A framework to study strategizing activities at the field level: The example of CSR rating agencies

This paper responds to recent calls to bridge strategy and organization research by combining Strategy-as-Practice and Neo-Institutional Theory through re-theorizing the notion of strategic actor. We problematize the notion of strategic actor at the field level, and rely on insights from management and organization studies and sociology to advance a theoretical framework that conceptualizes organizations as social actors at the field level. We demonstrate our theoretical framework by drawing on corporate social responsibility rating agencies. We see corporate social responsibility rating agencies as supra-individual, social actors that are predisposed to assume an active role in defining and revisiting structural parameters within the society through their purposeful, meaningful actions and interactions. Our main contribution is to the development of the Strategy-as-Practice literature, achieved by re-theorizing the notion of strategic actor at the field level. This contribution responds to the micro-isolationism critique, and proposes a new focus for Strategy-as Practice research.