Strategic reframing as a multi-level process enabled with scenario research

Abstract

This paper examines how the scenarios approach enables reframing. Strategic reframing enables individuals to challenge current assumptions and to think afresh about future possibilities, which matters when the context in which strategy operates becomes turbulent. In trying to make sense of the mechanics of reframing created by scenarios intervention we identified specific attributes of a two-way displacement created by scenario research which enables managers to reframe. The first displacement re-centered attention on the macro level uncertainties and reframed both the future macro and meso-levels through iterative interactions without direct reference to the existing micro level. The second displacement involved iterations between the meso and micro-levels to explore future implications at the micro level without requiring immediate action. Drawing on the scenario workshop data and secondary data collected before and after the scenario workshop we propose a process map which highlights the step by step manner in which the scenarios research design enabled the displacement and resultant multi-level reframing. We find that the ‘time travel’ facilitated by scenarios research provides a future safe space within which the multi-level displacements and subsequent reframing occurs and thereby furthers our understanding of how strategic reframing can overcome micro level myopia when done with the scenarios research process.

Introduction

The management literature on framing (Cornelissen and Werner, 2014; Ramirez and Wilkinson, 2016; Schon and Rein, 1994) has invited researchers to offer more detailed examinations of how managerial cognitive reframing takes place. Reframing seeks to develop frames which deviate from existing institutionalized frames to extend, challenge, and create alternative frames -a process referred to in this paper as reframing (Cornelissen and Werner, 2014, p. 216). Reframing matters because such an ability to dissociate from existing cognitive frames enables senior executives in organizations to be better equipped to understand opportunities and challenges, prepare options, and thereby more effectively cope in an increasingly uncertain business environment characterized by novel and unprecedented changes (Benner and Tripsas, 2012; Cornelissen and Werner, 2014; Levinthal and Rerup, 2006; Tripsas and Gavetti, 2000). The framing literature has been noteworthy in building on earlier research to help assess how managers as creative agents can re-assemble words and thoughts to actively invoke a different type of frame and thus a different understanding (Diehl and McFarland, 2010; Goffman, 1974); on research of how counter-framing can challenge institutional frames (Lefsrud and Meyer, 2012); and on inquiry about how the relevance of socially constructed frames in frame extension contributes to make frames inter-subjectively meaningful and understandable (Goffman, 1974; Tannen, 1985). Still, Cornelissen and Werner (2014, p.216) found that there is insufficient insight in the existing studies to fully appreciate exactly how the newly created frames can be decoupled from prevailing institutional frames (Weber and Glynn, 2006) as well as freed from relying on the discursive skills or abilities of the actors taking part in the reframing process (Benford and Snow, 2000). Accordingly, Cornelissen and Werner (2014) called for more detailed analyses of ‘how’ and under ‘what’ conditions reframing overcomes micro-level managerial myopia and static interpretive schema to help managers to cope with unprecedented and novel changes in the business environment (Emery and Trist, 1965; Ramirez, Selsky and van der Heijden, 2008). Our paper seeks to further this line of inquiry by examining how scenarios research - a process which we describe in this paper - enables managers to re-perceive their cognitive frames; and which does so by connecting what scenario planner Wack (1985) famously called the 'microscope’ frame in the individual mind to their 'macroscope’ framing of the world.

To examine the connection between scenario research and reframing we asked the question -‘How does the scenarios approach enable strategic reframing?’ To address this question we produce and study two scenario research Case studies with retailing organizations seeking to sustain their relevance in environments where a proliferation of disruptive technologies threatened established ‘rules of the game’. The two case studies were a real estate firm operating in Asia and a European retail trade association and the projects were carried out by the authors over a three-year period.

We researched how the scenario research sessions helped the senior executives in both cases to reframe at the micro level without referring to pre-existing biases by consider new frames iteratively across multiple levels (macro, meso, and micro) to explore new futures. The paper's contribution is to relate framing scholarship to the step-by-step processes of scenario research and show how reframing operates in practice, providing a link that conforms to practical rationality (Sandberg and Tsoukas, 2011).

The structure of this paper is as follows. We begin by reviewing the framing and scenario research literature. We discuss the methodology and analytical approach to data analysis. The next section details our findings followed by a discussion of our contributions leading to our conclusions. Finally, we consider the limitations of our research.

The concept of framing has been a feature of the management and organizational literatures at least since its use in the Carnegie research on decision-making in organizations (Cyert and March 1963; 1993; March and Simon, 1958). It has helped scholars assess a range of cognitive, linguistic and cultural processes within a variety of organizational as well as institutional contexts (Cornelissen and Werner, 2014) and to study ‘sense-giving’ (Fiss and Zajac, 2006).

Framing is understood as the ‘schemata’ used in interpretation (Snow et al., 1986) which simplify and condense the ‘world out there’ by selectively punctuating and encoding events to render them meaningful (Hunt, Benford and Snow, 1994). With a frame one keeps some elements in view while hiding others (Ramirez and Wilkinson, 2016; Williams and Benford, 2000). Day and Schoemaker (2005) point out that organization's also need to develop a peripheral vision capability to see issues beyond the familiar frame in order to cope with environmental uncertainties and anomalies.

Framing has been considered at various ‘levels’ of cognition – micro, meso, and macro. At the micro level, framing has been used to conceptualize and explain internal, self-conscious, cognitive processes of individual sense-making (e.g. Weick, 1979, 1995). Micro-level managerial cognition frames refer to an understanding of an individual's ‘frame of reference’ through which they screen and filter the environment (March and Simon, 1958). At the meso-level framing has been conceptualized as a socially constructed shared understanding of inter-organizational boundaries. These are socially constructed in interactions among managers of firms to jointly produce a common cognitive understanding (Benner and Tripsas, 2012). Nadkarni and Narayanan (2007), referred to such socially constructed frames as ‘strategic’ frames. These set a shared understanding not only about team, organization, or industry boundaries but also about competitive rules and strategy-environment relationships which define a group of firms in a shared domain. At the macro level, typically operating institutionally (Ansari, Fiss and Zajac, 2010), frames can play an important role in the creation and institutionalization of new markets (Lounsbury, Ventresca and Hirsch, 2003; Weber et al., 2008). Bateson (1955, 1972), Burke (1937), and Goffman (1974) researched how common cultural frames of reference are used by actors to define and label experiences in specific contexts that define the very content of institutions.

Frames within each micro-, meso- and macro-levels act as both knowledge structures (Cornelissen and Werner, 2014) and as resources for cognition. However, the literature highlights that over-reliance on pre-existing cognitive frames can support failure when novel, unprecedented, or changing contextual circumstances arise. Existing frames can prevent alternative conceptualizations from being fully considered or assessed – or indeed, acted upon (Benner and Tripsas, 2012; Levinthal and Rerup, 2006; Tripsas and Gavetti, 2000). Bowman (2016) examined how frames as stabilized interpretive schemas can prevent new information transforming into new perceptions at all three levels of analysis. At the micro-level, stable schemas may stem from overreliance on pre-existing cognitive frames, and they can impede the ability for inferential flexibility or alternative conceptualization in changing circumstances (Benner and Tripsas, 2012). Eggers and Kaplan (2013) found that capabilities often become a source of inertia and adaptation to the environment if they fail to take into account considerations of how the interpretation of the possibilities presented by the environment matter for outcomes. Lefsrud and Meyer (2012) highlighted that counter-framing can be coherently connected to and motivated by the personal biographical details of managers and their expertise and worldviews. Research has found that individuals can mobilize their creative ability to reassemble words and thoughts to actively invoke different types of reframing (Diehl and Mc Farland, 2010). Yet Cornelissen and Werner (2014 p. 204, 216) suggested that there is in framing analysis a static tendency which may stem from the existing cognitive frame of individuals (Benford and Snow, 2000) or from the collective action frames already established between a group of individuals (Goffman, 1974; Tannen, 1985). Static interpretive schema are not an asset in the context of turbulent environments (Emery and Trist, 1965; Ramirez et al., 2008), where the unpredictable uncertainties of social, technological, political, environmental, and economic transformations challenge established framing informing options for action; it is in such contexts that better re-framing becomes an important capability (Ramirez and Selsky, 2016).

Suggestions of how to overcome micro-level myopia have been given by Vaara and Whittington (2012), who proposed a macroscopic lens in strategizing to overcome micro level myopia. Jarzabowski and Spee (2009) and Normann and Ramirez (1993, 1994) proposed that inter and intra-organizational strategizing facilitates micro-, meso- and macro-level framing. Cornelissen and Werner (2014 p. 216) suggested it would be helpful to develop more processual research to better explore ‘how’ and ‘under what conditions’ social interactions leading to reframing can overcome micro-level myopia. According to them, in the absence of such a detailed examination of the processes of reframing, management research in this area will continue to suffer from the risk of tautology, continued use of abstract frames, or be limited to only assess the discursive skills of participants undertaking reframing.