Strategy-Making as a Social Learning Process: The Case of Internal Corporate Venturing

Based on grounded theorizing efforts, this paper presents a preliminary conceptual framework of strategy-making as a social learning process. The juxtaposition of archival and interview data concerning three internal corporate venturing projects in a major corporation suggests that action and cognition are intrinsically intertwined in the emergent state of strategy-making. Strategic action at higher levels in the managerial hierarchy benefits from the possibility to evaluate interpretative efforts of strategic action at lower levels. A social learning model of strategy-making is useful to elucidate the uses of strategic planning in organizations, and provides further theoretical context for several major findings in organizational decision-making and strategic management theory.