DQ1

Tamara - Journal for Critical Organization Inquiry, © 2012 by Kozminski University

Vol. 10, Issue 4, December 2012, pp. 29-43, ISSN 1532-5555

Volume 10 Issue 4

1 2 / 2 0 1 2 tamarajournal.com

Deconstructing Strategic Inflections by Imagery • YUE CAI-HILLON, M ARK E. HILLON, DAVID M. BOJ E Yue Cai-Hillon University of Central Missouri, US

cai-hillon@ucmo.edu

Mark E. Hillon University of Central Missouri, US hillon@ucmo.edu

David M. Boje New Mexico State University, US dboje@nmsu.edu

Keywords

Abstract

Strategic Inflection

Deconstruction

Strategy

Imagery

Traditionally, strategic messages were communicated through the power of text and

financial measures. Over the years, with an increased use and evident impact of aesthetics,

such as art, corporations began to incorporate imagery in strategic messages to strengthen

their persuasive power. The addition of this creative use of art has also brought interest in

strategy analysis to help uncover those hidden messages and identify marginal but living

voices, in other words, antenarratives. In the role of a strategy spectator, understanding the

signals for corporate strategic inflection prior to its occurrence is essential when

calculating a company‘s future performance. These signals are never handed to you. They

are hidden and cannot be identified by accepting the face-value of the dominant and

apparent organizational voices, delivered through corporate documents. When a spectator

is swooped into the organizational dominant storyline, he/she becomes part of the grand

narrative and loses his/her critical perspective. Instead, strategic inflection signals should

be identified through organizational antenarratives, uncovered in the deconstruction of an

organization‘s strategy storytelling. Deconstruction of imagery, as a new complementary

method to text and financial reporting embedded throughout corporate documents, helps

strategy spectators understand a more abstract and less obvious side of strategy authors‘

strategic intentions. In the case of Motorola, this paper will demonstrate how imagery has

been incorporated into organizational storytelling and how deconstruction could help

strategy spectators make sense of and potentially anticipate strategic inflections.

Introduction On the stage of strategy live two primary characters: strategy authors and spectators/spec-actors. Strategy authors use

corporate documents like annual reports, corporate responsibility reports, press releases and other official documents to

convey a strategic message to their shareholders and stakeholders. Beyond being informative, the primary psychological

intention behind the documents is persuasion. Through carefully and strategically crafted stories, corporations persuade

stakeholders of the corporation‘s reasons for existence, past and present honorability, and belief that the company has a

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promising future and is therefore a smart investment. On the other hand, the role of a strategy spectator/analyst or a

competitive intelligence researcher is to investigate the reliability and multitude representativeness of the message through

deconstruction, which helps to identify the unspoken signals for changes embedded within these documents. By

uncovering strategic intentions and missing voices hidden behind each message, spectators are better at forecasting a

corporation‘s future actions and potentially expand on competitive opportunities. In strategy, these forecasted changes are

called strategic inflections. A strategic inflection is a deliberate but emergent strategic activity, which occurs when the

fundamentals about an organization is about to change (Grove, 1996).

Traditionally, strategic messages were communicated through the power of text and financial measures. Over the

years, with an increased use and evident impact of aesthetics, such as art, corporations began to incorporate imagery in

strategic messages to strengthen their persuasive power. The addition of this creative use of art has also brought interest in

strategy analysis to help uncover those hidden messages and identify marginal but living voices, in other words,

antenarratives.

In the role of a strategy spectator, understanding the signals for corporate strategic inflections prior to its occurrence is

essential when calculating a company‘s future performance. Signals of strategic inflections are never apparent; rather, they

are hidden and cannot be identified by mindlessly accepting the face value of the dominant organizational voices,

delivered through corporate documents. When a spectator is swooped into the organizational dominant storyline, he/she

becomes part of the grand narrative and loses his/her critical perspectives. Instead, strategic inflection signals should be

identified through organizational antenarratives, uncovered in the deconstruction of an organization‘s strategy storytelling.

Deconstruction of text and financial measures helps strategy spectators understand the more literal side of the strategy

authors‘ strategic intentions. Deconstruction of imagery embedded throughout corporate documents, as a new

complementary method to text and financial reporting, helps strategy spectators capture a more abstract and less obvious

side of strategy authors‘ strategic intentions.

The purpose of this paper, in the role of a strategy spectator, is to demonstrate how to uncover signals of corporate

strategic inflections through deconstructing imagery. The company to be studied is Motorola Inc. preceding its recent

business spilt into Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions. Corporate documents to be used in this study are:

Motorola1966-68 Annual Reports, 1986 Annual Report, 2004-09 Annual Reports, and 2003-09 Global Corporate

Citizenship Reports.

Strategic Inflections The notion of ‗strategy‘ was first brought to life in politics and military during the 4th and 6th century BC (Pomeroy,

1999). Strategic management or business strategy, a business discipline, was not acknowledged until pioneered by Alfred

D. Chandler, Phillip Selznick, Igor Ansoff, and Peter Drucker in the 1950s and 60s.

Chandler (1962) pointed out that structure follows strategy. A company‘s structure, direction, and focus must be

supported by a coordinated long-term strategy. Drucker (1954, 1994) considered organizations managed by objectives and

that strategy is a bundle of assumptions that guides the direction and behavior of an organization to achieve those

objectives. The art of management based on the image created through these assumptions (e.g. structure, mission, vision,

objective, market, technology, core competency, competitors, and environment) will result in an organization‘s success or

failure.

Strategy is a ‗calculus of relations of forces‘ and only becomes possible when the ‗subject of will and power can be

isolated‘ (de Certeau, 1984). Therefore, strategies are actions dependent on power yet simultaneously project power to

formulate places to distribute the power using favorable operational tactics (de Certeau, 1984). No doubt, organizations

are living stories conversing with the world around them. Mintzberg (1987) thought the ―art of crafting strategy‖ is to

know when to reconstruct and renew this power. One way to recognize this need is when assumptions no longer satisfy

the reality (Drucker, 1994). Another is through recognizing the corporate transformation dissonance between strategic

intention and behavior (Burgelman & Grove, 1996).

Organizations continuously story and re-story to influence or react to their internal and external environmental

alterations. The time when significant re-story occurs is identified as a ―strategic inflection point‖ in strategic

management.

A strategic inflection point is defined as: ―A time in the life of a business when its fundamentals are about to change‖

(Grove, 1996, p. 3). In the diagram below it shows a strategic inflection point occurs when the old strategy dissolves and

gives ways to the new strategy. The navigations through these inflection points directly influence the success or failure of

the strategy change.

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Strategic Inflection Point Diagram 1 (source: Grove, 1996:32)

Strategic inflections are ‗common‘ and can be seen at any levels of an organization or its inhabited marketplace

(Grove, 1996).

Whether the company becomes a winner or a loser was related to its degree of adaptability…

Strategic inflection points offer promises as well as threats…. ―adopt or die‖ takes on the true

meaning. (Grove, 1996, p. 76)

The detection of the organization Inflection Curve slope rate of change helps pinpoint strategic inflection points.

However, a strategic inflection point is difficult to become evident preceding its occurrence. If a strategic shift can be

discovered ahead of time, competitive advantages may be acquired by both strategy authors and spectators.

This study serves as a case study to explore strategy shifts, by exploring company strategy storytelling changes to

better understand and identify the organization history, present and future strategy and structure shifts for more purposeful

strategy formulations and implementations.

Deconstruction

Language is a technique used to mediate one‘s interpretation of reality. It is in fact not reality; rather, ―reality exists

outside language (Hall, 1980: p.55)‖. This interpretation is accomplished in the course of discursive ‗knowledge‘ encoding

and decoding (Hall, 1980). Authors encode knowledge frameworks into a purposeful language. Decoding of this language

occurs consciously and/or subconsciously by both active and passive spectators. Subconscious decoding is reliant on an

encoders‘ knowledge framework and commonly shared meanings for stories in both text and image (Hall, 1980). On the

other hand, deconstruction is a technique of conscious decoding. This type of critical inquiry questions the authority of the

encoder and its implied reality.

Deconstruction is a term first introduced by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1967) in his book Of

Grammatology.

―Writing thus enlarged and radicalized, no longer issues from a logos. Further, it inaugurates

the destruction, not the demolition but the de-sedimentation, the de-construction, of all the

significations that have their source in that of the logos (1967:12).‖

Here, Derrida contracts the meaning of speech and writing. He argued that speech is associated with logos, or

thoughts; and writing is a derivative of speech. Unlike speakers, writers are often absent when readers interpret their

writing. This leaves the readers in search of the meaning of the writing without a first-hand clarification by the writer.

Consequently, making sense of the writer‘s meaning involved interpretation, psychological negotiation, and some degree

of translation; a process of deconstruction (Derrida, 1978).

Scholars like Martin (1990) and Boje (2001) integrated the concept of deconstruction into the study of critical theory

and organizational development and change. Martin (1990) defined deconstruction as:

―an analytic strategy that exposes in a systematic way multiple ways a text can be interpreted.

Deconstruction is able to reveal ideological assumptions in a way that is particularly sensitive

to the suppressed interest of members of disempowered, marginalized groups (1990:340).‖

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Boje (2001) pointed out that:

―Deconstruction is antenarrative in action…Deconstruction points out the instability, complex

movements, process of change, and the play of differences and heterogeneity that make

stability, unity, structure, function and coherence one-sided reading (2001: 18),‖

According Boje (2001), ‗antenarrative‘ has dual meanings: as being before and as a bet, speculative stories not yet pa rt

of the narrative. Antenarratives are stories before living stories, future-projecting stories and stories that are unfolding in-

the-moment-of-Beingness (Bakhtin, 1990, 1993). These stories empower intra and inter-organizational characters and

their interests to aid in the transformation of an organization, therefore, feared by most dominant organizational narratives.

As antenarratives interact with their micro and macro environments, they contribute to the ‗instability‘ in the dominant

organizational narrative, a signal for change. Antenarratives are constantly in motion, some lives to become part of the

grand narrative of an organization while some die or reassembled to emerge at a later time.

An organization is like a living ‗stage‘, embedding a discourse of actors, spectators, scenes, and scripts that are

constantly regulating and re-regulating itself as a response to its environment. This living ‗stage‘ is filled with a collection

of alternative centered ideologies, in other words, stories (speeches and writings). Each story enlightens us of its

interpreted authoritative center that may or may not support the dominant narrative of the organization. Organizational

dominant narrative, a retrospective sensemaking commentary (Boje, 2001; & Weick, 1995), is ‗sold‘ to stakeholders

through strategic corporate documents such as annual reports, press releases, letter to the share holder, and so on. The

narration of the strategy discourse is a practical activity within itself with the intention to create controlled memories using

its own procedures and tactics (de Certeau, 1984).

As we walk through the eight moments of deconstruction (Boje, 2001): duality search, reinterpret the hierarchy, reveal

the rebel voices, find other sides of the story, deny the plot, find exceptions, trace what is between the lines, and resituate;

a strategy spectator would uncover a multitude of stories beyond the leading corporate narrative. Although these stories

are marginal, nonetheless, they are alive. Marginal stories and their relations to the leading narrative are strategy

antenarratives, important signals of strategic inflections. A strategic inflection occurs when there is a fundamental

difference between the dominant and marginal; when the collection of stories cannot respond to its environment

instability; or when the empowered marginal stories emerges into the dominant narrative. The process of deconstruction

guides our senses through these various stories to understand their relations, how each story is formulated, and how they

contribute to organizational change. The goal of deconstruction is not to conceal the center voice(s). Rather, it is to help

truly understand the intentions of the center voice(s) as well as the antenarratives to find a balanced presentation of

authenticity where every voice is heard and recognized (Boje, 2001).

Derrida‘s (1968/1983) analysis of Plato‟s Pharmacy shows that writing can only repeat itself, reflect itself, and it is a

‗game‘ with laws and rules (Derrida, 1968/1983). Writing is a woven texture constructed by envelops of story webs

centered on dominance (Derrida, 1968/1983). Dissimulation of the dominant center requires continuous critical reading

and patience to unveil as the web regenerates its own flesh and writes new centers. The truth of writing is the nontruth,

which ―cannot be discovered in ourselves by ourselves (Derrida, 1968/1983: p. 74)‖. Deconstruction, an understanding of

the unspoken stories hidden behind the dominant narrative and the antenarratives contributing to organizational

complexity, help reveal the masked center and true intentions of writing.

This paper demonstrates how strategy intentions and inflections can be deconstructed through studying imagery

embedded inside corporate documents with Motorola as our case study company.

Deconstructing Strategic Inflections through Imagery

Strategic inflections are due to both organization internal and external changes. These changes could be leadership

restructuring; competition, customer, and supplier changes; economic climate, technological, social environment, and

regulation changes. These changes approach us on little ―cat feet‖ (Grove, 1996, p.107), difficult to notice. However, they

can be revealed by deconstructing stories and narrative constructions of the organization. During a strategic inflection,

organizations often feel confused. They realize that ―things are different, something has changed (Grove, 1996, p.33)‖ but

not sure what and why. Such realization often results in reactive and non-strategic post-change emotional responses.

Therefore, it is a sustainable practice and strategically important to detect triggers for a strategic inflection prior to it s

occurrence.

Changes are constant. It is important to differentiate between ―triggers‖ and ―noise‖. When pieces of an organization‘s

fundamentals have changed, a ―trigger‖ for a future strategic inflection has most likely presented itself. Changes as a result

of a strategic shift can trigger ―the beginning of the end (Grove, 1996, p.3)‖, but it can be just as possible to create new

Deconstructing Strategic Inf lections by Imagery

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business opportunities for organizations to embark on its renewed lifecycle story. Deconstruction, the understanding of the

unspoken stories hidden behind the dominant corporate narrative, the antenarratives contributing to organizational

complexity, and the story plot transformations over time help us detect these triggers. A study of corporate documents has

been used by many strategy spectators and authors to understand strategic change trends. However, these studies have

mostly focused on the analysis of textual and financial information. It is the goal of this paper to demonstrate that the

study of strategic inflection triggers can also come from the study of corporate use of images in conjunction with text and

financial statements. Our case study of Motorola, founded in 1928, demonstrates this complementary new aesthetic

strategic approach.

Three inflection periods selected for this study are: 1966-1968, 2003-2005, and 2007-2009. Documents analyzed are:

Motorola1966-68 Annual Reports, 2003-09 Annual Reports, and 2003-09 Global Corporate Citizenship Reports. The

strategic inflection points of this study are:

1967: Motorola shifts its corporate success stories from heroic leadership driven to consumer

satisfaction driven.

2004: Motorola ‗Seamless Mobility‖ global market strategy launches.

2008: Significant leadership restructure occurs.

This study will deconstruct corporate stories, through the study of images, prior to and immediately after three

strategic inflection points to determine ‗triggers‘ that may have signaled organizational significant strategic changes.

McWilliams and Siegel (1997) stated that any study with an event window of more than two days needs to provide

validation of such selection. Keeping this in mind, we selected one year prior to and one year after each strategic inflection

to deconstruct the strategy storytelling changes of Motorola.

The strategy sense-making and marketing, presented by organizations, no longer merely depend on their guided logical

interpretations of the carefully crafted financial figures and persuasive writing. The use of image in strategy storytelling,

triggering both human psychological and emotional senses, has added a new level to strategy storytelling power and

complexity (Bakhtin, 1973, 1937/1981, 1990; Boulding, 1956; Boje, 2006).

It is important to recognize that this complexity originates from the use of diverse aesthetic of text, number, and image

that activates the various senses of the reader. It is not due to the multitude of voices heard in the corporate strategy

storytelling. The technique of using image to craft strategy and the strategy itself are two different notions. The author

may layer multiple parts of a monologue strategy to give it an appearance of higher complexity and dialogis m. Yet, the

strategy narrative origin is by one author and one author only; in our case, the executive team at Motorola Corporation, the

master strategy storytelling narrators. By using different imagery techniques to present Motorola‘s strategy narrative,

Motorola is creating an allusion of its higher complexities, openness, and dialogical nature, yet hiding its mono-voice

‗behind the curtains.‘ Adding images to the texts is adding plot and direction of interpretation of the mono-voiced strategy

narrative. It is not a higher level of complexity of story, but rather another way of framing and re-framing. By

deconstructing the mono-voiced strategy narrative, we can get to the bottom of Motorola‘s strategic intentions and

understand its future.

1966-1968 Strategic Inflection Deconstruction Images in Motorola 1966 annual report are black and white photographs accompanied by black text on white pages.

Most of the photos presented are stories of the executive team (Figure 1) with limited images of their workers. A common

theme about these photos is that they sketch a charismatic leader image of the Motorola top management team, by

focusing on their professional businessman clothing, facial expressions, and physical language (Schumpeter, 1950; Cole,

1959). Strategic selection of these images expresses a strategic message: The success of Motorola is attributable to its

tremendous leadership, the engines of Motorola, which highlighted the heroes of Motorola and their important roles in

Motorola‘s success. Different images of different leaders frame a common message of coalition power and control. They

are leading Motorola to the future it envisioned.

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Figure 1. Motorola 1966 Annual Report, cover page, p.4, p.5, and p.14

The images in Motorola 1967 annual report showcased the daily lives of the people sustained by Motorola‘s behind the

scenes product support (Schumpter, 1950; Cole, 1959; Hannan & Freeman, 1977; Selznick, 1957). These drawings

narrated Motorola‘s strategic message of: The success of Motorola is attributed to its ability to provide products and

services in need to sustain a peaceful and enjoyable society. This radical strategic storytelling shift demonstrated through

the use of images, from heroic-leadership to customer-orientation, signals Motorola‘s new strategic narrative – Motorola

expands its businesses to satisfy their customers and society‘s unfulfilled demands. Although seemingly behind the

scenes, Motorola frames its image and identity of a leader and a hero to the existence of society and people.

In 1967, Motorola expanded into 14 countries that required a large amount of investment. By understanding historical

events accompanied by these strategically selected images, we can better recognize the strategy narrative behind the

selection of the images used in the 1967 Annual Report and why the imagery strategic storytelling focus shifted from

coalition power and heroic leadership to product offering diversity to fulfill consumer safety/basic living needs. (Figure 2)

Figure 2. Motorola 1967 Annual Report, cover page, p.8, p.12, and p.16

Similar to 1967, the strategic narrative of the images in Motorola 1968 annual report was also related to product

diversity and the fulfillment of customer demands (Figure 3). However, different from 1967, products presented in 1968

images were showcased and no longer behind the scene. The strategic use of these images illustrated the happiness offered

by Motorola‘s products, a step beyond the satisfaction of consumers‘ basic means of life.

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Figure 3. Motorola 1968 Annual Report, p.9

Motorola experienced a clear strategic inflection in 1967, a shift from leadership-focused to consumer-focused

strategic direction. This strategic shift increased Motorola‘s need to educate the population of the value their products and

services add to the quality of people‘s lives and their desires. Although this shift seemed democratic and dialogical, the

voices behind the storytelling were unchanged – Market expansion and control. They were only masked behind the

multiplicity and colorful images.

2003-2005 Strategic Inflection Deconstruction

Different from the 1960s, texts were added to images in the 21 st century to direct and control readers‘ senses. Rather

than implicit, the meanings of these images are now explicit. Instead of being open for dialogical interpretation by

audiences, the interpretation is now linear and anticipatable.

In 2003, Motorola strategic storytelling was not centered on its past achievement, but rather the dominant voice

attempted to highlight its promising future. As Edward Zander stepped in as Motorola CEO in January, 2004, his first

strategic question was: ―Why Motorola? Why now? What‘s next? (2003 Annual Report cover)‖ Zander‘s vision for

Motorola was global market domination (Porter, 1980, 1985; Andrews, 1951). Motorola‘s logo was larger than the globe

demonstrates Motorola‘s strategic intention of global market domination (Figure 4). Choosing the color yellow for the

logo and black for the image of the earth transcends the relationship between Motorola and the global telecommunication

market as the relationship between the sun and the moon. Such an aggressive strategic direction sends a powerful and

intimidating message that could not be uncovered by only reading the text and financial of Motorola‘s corporate reports.

Figure 4. Motorola 2003 Annual Report, p.2, p.8, & Back Cover

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In 2004, Motorola centered energy on narrating a strategic plan to accomplish its global market domination vision in

their use of images. As an Asian girl flying a kite without a string in the middle of nowhere, Motorola confirmed to us

that: Motorola‟s future target market will be connected seamlessly regardless of where they are. ―Seamless Mobility‖

became Motorola‘s new slogan that year. (Figure 5)

Figure 5. Motorola 2004 Global Corporate Citizenship Report, Front Cover

While delivering a message of world domination on one hand, Motorola did not omit its need to establish a sound

image of social responsibility. Having neighbors everywhere; helping Chinese children to restore schools and hopes;

investing in future generations; land a hand in to assist in recovery of natural disasters worldwide; and creating wellness at

work demonstrated Motorola‘s collaborative effort of protecting the world (Figure 6). The use of polyphonic dynamic

relationships among Motorola and its communities, customers, suppliers and internal employees

Such use of dialogical imagery storytelling attempts to disguise the true strategic intentions of the corporation:

domination.

Figure 6. Motorola 2004 Global Corporate Citizenship Report, p.28, p.29, p.32

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Different from 2004, the images showcased in 2005 were graphically stitched and collectively, they re-emphasized a

collective strategic story: Seamless Mobility and Motorola Everywhere connect YOU to the rest of the world no matter

where you are (Figure 7). As this image developed into a product interface, a strategic vision transformed from an idea

into reality.

Figure 7. Motorola 2005 Annual Report, Front Cover

In contrast to the 1960s, Motorola uniquely created reports expressing their role in the global corporate community in

the 21 st century. Therefore, Motorola is no longer just another company domestically or internationally, it is now a citizen

at its residence. As a citizen, Motorola is now identified as a member of the community and bears responsibilities beyond

being a ‗non-citizen‘. The entire 2003 and 2004 Global Corporate Citizenship reports embodied Selznick‘s (1957) social

behavior and structure strategy of thoughts; Hannan and Freeman‘s (1977) socio economical relation strategy of thoughts;

Allison (1971), Pfeffer and Salanick (1978) and Astley‘s (1984) strategy of gaining macro resource power through

partnership and alliances.

The audiences of Motorola Global Corporate Citizenship reports are: stakeholders - customers, consumers, suppliers,

non-government organizations, employees, investors, governments, community neighbors and the general public.

As a global corporate citizen, Motorola creates products and technologies that benefit society

by making things smarter and life better for people around the world. We are dedicated to

operating ethically, protecting the environment and supporting the communities in which we

do business. We are guided by our Code of Business Conduct, which is based on our key

beliefs of uncompromising integrity and constant respect for people. (Motorola, 2006)

Therefore, the strategic crafting of these reports is aimed towards these audiences with a mono -voiced direction and

control from Motorola.

2007-2009 Strategic Inflection Deconstruction Carrying on with its maturing strategic adventure of ‗Seamless Mobility‘, Motorola continued to embrace this concept

in 2006 (Figure 8). However, in 2007, the direction of the strategic wind hinted its transitional shift.

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Figure 8. Motorola 2006 Corporate Responsibility Report, p.3.

Prior to 2007, Motorola introduced its business functions of Connected Home Solutions, Mobile Devices, and Network

& Enterprise using three short paragraphs with no image attachments. As existing and new competitors posed increasing

threats to Motorola, especially in their Mobile Devices division, the company recognized the need to urgently find its

niche and retire that high resource absorbing and non-sustainable business segments. In 2007, the company completely

changed its introduction of the functional profile by not only inserting photographs but also the restructure of business

units (Figure 9). Instead of describing the business philosophy of the business units, specific products and services were

clearly spelled out with supporting easy to comprehend images of products or people using the products. The presentation

of this new structure was repeated in 2008 and consolidated once again in 2009. This significant change alluded to

Motorola‘s business split into Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions announced in 2008 and finalized in 2011.

Figure 9. Motorola 2007 Corporate Responsibility Report, p.3; 2008 Corporate Responsibility Report, Index; and 2009 Corporate Responsibility Report, p.16

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Prior to 2008, the letter to the shareholders was always coming from one individual, the chairman and CEO of

Motorola. Since 2008, duality of voices appeared (Figure 10). The message is now delivered by co-CEOs, Greg Brown

and Sanjay Jha. As we now know, they are the newly appointed CEOs of Motorola Solutions and Motorola Mobility. The

appearance of duality and change in business emphasis again suggested the strategic spilt announced in 2008 and finalized

in 2011.

Figure 10. Motorola 2008 Corporate Responsibility Report, p.1; Motorola 2009 Corporate Responsibility Report, p.1.

To successfully accomplish such a strategic shift, the company recognized that they needed to be even more innovative

and develop smarter business processes (Figure 11). Planting seeds business relations in corporate enterprises with

innovative products and reducing overhead by incorporating smarter technology into operational processes, the company

is demonstrating to its stakeholders that Motorola recognize the intense competition it faces but it is ready to fight back

with creativity and intelligence.

Figure 11. Innovating for a Smarter World (2009, GCCR, Cover, p.3)

Although the company was going through strategic changes, the company did not overlook the importance to stay

connected with its constituents. Motorola did not forget the significance of being an essential citizen is a key to sustainable

profitability. Reemphasizing Motorola‘s continued effort to fulfill their responsibilities to customers, employees,

environment, and society in a time of change, the company incorporated a variety of images into the 2007 annual

corporate responsibility report (Figure 12). A child from Africa talking on a cell phone with a big smile on his face

showed the joy and vivid future Motorola products have brought the next generation of developing countries. A

traditionally dressed working woman riding a bike, an essential means of transportation for most people in Vietnam, was

shadowed by a large Motorola advertising display of the means of communication for the future. A picture of a group of

happy, active, and seemingly healthy employees allows stakeholders to trust that Motorola is a fun and rewarding place in

which to invest your life and career. The choice of representing multiple races in the photo also demonstrated that

Motorola promotes diversity. A powerful image such as this signifies Motorola‘s heroic leadership in helping their

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customers bridging the gap between tradition and future necessity. To demonstrate the company‘s commitment in

sustainable business practices, Motorola used multiple images to express their effort in waste reduction and consideration

in resource consumption. One device in place of twelve not only reduces raw material usage but also simplifies lives with

a trade of in hosting one‘s entire livelihood in a single tiny device.

Figure 12. Motorola 2007 Corporate Responsibility Report, Cover, p.4, p.16, p.21, p.22, and p. 34.

A similar theme of responsibility was carried on in 2008 and 2009, including reduction of material use in packaging,

cell phones made from recycled water bottles, connecting the unconnected, and protecting the hope for our future

generations (Figures 13 & 14). By being a smarter business, reducing consumption, and giving back to society, Motorola

creates a image of a responsible citizen of the world.

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Figure 13: Motorola 2008 Corporate Responsibility Report, p.6, p.10, Back cover.

Figure 14: Motorola 2009 Corporate Responsibility Report, p.5, p.11, p.14.

As we walked through Motorola‘s strategic transitions during the 60s and the 21 st century by examining the company‘s

changing imagery storylines embedded in various corporate reports, we can now acknowledge that beyond the power of

text and numbers, we should pay closer attention to the carefully and strategically selected and placed images throughout

the documents. Some images, while being easily overlooked, carried tremendous amount of power and apparent strategic

intent. Over the years, the company has transitioned from using simply text and numbers in corporate strategy narration to

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text and numbers with images embedded throughout. Today, companies like Motorola have taken one step beyond; adding

text to the images to guide and control stakeholders‘ perceptions. Who knew the power of storytelling through images

could be so captivating?

Conclusion A dialogical presentation of strategy comes from the use of images beyond texts and carefully crafted financial

numbers, and the multiplicity of images used (size, color, photos, drawings, abstract art, and so on). Imagery strategy

storytelling, from a system perspective, can be recognized as Organic –Polyphonic, Image – Stylistic, and Network –

Architectonic (Bakhtin, 1937/1981; Boulding, 1956; & Boje, 2006). The dialogical presentation attribute of imagery

storytelling demonstrated the techniques used in crafting strategy and strategy changes. The use of multiple stylistic and

the incorporation of multiple characters may offer the illusion of dialogical voices represented in the storyline. However,

we must recognize the strategy narrative birthplace is in fact monological, the old and new Motorola executive team.

Motorola is the master narrator who celebrates its strategy and strategic changes at various levels of story complexities

(Ansoff, 1965; Andrews, 1951; Porter, 1980/1985; Hannan & Freeman, 1977; Selznick, 1957; Allison, 1971; Pfeffer &

Salanick, 1978; and Astley, 1984). Adding images to texts is adding plot and direction and control in the interpretation of

the mono-voiced strategy narrator. The images are considered tools in creating such a master narrative.

Understanding the voice(s) behind a strategy and the aesthetics used to convey the power of the voice(s) is an essential

key in exposing the hidden voices, the strategic intentions of an organization, and their antenarrative and a key to

deconstruction In the role of a strategy spectator, we hope our study of Motorola strategy change through the

deconstruction of corporate imagery storytelling has demonstrated its significance in embracing the dialogical nature of

organizational antenarrative sense-making and identifying strategy storytelling shifts. Deconstruction of imagery helps

strategy spectators understand the more abstract and less obvious sides of strategy authors‘ strategic intentions.

Incorporating imagery deconstruction into the strategic management curriculum will also help students recognize the art

and creative sides of strategy formulation and promotion.

Knowing our study is of one company, Motorola, which has embraced imagery into their strategy storytelling, we

recognize imagery deconstruction may not be suitable for learning of other organizations‘ strategic changes. However, we

hope this study will raise the awareness and interest among strategy scholars to discover dialogical and complementary

approaches to learn of and anticipate inflections. We also hope this study will change the perception that strategy change

and competitive intelligence research is mind-numbingly financial and textual.

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