Developing emotions and strategy making: Management-training workshops under the microscope

While strategy workshops have become an important practice for organizations,
empirical studies examining this phenomenon remain scarce. In particular, studies relating emotions and workshops are still wanting. To address this gap, we draw on an in-depth qualitative study of a consultancy that offers management-training workshops. Based on a grounded-theoretical approach, we show that the display of emotions such as joy, curiosity, sadness, fear or anger influence the strategic orientation of the group work through impacting the strategic practices of sharing, collaborating, and decision-making. The outcomes of the workshop strongly depend on how these practices are being performed. The findings inform a model which delineates how emotions play an integral part of strategizing in workshops. Our work extends previous research on strategy workshops and integrates the emerging literature on emotions and strategy making.