Abstract:

Strategic direction in universities is often shaped through committees; however, the mechanisms through which influence emerges and leads to decision-making remain underexplored. This paper examines the influence of role-based communication and initial interaction dynamics on strategic decision-making results in university committees. This paper uses qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with committee members across different organizational roles, deploying a procedural approach based on NVivo thematic coding to investigate how participation is transformed into recognized and significant influence for decision-making.

The results indicate that the influence exerted is not noticeable at the time of official vote, rather, it evolves incrementally through continuous interactional mechanisms. Role and identity positioning highlights whose voice is important; interactional relations activate expertise and informal influence; and recognizing them grants validity for selected inputs. Influence becomes significant only once it is expressed through formal governance processes, such as paperwork, regulatory fulfilling, and voting. The occurrence of similar outcomes over time converts judgments into established procedures.

The study contributes to Strategy-as-Practice by specifying how interactional influence is stabilized through governance procedures over time.

Please choose your submission type: Full Paper

Primary Track: Strategy-as-Practice

Keywords: Strategy-as-practice

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Dr. Xinrui Zhang