1 Chapter 35 PARTICIPATION IN STRATEGY WORK Pikka-Maaria Laine, Eero Vaara Introduction This article examines participation in strategy research in general and in strategy-as-practice research in particular. Participation is arguably a key issue in strategy process research because it helps to create commitment to strategies and its absence may have a negative impact on the quality of decision-making (Floyd & Wooldridge, 2000). It may also take other forms as in emergent strategies (Burgelman, 1983; Minztberg & Waters, 1985) or in autonomous strategy work (Mirabeau & Maguire, forthcoming) that are important in process studies. Participation is also a central issue in SAP research that examines the activities of multiple actors and the practices they draw upon in strategy work (Mantere, 2008). From a more critical perspective, it can be seen as closely connected to subjectivity (Ezzamel & Willmott, 2010; Knights & Morgan, 1991) and resistance (McCabe, 2010; Ezzamel & Willmott, 2008). It may also be regarded as a deeper-level ethical issue in terms of (in)equality linked with organizational decision-making and managerial dominance. Nevertheless, participation has received relatively little explicit attention in strategy research. This is especially the case with analysis of whether or not strategic decision-making or strategy work involves others in addition to top managers. Hence, it is the purpose of this chapter to provide an overview of research on participation. As relatively few studies have explicitly focused on this issue (Mantere & Vaara, 2008), in this overview we will include a number of studies that have only touched upon participation. Our point of departure is to argue that different streams of research offer fundamentally different conceptions of strategic decision-making, strategy processes and strategic practices and thus of participation as a social and organizational phenomenon. Accordingly, we spell out four perspectives on participation: participation as a non-issue, participation as a part of strategy process dynamics, participation as produced in and through