Lilla Hortoványi

Strategy Without Templates

Adaptation in Digital Environments

11.4.4 Temporality and Strategic Becoming

This constructionist view fundamentally alters how we understand strategic time. Traditional strategy theory treats time primarily as a dimension along which planned actions unfold. Firms formulate strategies, implement them over time, and evaluate outcomes at discrete intervals. Time is the medium through which deliberate design is executed.

In template-free environments, time becomes constitutive rather than merely dimensional (Bansal et al., 2022). Strategy does not unfold in time; it is produced through temporal processes that operate at multiple scales simultaneously. Experimentation operates on short cycles – quick trials that generate feedback rapidly. Stabilization operates on medium cycles – recursive reinforcement that accumulates over repeated iterations. Partial integration operates on longer cycles – gradual sedimentation of heterogeneous elements into relatively durable configurations. Mediated feedback operates on variable cycles – sometimes providing immediate signals, sometimes revealing patterns only over extended periods.

These temporal rhythms do not synchronize into a unified timeline. They operate in parallel, creating temporal multiplicity (Jarzabkowski & Seidl, 2008). Fast experimental layers generate variation while slow structural layers provide continuity. Medium-term stabilization processes retain some variations while others fade. Long-term integration processes gradually assemble organizational form while short-term feedback processes guide immediate adjustments. Managing this temporal multiplicity becomes a core strategic capability, maintaining coordination across layers that move at different speeds without forcing them into artificial synchronization.

This temporal conception connects to recent work on organizational time (Reinecke & Ansari, 2015) and strategic becoming (Tsoukas & Chia, 2002). It suggests that strategy in template-free environments is less about achieving future states and more about sustaining processes of becoming – continuous movement through which organizations construct and reconstruct viable orders without ever reaching a final, stable configuration. Success is not arriving at an optimal endpoint but maintaining the capacity for ongoing adaptive construction under shifting constraints.

Tartalomjegyzék

Kiadó: Akadémiai Kiadó

Online megjelenés éve: 2026

ISBN: 978 963 664 204 4

Gazdaság

What happens when understanding comes only after action has already begun?

Traditional strategy rests on the assumption that organizations can understand their environment before deciding how to act. Yet the conditions that once allowed organizations to rely on benchmarking, best practices, and proven strategic templates can no longer be taken for granted. Today, organizations increasingly face situations for which no clear roadmap exists. Established assumptions become less reliable, familiar reference points lose their clarity, and strategic decisions must be made before their consequences can be fully understood.

Strategy Without Templates explores how organizations learn, adapt, and navigate environments in which uncertainty is pervasive and established templates are absent or no longer sufficient. Instead of treating strategy as a process of prediction and planning, the book explores how strategic paths take shape through action, experimentation, adjustment, and learning.

A central insight in the book is that temporary solutions are often necessary. What begins as a practical response to an immediate challenge may gradually shape future possibilities in unexpected ways. Some solutions create new opportunities and sources of advantage. Others become constraints that are difficult to overcome.

Hivatkozás: https://mersz.hu/hortovanyi-strategy-without-templates//

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