In the daily activities of organisations, numerous practices can have significant strategic implications. This research focuses on one specific type of practice prevalent in strategy making: practices of strategy articulation. These are described as habitual practices used to create, disseminate or interpret information from messages pertaining to the company's past, present, and future endeavours, serving to legitimate projects by supporting strategic actions. For ideas to result in organisational strategy it is crucial that they are effectively communicated to managers or those empowered to legitimise them, and that corresponding actions are taken. To deepen the understanding of how PSAs contribute to strategy formation, an empirical study was conducted across six SMEs, exploring 18 strategic actions. This study thus asks the question: How do practices of strategy articulation lead to strategic action in organisations? and proposes an empirically grounded process model explaining the role of practices of strategy articulation in the emergence of organisational strategies. This research extends and enriches earlier accounts of practices of strategy articulation, which acknowledged their importance but stopped short of theorizing their place in the strategy formation process. By clarifying the mechanisms through which PSAs influence strategic outcomes, this study contributes to understanding the micro-level practices that shape organisational strategy.
