Where is the ‘I’? One silence in strategy research

Abstract

I consider the significance of just one silence in strategy research – it revolves around the ‘I’ which brings in matters of biography, epistemology and reflexivity. While different epistemic communities have their investigative conventions or protocols and allied evaluative criteria which either silence or give voice to an ‘I’, developments in the philosophy of science and the sociology of knowledge suggest the need to account for two particular and intertwined aspects of reflexivity. The first rests on C. Wright Mills' assertion that ‘craftsmanship is the centre of yourself’, and in this paper I share four snippets of autobiographical reflection outlining the crystallization of my interests and the sociological ‘eye’ which I bring to the study of strategic management. Second, the ways the established or taken-for-granted socio-politico-ethical orders routinely reproduce as legitimate (or not) particular ways of seeing-researching and thus, particular I's, is also woven into this account. My own intellectual ‘home’ of ethnomethodology is one where constitutive reflexivity is central and shows that the field of research interest – strategy work/strategizing – and our own practice of trying to understand this field are both a reflexive accomplishment.

Citation

Samra-Fredericks, D. (2010), "Where is the ‘I’? One silence in strategy research", Joel A.C., B. and Lampel, J. (Ed.) The Globalization of Strategy Research (Advances in Strategic Management, Vol. 27), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 411-444. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0742-3322(2010)0000027017