Answers for questions to come: reflective dialogue as an enabler of strategic innovation

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Abstract
Purpose: To conceptualize and theorize dialogue's diagnostic as well as generative functions for strategic innovation and organizational change.Design/methodology/approach: Conceptual development with case illustration.Findings: Strategic innovation requires shifts in existing mental models of organizational actors that underlie the overall strategy paradigm of a firm. Dialogue as a form of reflective conversation enables actors to alter managers' mental models through conscious, critical exploration.Research limitations/implications: Conceptual framework introduces reflective dialogue, as a crucial processual element for encouraging shifts in mental maps and as a necessary, but not sufficient condition for strategy innovation; provides an analytical framework for enhancing understanding of the emergent processes of strategic innovation, and for studying shifts in organizational actors' mental models.Practical implications: Provides organizational change agents and strategists with perspectives and frameworks for appreciating and fostering reflective dialogue in the context of strategic thinking and innovation.Originality/value: Concept of reflective dialogue and associated frameworks link micro‐levels and macro‐levels of strategy innovation and address critical process elements.

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