Strategic Management and Michael Porter: a Postmodern Reading

Strategic Management and Michael Porter: a postmodern reading by: Toby Harfield
It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem.
Hitchhikers’s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams
Introduction
This article is located within a postmodern sensibility of exploration and play (Bauman 1992; Rorty
1989). I do not attempt to deconstruct (Linstead 1995; Cooper 1989; Derrida 1978), but merely to explore the possiblilty of a radical new reading of Michael E Porter.
Is Porter postmodern?
The project originated in my need to ‘make sense’ of the strategic management literature, and specifically the place of Michael E Porter within it. The question, what is strategic management?, often leads to the work of Porter. Strategic management texts inevitably contain his models, theories and frameworks which imply that they are ‘fundamental’ to the field. An historical journey through six prominent management\organization journals, Strategic Management Journal, Academy of
Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management Studies,
Organization Studies, Advances in Strategic Management, shows that Michael E Porter was not a constant contributor, in fact he is almost absent from the journals, but his work is often the study of empirical testing or theoretical debate (Foss 1996; Hill & Deeds 1996; Sharp & Dawson 1994; Miller
& Dess 1993; Bowman 1992). This article does not attempt to account for his popularity, as others have offered substantial and convincing accounts (Barry & Elmes 1997; Whipp 1996; Knights 1992).
Instead this paper is an example of interpretative research as I report on my search for a ‘strategic management’ narrative. I begin with an outline of some reviews of the ‘field’ and the place of Porter within them. I then attempt to account for the growth of the strategic management literature during the last 15 years by claiming that ‘strategic management’ is a myth. Porter’s place as a myth-maker is

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