EXPRESS: Tools-in-Process: How Material Transitions Reconstitute Knowledge in Strategy Work

Abstract

Strategy-making increasingly depends on integrating knowledge across functional and hierarchical boundaries, often through processes mediated by material artifacts. While research shows that the material properties of individual artifacts partly shape what can be known, discussed, and decided, less is known about knowledge integration during moments when a structured strategy tool moves it through materially distinct artifacts. Drawing on an ethnographic study of two strategic roadmapping projects in a large organization, we examine how transitions between artifact forms shape knowledge integration. We identify four artifact types, ephemeral, interim, stabilized, and analytical, and the transitions between materially distinct forms during which knowledge is reconstituted rather than simply carried forward. Across both projects, we identify three dynamics during these transitions: selection, surfacing, and reconfiguration. We contribute by identifying reconstitution as a knowledge-integration mechanism and by offering a tools-in-process account of how structured strategy tools work through transitions between artifact forms over time.