Organisational Self-understanding and the Strategy Process Strategy Dynamics in Scania and Handelsbanken

Sammanfattning: This thesis investigates the role of organisational self-understanding in strategyprocesses. The concept of organisational self-understanding denotes members’understanding of their organisation’s identity. The study illustrates that strategyprocesses in companies are processes of self-understanding. During strategy making,strategic actors engage in the interpretation of their organisation’s identity.This self-understanding provides guidance for strategic action while it at thesame time implies understanding strategic action from the past.Organisational self-understanding is concerned with the maintenance of institutionalintegrity. In order to achieve this, those aspects of self-understandingthat have become particularly institutionalised need to develop in a continuousmanner. Previous literature on strategy and organisational identity has put toomuch emphasis on the stability/change dichotomy. The present study shows thatit is possible to maintain continuity even in times of change. Such continuity canbe established by avoiding strategic action that is perceived as disruptive withregard to self-understanding and by providing interpretations of the past thatmake developments over time appear as free from ruptures. Self-undertsandingis hence an inherently historical phenomenon.Empirically, this study is based on in-depth case studies of strategy processesin two large Swedish companies, namely the truck manufacturer Scania and thebank Handelsbanken. In each of the companies, three strategic themes in whichorganisational self-understanding has become particularly salient are studied.