Evolutive Consequences of Managerial Practice; Internal Cessation as a Selective Outcome

By focusing on the actual use of practices in strategy work, we are increasingly better informed about the ongoing day-to-day work through which strategy is done. Using a 39-month ethnographic study, this paper analyzes the management practices used in virtual organizations. I make three contributions. Firstly, while research up-to-date has focused on conventional business and public organizations I identify three bundles of managerial practices through which a virtual organization is run. Secondly, arguing for a performative view of organizations, I show how these three bundles internally shape organizational evolution prioritizing day-to-day work. Finally, exploring the relationship between the bundles of practice and organizational failure this paper contributes to our understanding of the causes of organizational failure trajectories by attributing it to cessation; an inability to perform managerial practices that reproduce the organizational body. Hence, organizational failure can also be caused by an internally induced inability to re-emerge the organization under conditions of low competitive pressure.