The structure and significance of strategic episodes: social systems theory and the routine practices of strategic change

In this paper we draw on Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory, and in particular his concept of an ‘episode’, to guide research into strategic practice and its relationship to the operating routines of an organization. Episodes, in Luhmann’s theory, provide a mechanism by which a system can suspend its routine structures and so initiate a reflection on and change of these structures. Applying this theory to the organisational process of strategic change, we draw attention to the routine nature of strategic episodes and to their organisational role as the effective locus of strategic practice and the interaction between strategic and operating routines. We continue to develop a framework for the systematic analysis of different kinds of episode in terms of key aspects of their initiation, conduct and termination.