Chapter 2: Why a Socio-Ecological Approach to Strategy

Box 2.1: Chapter 2 at a Glance

Business environments and opportunity spaces are becoming more interrelated, and the relations occur in ever shorter time frames. The construct of “industry” as a focal area for strategy is giving way to inter-industrial blurring, where systems thinking becomes a more helpful framing to understand what is going on. In such situations, many strategists feel that their business environments are becoming increasingly complex. To more productively engage complexity and to better access resources, collaborative business models are becoming more important for success.

This chapter assesses not only why but also how a more systems-based view and framing for strategy today is becoming more effective for strategists’ work. The transition from chains to systems, in turn, calls for a shift from a strategic frame centred upon conventional “neoclassical” economics, focusing on predictable uncertainties and “neat” solutions. Strategists realise that these do not work when the very definition of a “problem” is elusive and the situations are “wicked” in the sense that the oversimplified so-called “solutions” may worsen the situation.

In such circumstances, strategists would be well advised to let go of dangerously limiting models of stable sectors or industries, shifting their stance to a “socio-ecological” view of strategic planning. The focus with such a strategy frame is on engaging complex systems and unpredictable uncertainties, by reframing and redesigning value and value creation.

The socio-ecological stance for strategists also allows them to work with a frame that seeks to reconcile multiple values that cannot be given a single metric, so strategy moves well beyond securing just financially calculable value. The socio-ecological systems frame also invites dropping increasingly outdated, increasingly inapplicable, and increasingly irrelevant conceptual constructs such as the “value chain”, the “industrial sector” or “industry”, or the “end” or “final” customer — all derived from neoclassical economics.