Organizing an Online Community for Open Strategizing in a Large Organization

The creation of an online strategy community is increasingly attractive for companies as a mean to make the strategy process more inclusive and open. However, the fundamental difference between the flexible approach of open strategizing afforded by an online community and more controlled approaches of the traditional strategy formulation and implementation posits fundamental challenges for co-existence of these two processes. I argue that for these two processes to effectively co-exist, complex bridging process needs to take place in organizations. Furthermore, effective co-existence implies that open strategizing within an online community influences the formal strategy-making process.
This thesis explores an online community as a distinct form of open strategizing in a large organization, to address two interdependent research questions related to organizing an online community for strategic influence: (1) ‘How do managers bridge open strategizing within an online community and formal strategy-making, characterized by closed and hierarchical decision-making?’ and (2) ‘How do managers organize an online strategy community to influence strategic decision-making in large organizations?’.
This in-depth inductive single case study investigates strategy professionals at a large telecommunications firm Telco that instigated a unique online strategy platform to increase the openness of participation and to influence the formal strategy process. This empirical study utilizes multiple sources of data including interviews, online community logs, observations, and document analysis, the findings of which are summarized in two theoretical models.
I identify three mechanisms that enable bridging between different strategizing processes, namely: 1) bidirectional framing with strategic concepts; 2) bidirectional structuring of communication; 3) building legitimacy of openness. The simultaneous enactment of three bridging mechanisms provides the greater influence of the formal decision-making process. Furthermore, I identify three main decision areas that managers have to consider carefully when organizing and online strategy community: 1) design of an online community structure; 2) cooperation of internal and external actors; 3) formulation of adequate strategic content. These decision areas are characterized by interdependencies and trigger contradictory demands that make open strategy processes a paramount organizational challenge.