Recovering the Divide: A Review of Strategy and Tactics in Business and Management

• Date: 01 April 2017
• Author: Mike Zundel,David Mackay
• Published date: 01 April 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12091

International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 19, 175–194 (2017)

DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12091

Recovering the Divide: A Review

of Strategy and Tactics in Business

and Management

David Mackay and Mike Zundel

Department of Organization and Management, University of Liverpool Management School, Chatham Street,

Liverpool L69 7ZH, UK

Corresponding author email: dave@alterity-ltd.com

With origins in military history, strategy and tactics is a frequently used conceptual

couplet in the business and management literature. This paper reviews how strategy

and tactics are portrayed, identifying a dominant ‘pragmatic’ account of strategy as

an expression of formal, planned ends achieved through the subordinate means of

tactics. Pragmatic distinctions give rise to a rangeof well-known problems, in particular

in strategy implementation stages. We suggest that some of these problems may be

avoidedwhen the strategy–tactics relationship is conceived differently.We elaboratetwo

alternative distinctions: a sociological framing of tactics as mechanisms of resistance

to formal, controlling strategies; and a processual perspective, which sidesteps fixed

distinctions between tactics and strategy,giving rise to more fluid interrelations between

both modes. Based on a review of the business and management literature, we identify

key examples of each trope and conclude by drawing insights for each account on the

basis of these wider discussions.

Introduction

Strategy and tactics is a recurring conceptual couplet

for both business practitioners and management aca-

demics. In this paper, wereview a broad cross-section

of the business and management literature in order to

shed new light on this age-old pairing and suggest

ways of theorizing and alleviating some of the well-

documented problems of the strategy–tactics distinc-

tion (Sull et al. 2015). We look beyond the widely

adopted view of tactics as a subordinate set of means

by which to achieve vital strategic ends and propose

that alternative sociological and processual framings

of strategy and tactics can deepen our understanding

and use of these concepts in organizational life.

In the business and management literature, tac-

tics tend to be associated with lower military or or-

ganizational hierarchies, portrayed as opaque, both-

ersome minutiae that lack the clarity, rigour and

significance of strategy formulations (Kay et al.

2006). Where tactics are mentioned, their utility is of-

ten seen in providingmechanisms for strategic change

(Nutt 1986, 1987, 1989). For example, ‘assertive tac-

tics’ employed by CEOs may raise commitment and

motivation for strategic redirection (e.g. Herman and

Nadkarni 2014); tactics can also provide politically

feasible approaches to delivering strategic aims in the

context of strict regulatory frameworks (e.g. Smith

et al. 2013; Watkins et al. 2013); utility providers

may employlobbying tactics, including financial con-

tributions, to exert indirect influence on regulatory

agencies (Holburn et al. 2014); tactics may be used

to sway decisions of antitrust agencies in situations

of mergers and acquisitions (Clougherty 2005); or

multinational companies may seek to gain legitimacy

in host countries through tactical lobbying (Stevens

et al. 2015).

As political instruments, tactics are not just avail-

able to already powerful multinationals or corpora-

tions, they may also represent efficacious means for

those without proper strategic power positions to sur-

vive or even prosper. For instance, Chang and Park

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176 D. Mackay and M. Zundel

(2012, p. 10) cite a senior manager suggesting that

the ‘strange tactics’ of indigenous competitors pose

greater problems than those of other rivalling multi-

national entrants, as they remain ‘very difficult . . .

to predict’. A political role for tactics is further sug-

gested in studies investigating patterns of influence

inside organizations: for example, where groups with

less formal power but superior information may em-

ploy tactics to influence strategic decisions and thus

‘correct’ deficiencies in legitimate and formal sys-

tems of control (Kreutzer et al. 2015).

Others go even further in suggesting that tactical

activity may be grounded in overtly political intent

to the point of being purposefully deceitful. For in-

stance, Graffin et al.’s (2011) identification of tacti-

cal efforts aimed at introducing ‘strategic noise’ in

crucial periods such as CEO appointments indicates

that some company boards may tactically communi-

cate multiple corporate messages to the press simul-

taneously to deliberately distract and blur shareholder

analysis. Similar ‘stealthy or low-profile competitive

tactics’ have been observed in concealed attacks on

rivals aimed at avoiding overt confrontation to lessen

the likelihood of acts of retaliation (Chen and Ham-

brick 1995); or similarly dissimulating tactics such as

restricting access to corporate technology and knowl-

edge to discourage the ‘predatory hiring’ by competi-

tors of key staff with valuable knowledge (Sherwood

1990). These examples suggest that, far from being a

mundane set of activities, ‘tactics’ are used and dis-

cussed in a variety of intricate forms. However, in

stark contrast to the manifold definitions and charac-

terizations of strategy in the literature, the structure of

tactical forms of operation and the sources for tactical

ideas remain conspicuously underexplored.

We tend to understand strategic intelligence in

terms of affording better chances of success or sur-

vival in contexts that are prone to produce conflicts

(Gray 2006, p. 2). Strategy signifies a form of higher-

order response in which environmental prompts are

addressed with foresight, rather than with immedi-

ate instinct, and where the capacity for politicking

signals the triumph of reason over impulse (Freed-

man 2013). Arguably first introduced into the busi-

ness context in the wake of the game-theoretical work

of von Neumann and Morgenstern (1947), ‘strategy’

has become a pervasive discourse (Knights and Mor-

gan 1991) that has come to replace earlier manage-

rial activities such as ‘administration’ or ‘planning’

(Cumming and Daellenbach 2009). In becoming ‘the

master concept of contemporary times’ (Carter 2013,

p. 1047), strategy propagates an ideology of modern,

rational thought and calculation (Whittington 1996),

which has come to penetrate almost all aspects of or-

ganizational, public and private life (Bauman 2007).

Tactics, by contrast, lack the formal and rational

calculus that underpins and justifies a shared sense of

how, strategically, reality can be organized and how

future steps may be arranged (Cornut et al. 2012,

p. 24). It is therefore no surprise to find scholars sug-

gesting that most tactical decisions are merely based

on executives’ ‘beliefs’, rather than functional rela-

tions, and that these beliefs are not the outcome of

rational calculation, but primarily influenced by what

others in the same social milieu say and do (Chat-

topadhyay et al. 1999). Even on a practical level,dis-

entangling strategy and tactics is a challenging task

(Chaffee 1985; Cumming and Daellenbach 2009).

Carl von Clausewitz (2007, p. 80) suggests that: ‘Tac-

tics and strategy are two activities that permeate one

another in time and space but are nevertheless es-

sentially different’: tactics ‘teaches the use of armed

forces in the engagement; strategy, the use of en-

gagements for the object of the war . . . ’ (Carl von

Clausewitz 2007, p.74). Yet, such distinctions are

easily blurred in the context of modern business en-

gagement, for example when McNamara et al. (2008,

p. 116) show that even far-reaching decisions such

as firm acquisitions can be considered to be either

strategic or tactical affairs.

The strategy–tactics relationship has long given

rise to a number of reported practical problems for

managers faced with the task of devising tactics

that are in alignment with strategic ideals. This so-

called ‘problem of implementation’ (Churchman and

Schainblatt 1965) indicates a schism between strate-

gic expectations and concrete realities. This divide is

frequently observed to foster social difficulties and

manifest resistance between those setting and those

impacted by strategy (de Certeau 1988), and a per-

petual sense of stress and disappointment as the prac-

tical experience of life fails to match up to idealistic,

strategic expectations (Jullien 2004a, 2007; March

2006).

Yet, despite the vagueness about the definition of

tactics and their relationship with strategy,we find not

only that the strategy–tactics couplet features promi-

nently in many practitioner and academic oriented

management texts (Clegg et al. 2011; Vaara 2010),

but also that there prevails an inherent preference

for all things ‘strategic’. With this comes an ideol-

ogy that privileges ‘strategic’ thinking – the abstract,

long-term and explicit – when deciding which means

and ends to pursue (Kay et al. 2006). This ideological

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