How to deal with radical changes in downsizing strategies of global companies? Territorial renewal and adaptative institutionalization

A large part of the empirical literature devoted to the question of territorial governance and downsizing still refers to a planning view on corporate strategies (Mintzberg, 1994). A particular restructuring strategy, once being designed and announced, should be implemented as such, in a sequential way. Most studies do not consider the probability, quite high in a context of global uncertainty, of radical reorientations of the downsizing strategy. This is exactly what occurred in the Liege area, where a big steel group decided successively - and according to how the way the economic climate goes - (1) to stop an important part of its activity, (2) to reopen it and lastly (3) to suspend it again. In those conditions - 3 radical changes in less than 5 years - one can easily understand that a linear view on territorial reconversion must be questioned.