The contributions of participation to the strategy-making process have been well documented. Nevertheless, there is limited research into participation, how it might be impeded or enhanced in public higher education context. Using insights from Ethiopia and through the analysis of strategy discourses produced by retrospective interview conversations with managers and employees and focus group discussion (FGD) in the university, this study aimed to investigate participation in strategy-making process with the goal of discovering the discourses that impede or enhance it. The result shows that mystification, bureaucratization, and rationalization impede participation, while operationalization, politicization, localization of routines, and identification enhance it. This study suggest that discursive practices influence the level of participation in strategy-making process in HEIs, and that strategy practitioners who plan to make strategy in HEIs should be conscious of the way strategy is communicated, including its texts and talking, to enhance participation.