From 'matters of concern' to 'matters of authority': Studying the performativity of strategy from a communicative constitution of organization (CCO) approach

Anchored in a 'communication as constitutive of organization' approach, this article aims to develop a framework for understanding the performativity of strategy through an organizational lens. We define the performativity of any form of knowledge as a communicational praxis, involving theories or ideas, actors and texts, through which matter of concerns become matters of authority. More specifically, our framework shows that for matters of concern to become matters of authority the three following communicational practices have to be articulated: (1) voicing and collectively negotiating matters of concern, (2) transporting and materializing matters of concern through texts, and (3) recognizing matters of concern as legitimate (i.e., authorized and authored). In order to illustrate these practices we draw on the empirical material taken from a strategic planning process in a community-based organization. Through these illustrations we show that strategy, as a particular and situated form of knowledge, can act as a matter of concern (it can be voiced, negotiated, transported and recognized as legitimate, or not) and as a matter of authority; thus authorizing and authoring actors, their tools and statements. It is also through these practices that strategy gains authority and is granted social reality.