Strategy as Texts: How one Becomes Many

This article shows empirically how managers translate a strategy plan at an individual level. By analysing how managers in three organizations translate strategies, it identifies that the translation happens in two steps: First, the managers decipher the strategy by coding the different parts of the strategy into four categories. Second, the managers produce new texts based on the original strategy document by using four different ways of translation models. The study’s findings contribute to three areas. Firstly, it shows that translation is more than a sociological process. It is also a craftsmanship that requires knowledge and skills, which unfortunately seems to be overlooked in both the literature and in practice. Secondly, it shows that even though a strategy text is in singular, the translation makes strategy plural. Thirdly, the article proposes a way to open up the black box of what happens after the strategy document has been produced, by concluding that no one implements strategy – they implement their translation of the strategy, which can be very different from the original.