Rethinking the boundaries of strategising-as-practice: phenomena, epiphany, epiphenomena

In this paper, we present an argument for rethinking the current conceptualisation of strategising-as-practice, choosing to view it instead through a phenomenological lens. Our intention in undertaking this particular juxtaposition between two previously under-associated bodies of work is to advance the current research agenda beyond the realm of social practice theories. When considering strategising, the phenomenological lens offers a researcher the possibility of insight into the pre-reflective self-consciousness − the experiences of practitioners are given as subjective lived-through experiences. Thus, by problematising the dominant assumptions in the existing strategising research agenda through the proposed theoretical position, we de-objectify strategising, and offer an alternative dimension to studying lived-experience. The central contribution offered in the paper is therefore the reconceptualisation of strategising-as-practice; as phenomena and emergent epiphenomena. As the reflective accounts of pre-reflective experience, we propose to access such phenomena and epiphenomena through the lived-through epiphanic moments of practitioners − those moments where a practitioner clearly remembers a before and after.