Re-framing strategy: power, politics and accounting

Purpose - This paper aims to analyse the rise and institutionalization of the discourse of strategic management. It seeks to advance an agenda for studying strategy from a sociologically informed perspective. Moreover, it aims to make a case for a critically informed, interdisciplinary approach to studying strategy. Design/methodology/approach - The paper provides an overview to studying strategy critically. It is a theoretically informed paper. Findings - The findings can be summarised as: first, strategy emerged as a major discipline in the 1970s; second, as a body of knowledge strategy has remained close to its industrial economics origins; and third, an agenda for the sociological study of strategy revolving around concerns of performativity and power is outlined. Originality/value - The paper offers a sociologically informed account of strategy.