Résumé en anglais

Research on strategy has raised many distinctions, oppositions and disjunctions. In this article, we propose a dialogical representation of strategizing as the art of balancing tensions. Based on the content analysis of 68 interviews with strategists who hold different positions in or outside organizations, our results highlight four main tensions that surround strategists’ discourse : social, cognitive, focus and time tension. These tensions compose a dialogical representation of strategy that combines a “strategy” perspective with an “antestrategy” conception of strategy work. Strategists share this tension-based representation of strategy, but they use it differently in their discourse, constructing a subjectivity that maximises their control and power on strategy work.