Dualisms have been widely adopted in academic work on strategic change. The attractiveness of dualistic thinking lies in the equilibrium it supposedly offers. Order is created by postulating a harmonious balance between contradictory phenomena. However, the theoretically and empirically interlaced discussion in this book indicates that strategic change is less about harmoniously balancing opposites than it is about repeating, in a new ‘voice’ belonging to the future, the values and principles of the past.

The book embraces strategic change as motions constituted by talk and action, delineating time-space between present, future-oriented, and present, past-oriented managerial talk and action. In an attempt to approach a dynamic understanding of strategic change, a philosophical dimension attributed to existentialistic hermeneutics is invited.

Empirically, attention is focused on corporate consolidation on the European retail market, in particular, with reference to the ongoing establishment of Coop Norden, the cross-border merger of three co-operative retailers.