity. We elaborate on the strategies enacted by the Mafia and the responses by state representatives and their implications for ambiguity over time. The main contribution of our paper is that it advances understanding of the maintenance of strategic ambiguity by organizations that need to protect themselves from public scrutiny. More specifically, it enriches our knowledge of the key process dynamics, the types of struggles, and the discursive and nondiscursive strategies employed in the process. Our analysis also extends research on clandestine organizations and illuminates the relationship between (strategic) ambiguity and secrecy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]