Visual Representations of Knowledge for Strategy Communication

To convince employees to implement the organizational strategy is a pervasive issue in organizations: how can the communication of a corporate strategy be enhanced so that employees are committed to it? A recent experimental study found that visual representations can improve attitude toward the organizational strategy, and that a visual format improves employees’ intention to comply with the strategy only in theWest but not in China. In order to explore the reasons why Westerner and Chinese subjects were found to have differing behaviors related to strategy commitment (despite having similar attitudes), we set up a qualitative study based on interviews with 51 managers in a Chinese company. The outcome suggests that Chinese employees have a slight preference for a visual format of strategy communication, but that they would comply with the strategy in any format it is presented - because it is the duty of the top managers to develop the strategy. These results differ substantially from Western employees, which need to be persuaded by the strategy to be committed to implement it.