Emergent Strategy MELANIE JAMES University of Newcastle, Australia Te broader feld of strategic management plays out in a dichotomy of emergent and deliberate strategies. Emergent strategy difers from deliberate strategy in that it focuses on strategic learning and moves away from notions of direction and control, the lat- ter being the focus of deliberate strategy (Mintzberg & Waters, 1985). Strategic learn- ing is centered on the organization’s ability to receive and interpret messages from its operational environment in a dynamic way, which enables the organization to adapt its actions and direction, if deemed appropriate. Developing and applying emergent strategy means that once the intent is known, the organization determines where and how to adapt to evolving real-time situations. (It does not preclude having a specifc goal but it does provide for the organization to take advantage of new opportunities by increasing its agility to adapt to changing circumstances.) Tis difers from deliberate strategy that focuses on how to realize a static strategic plan, which is the prescriptive approach to strategy making (strategizing). Te concept of “emergence” comes from complexity theory which suggests that all organizations are complex adaptive systems that continuously self-organize and coevolve (albeit at diferent rates), and that this is the inherent nature of complex systems. Organizational strategy making is being under- taken in increasingly complex and turbulent environments. Research indicates that strategy is most ofen regarded as a plan, that is, some kind of intended course of action or guideline to deal with a situation. However, this is a dated and narrow defnition of strategy, which can be conceived as much more than a plan. In 1987, Mintzberg suggested that the view of strategy as a plan was just one of the “5 p’s” that could be defned as strategy—the others being a ploy, a pattern, a position, and a perspective. A ploy is a maneuver that can be executed to gain advantage over a competitor; strategy as a pattern refers to a pattern emerging from a stream of actions; position as strategy is a means of locating an organization in external environments; and, strategy as perspective is inwardly focused on the organization and the way in which it perceives the world. When organizations perceive their environments as complex, that is, as concerning nonlinear relationships between constantly changing entities, they ideally acknowledge that a plan developed to guide their actions over a 3-month, 12-month, or 5-year period is not optimal. Plans that detail a deliberate strategy to be followed ofen become out of date before they can be implemented (Mintzberg & Waters, 1985). Te alternative approach is for the organization to embrace the idea of “emergence,” a construct originating from the dynamics of change emphasized by complexity theory. Goldstein (1999) defned emergence as a dynamical construct, arising over time, that Te International Encyclopedia of Strategic Communication. Robert L. Heath and Winni Johansen (Editors-in-Chief), Jesper Falkheimer, Kirk Hallahan, Juliana J. C. Raupp, and Benita Steyn (Associate Editors). © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/9781119010722.iesc0067