Strategy Tools as Symbolic Objects in Managerial Language Games

The summary of the key points of chapter 2 in section 2.5.1 was closed with a reference to Astley and Zammuto (1992) who were among the first authors to relate Wittgenstein’s idea of language games to OMT and who made the case for science and management as interrelated, yet semiautonomous language games. The following subchapter, i.e., subchapter 3.1, shall – after some introductory comments – review their main conceptual arguments. This discussion will then serve as a point of reference for the processual elaboration on the development and use of strategy tools in subchapter 3.2, which shall transliterate the phenomenon of interest into radical constructivist process language in accordance with goal #1 of this dissertation. Subchapter 3.3 will subsequently elaborate on the decision-making context of strategy tool use from the traditional, the practice-based, and the process point of view. Subchapter 3.4 eventually summarizes this chapter’s arguments.