Book contents
- Cambridge Handbook of Open Strategy
- Cambridge Handbook of Open Strategy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Introduction
- Part I The Concept of Open Strategy
- Part II Practices of Open Strategy
- Part III Technological Assemblages for Open Strategy
- Part IV Theoretical Perspectives
- Part V Challenges of Open Strategy
- Chapter 18 The Politics of Openness
- Chapter 19 The Relation between Openness and Closure in Open Strategy: Programmatic and Constitutive Approaches to Openness
- Index
- References
Chapter 18 - The Politics of Openness
from Part V - Challenges of Open Strategy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 July 2019
Book contents
- Cambridge Handbook of Open Strategy
- Cambridge Handbook of Open Strategy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Introduction
- Part I The Concept of Open Strategy
- Part II Practices of Open Strategy
- Part III Technological Assemblages for Open Strategy
- Part IV Theoretical Perspectives
- Part V Challenges of Open Strategy
- Chapter 18 The Politics of Openness
- Chapter 19 The Relation between Openness and Closure in Open Strategy: Programmatic and Constitutive Approaches to Openness
- Index
- References
Summary
Recently, openness has become a new approach in strategizing as ownership and control of internal assets are no longer vital to achieving competitive advantage (Chesbrough & Appleyard, 2007). Nowadays, knowledge is widespread and open systems are generally regarded as beneficial in terms of organizational design and work culture. However, openness also comes with politics and it is not a practice that will necessarily be welcomed by all. Openness changes the power dynamics within an organization; there are critics as well as friends, as we shall explore. Openness is a process that can change over time, becoming more or less open as events occur and contingencies or actors change. We are interested in how dominant organizational actors can seemingly manipulate “open systems” strategically. Openness is problematic per se for social systems. Systems endogenously construct their differentiation from other systems through closure achieved through specific cognitive rules. In this chapter, we use Clegg’s (1989) “circuits” approach to a theory of power to grasp the politics of openness in terms of three circuits of power. Some of the recent problems posed in the wider world of social media will be analyzed in terms of the three circuits to illustrate some potential problems.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Cambridge Handbook of Open Strategy , pp. 307 - 325Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019
References
Afuah, A., & Tucci, C. L. (2012). Crowdsourcing as a solution to distant search. Academy of Management Review, 37(3), 355–375.Google Scholar
Amrollahi, A., & Ghapnchi, A. H. (2016). Open Strategic Planning in Universities: A Case Study. Paper presented at the 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS).Google Scholar
Appleyard, M. M., & Chesbrough, H. W. (2017). The dynamics of open strategy: From adoption to reversion. Long Range Planning, 50(3), 310–321.Google Scholar
Aten, K., & Thomas, G. F. (2016). Crowdsourcing strategizing: Communication technology affordances and the communicative constitution of organizational strategy. International Journal of Business Communication, 53(2), 148–180.Google Scholar
Bachrach, P., & Baratz, M. S. (1970). Power and poverty: Theory and practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Beck, R., Czepluch, J. S., Lollike, N., & Malone, S. (2016). Blockchain-the Gateway to Trust-Free Cryptographic Transactions. Paper presented at the ECIS.Google Scholar
Bennett, W. L. (2012). The personalization of politics: Political identity, social media, and changing patterns of participation. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 644(1), 20–39.Google Scholar
Bjelland, O. M., & Wood, R. C. (2008). An inside view of IBM’s “Innovation Jam.” MIT Sloan Management Review, 50(1), 32–46.Google Scholar
Blum, C., & Zuber, C. I. (2016). Liquid democracy: Potentials, problems, and perspectives. Journal of Political Philosophy, 24(2), 162–182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bogers, M. (2011). The open innovation paradox: Knowledge sharing and protection in R&D collaborations. European Journal of Innovation Management, 14(1), 93–117.Google Scholar
Bogers, M., & West, J. (2012). Managing distributed innovation: Strategic utilization of open and user innovation. Creativity and Innovation Management, 21(1), 61–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boudreau, K. (2010). Open platform strategies and innovation: Granting access vs. devolving control. Management Science, 56(10), 1849–1872.Google Scholar
Boudreau, K., & Lakhani, K. (2009). How to manage outside innovation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 50(4), 68–76.Google Scholar
Boudreau, K. J., Lacetera, N., & Lakhani, K. R. (2011). Incentives and problem uncertainty in innovation contests: An empirical analysis. Management Science, 57(5), 843–863.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brabham, D. C. (2012). The myth of amateur crowds. Information, Communication & Society, 15(3), 394–410.Google Scholar
Cadwalladr, C. (2017a). The great British Brexit robbery: How our democracy was hijacked, available at: www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy, accessed 17.05.2017Google Scholar
Cadwalladr, C. (2017b). Robert Mercer: The big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media, available at www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farageGoogle Scholar
Cadwalladr, C., & Graham-Harrison, E. (2018). Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach. The Guardian, available at www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election, accessed 18.03.2018.Google Scholar
Cassiman, B., & Veugelers, R. (2006). In search of complementarity in innovation strategy: Internal R&D and external knowledge acquisition. Management Science, 52(1), 68–82.Google Scholar
Chandel, C. (2016). Customer co-creation is the secret of success. Forbes Magazine, June 10, 2016, available at www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2016/06/10/customer_cocreation_secret_sauce/#33c674605b6d, accessed 3.04.2018.Google Scholar
Chesbrough, H. (2003a). The logic of open innovation: Managing intellectual property. California Management Review, 45(3), 33–58.Google Scholar
Chesbrough, H. (2003b). Open innovation: The new imperative for creating and profiting from technology. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Chesbrough, H. (2006a). Open business models: How to thrive in the new innovation landscape. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Chesbrough, H. W. (2006b). The era of open innovation. Managing Innovation and Change, 127(3), 34–41.Google Scholar
Chesbrough, H., & Bogers, M. (2014). Explicating open innovation: Clarifying an emerging paradigm for understanding innovation. In Chesbrough, H., Vanhaverbeke, W., & West, J. (Eds.), New frontiers in open innovation (pp. 3–28). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chesbrough, H. W., & Appleyard, M. M. (2007). Open innovation and strategy. California Management Review, 50(1), 57–76.Google Scholar
Chiaroni, D., Chiesa, V., & Frattini, F. (2011). The open innovation journey: How firms dynamically implement the emerging innovation management paradigm. Technovation, 31(1), 34–43.Google Scholar
Chluski, A., & Ziora, L. (2015). The application of big data in the management of healthcare organizations. A review of selected practical solutions. Zastosowanie Big Data W Zarządzaniu Organizacjami Służby Zdrowia. Przegląd Wybranych Rozwiązań, 1(35), 9–18.Google Scholar
Clausen, T. H. (2013). External knowledge sourcing from innovation cooperation and the role of absorptive capacity: Empirical evidence from Norway and Sweden. Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 25(1), 57–70.Google Scholar
Clegg, S. R., Kornberger, M., & Rhodes, C. (2004). Noise, parasites and translation. Management Learning, 35(1), 31–44.Google Scholar
Cronin, M. A., & Weingart, L. R. (2007). Representational gaps, information processing, and conflict in functionally diverse teams. Academy of Management Review, 32(3), 761–773.Google Scholar
Dahl, R. A. (1957). The concept of power. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 2(3), 201–215.Google Scholar
Dahlander, L., & Gann, D. M. (2010). How open is innovation? Research Policy, 39(6), 699–709.Google Scholar
Dahlander, L., & Piezunka, H. (2014). Open to suggestions: How organizations elicit suggestions through proactive and reactive attention. Research Policy, 43(5), 812–827.Google Scholar
Davidson, S., De Filippi, P., & Potts, J. (2016). Economics of Blockchain. Paper presented at the Public Choice Conference, 2016, Fort Lauderdale, United States.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dellarocas, C. (2004). Building trust on-line: The design of robust reputation mechanisms for online trading communities. In Doukidis, G., Mylonopoulos, N., & Pouloudi, N. (Eds.), Social and economic transformation in the digital era (pp. 95–113). Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing.Google Scholar
Dobusch, L., & Müller-Seitz, G. (2012). Serial Singularities: Developing a Network Organization by Organizing Events. Schmalenbach Business Review, 64: 171-196Google Scholar
Dobusch, L., Dobusch, L., & Müller-Seitz, G. (2017). Closing for the benefit of openness? The case of Wikimedia’s open strategy process. Organization Studies.Google Scholar
Dobusch, L., & Kapeller, J. (2013). Open Strategy between Crowd and Community: Lessons from Wikimedia and Creative Commons. Paper presented at the Academy of Management Proceedings.Google Scholar
Dobusch, L., Seidl, D., & Werle, F. (2015). Opening up the strategy-making process: Comparing open strategy to open innovation. University of Zurich, Institute of Business Administration, UZH Business Working Paper (359).Google Scholar
Edwards, M., Logue, D., & Schweitzer, J. (2015). Towards an understanding of open innovation in services: Beyond the firm and towards relational co-creation. In Argwal, R., Selen, W., Roos, G., & Green, R. (Eds.), The handbook of service innovation (pp. 75–90). London: Springer.Google Scholar
Enkel, E., Gassmann, O., & Chesbrough, H. (2009). Open R&D and open innovation: Exploring the phenomenon. R&D Management, 39(4), 311–316.Google Scholar
Faems, D., De Visser, M., Andries, P., & Van Looy, B. (2010). Technology alliance portfolios and financial performance: Value‐enhancing and cost‐increasing effects of open innovation. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 27(6), 785–796.Google Scholar
Fisher, T. (2009). The data asset: How smart companies govern their data for business success. London: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Flyvbjerg, B. (1998). Rationality and power: Democracy in practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Fox, A. (1974). Beyond contract: Work, power and trust relations. London: Faber & Faber.Google Scholar
Gegenhuber, T., & Dobusch, L. (2017). Making an impression through openness: How open strategy-making practices change in the evolution of new ventures. Long Range Planning, 50(3), 337–354.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1981). Agency, institution, and time-space analysis. In Knorr-Cetina, K. & Cicourel, A. V. (Eds.), Advances in social theory and methodology. Toward an integration of micro-and macro-sociologies (pp. 161–174). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gobble, M. M. (2013). Resources: Big Data: The next big thing in innovation. Research-Technology Management, 56(1), 64–67.Google Scholar
Goodwin, T. (2015). The battle is for the customer interface, Vol. 2017: TechCrunch, available at https://techcrunch.com/2015/03/03/in-the-age-of-disintermediation-the-battle-is-all-for-the-customer-interface, accessed 26.03.2018.Google Scholar
Hardy, C., Lawrence, T. B., & Phillips, N. (2006). Swimming with sharks: Creating strategic change through multi-sector collaboration. International Journal of Strategic Change Management, 1(1–2), 96–112.Google Scholar
Haugaard, M. (2010). Power: A “family resemblance” concept. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 13(4), 419–438.Google Scholar
Heracleous, L, Goesswein, J, & Beaudette, P (2017). Open strategy-making at the Wikimedia foundation: A dialogic perspective. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science.Google Scholar
Howe, J. (2008). Crowdsourcing: How the power of the crowd is driving the future of business. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Hughes, B., & Wareham, J. (2010). Knowledge arbitrage in global pharma: A synthetic view of absorptive capacity and open innovation. R&D Management, 40(3), 324–343.Google Scholar
Huizingh, E. K. R. E. (2011). Open innovation: State of the art and future perspectives. Technovation, 31(1), 2–9.Google Scholar
Kennedy, S., Whiteman, G., & van den Ende, J. (2016). Radical innovation for sustainability: The power of strategy and open innovation. Long Range Planning, 50(6), 712–725.Google Scholar
Kiron, D., & Shockley, R. (2011). Creating business value with analytics. MIT Sloan Management Review, 53(1), 57–63.Google Scholar
Kohler, T. (2015). Crowdsourcing-based business models: How to create and capture value. California Management Review, 57(4), 63–84.Google Scholar
Kornberger, M., Clegg, S. R., & Rhodes, C. (2005). Learning/becoming/organizing. Organization, 12(2), 147–167.Google Scholar
Kornberger, M., Meyer, R. E., Brandtner, C., & Höllerer, M. A. (2017). When bureaucracy meets the crowd: Studying “open government” in the Vienna City Administration. Organization Studies, 38(2), 179–200.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. (2014). The all new Don’t think of an elephant! Know your values and frame the debate. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.Google Scholar
Laursen, K., & Salter, A. (2006). Open for innovation: The role of openness in explaining innovation performance among UK manufacturing firms. Strategic Management Journal, 27(2), 131–150.Google Scholar
Law, J. (1992). Notes on the theory of the actor-network: Ordering, strategy, and heterogeneity. Systems Practice, 5(4), 379–393.Google Scholar
Leimeister, J. M. (2010). Collective intelligence. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 2(4), 245–248.Google Scholar
Lorenzo-Romero, C., Constantinides, E., & Brünink, L. A. (2014). Co-creation: Customer integration in social media based product and service development. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 148, 383–396.Google Scholar
Luedicke, M. K., Husemann, K. C., Furnari, S., & Ladstaetter, F. (2017). Radically open strategizing: How the premium cola collective takes open strategy to the extreme. Long Range Planning, 50(3), 371–384.Google Scholar
Lüttgens, D., Pollok, P., Antons, D., & Piller, F. (2014). Wisdom of the crowd and capabilities of a few: Internal success factors of crowdsourcing for innovation. Journal of Business Economics, 84(3), 339–374.Google Scholar
Macfadyen, L. P., Dawson, S., Pardo, A., & Gasevic, D. (2014). Embracing big data in complex educational systems: The learning analytics imperative and the policy challenge. Research & Practice in Assessment, 9(1), 17–28.Google Scholar
Malhotra, A., Majchrzak, A., & Niemiec, R. M. (2017). Using public crowds for open strategy formulation: Mitigating the risks of knowledge gaps. Long Range Planning, 50(3), 397–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marcuse, H. (2013). One-dimensional man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mattila, J. (2016). The Blockchain Phenomenon – The Disruptive Potential of Distributed Consensus Architectures (No. 38). The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.Google Scholar
McAfee, A., Brynjolfsson, E., Davenport, T. H., Patil, D., & Barton, D. (2012). Big data. The management revolution. Harvard Business Review, 90(10), 61–67.Google ScholarPubMed
McKinsey Quarterly (2017). Safe enough to try: An interview with Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. McKinsey Quarterly, available at www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/safe-enough-to-try-an-interview-with-zappos-ceo-tony-hsieh?cid=other-eml-alt-mkq-mck-oth-1710, accessed 03.04.18Google Scholar
McMillan, C., & Overall, J. (2016). Wicked problems: Turning strategic management upside down. Journal of Business Strategy, 37(1), 34–43.Google Scholar
Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83(2), 340–363.Google Scholar
Morozov, E. (2012). The net delusion: The dark side of Internet freedom. Philadelphia: PublicAffairs.Google Scholar
Morozov, E. (2014). To save everything, click here: The folly of technological solutionism. Philadelphia: PublicAffairs.Google Scholar
Nayak, A., & Chia, R. (2011). Thinking becoming and emergence: Process philosophy and organization studies. In Tsoukas, H. & Chia, R. (Eds.), Philosophy and organization theory (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 32) (pp. 281–309). Bradford: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.Google Scholar
Neeley, T., & Leonardi, P. (2016). Enacting knowledge strategy through social media. Academy of Management Proceedings, 10.5465/AMBPP.2016.14013.Google Scholar
Newstead, B., & Lanzerotti, L. (2010). Can you open-source your strategy? Harvard Business Review, October, 32.Google Scholar
O’Neil, M. (2011). Wikipedia and authority. In Lovink, G. & Tkacz, N. (Eds.), Critical point of view: A Wikipedia reader (pp. 309–324). Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures.Google Scholar
Obal, M., & Lancioni, R. A. (2013). Maximizing buyer-supplier relationships in the Digital Era: Concept and research agenda. Industrial Marketing Management, 42(6), 851–854.Google Scholar
Orlikowski, W. J., & Scott, S. V. (2008). Sociomateriality: Challenging the separation of technology, work and organization. Academy of Management Annals, 2(1), 433–474.Google Scholar
Orlikowski, W. J., & Scott, S. V. (2015). Exploring material‐discursive practices. Journal of Management Studies, 52(5), 697–705.Google Scholar
Piller, F. T., & Walcher, D. (2006). Toolkits for idea competitions: a novel method to integrate users in new product development. R&D Management, 36(3), 307–318.Google Scholar
Pittz, T. G., & Adler, T. (2016). An exemplar of open strategy: Decision-making within multi-sector collaborations. Management Decision, 54(7), 1595–1614.Google Scholar
Prescott, M. (2014). Big data and competitive advantage at Nielsen. Management Decision, 52(3), 573–601.Google Scholar
Richards, N. M., & King, J. H. (2014). Big data ethics. Wake Forest Law Review, 49, 393.Google Scholar
Richardson, T. (2017). Five ways blockchain could revolutionise the sharemarket. Sydney Morning Herald, available at www.smh.com.au/business/investments/five-ways-blockchain-could-revolutionise-the-sharemarket-20171207-p4yxi6.html, accessed 28.03.2018Google Scholar
Schmitt, R. (2010). Dealing with wicked issues: Open strategizing and the Camisea case. Journal of Business Ethics, 96(1), 11–19.Google Scholar
Schutz, A. (1967). The phenomenology of the social world, G. Walsh and F. Lehnert (trans.). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Sharma, R., Mithas, S., & Kankanhalli, A. (2014). Transforming decision-making processes: A research agenda for understanding the impact of business analytics on organisations. European Journal of Information Systems, 23(4), 433–441.Google Scholar
Snow, C. C., Fjeldstad, Ø. D., Lettl, C., & Miles, R. E. (2011). Organizing continuous product development and commercialization: The collaborative community of firms model. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 28(1), 3–16.Google Scholar
Solon, O. (2018). Facebook says Cambridge Analytica may have gained 37 m more users’ data. The Guardian, April 5, 2018, available at www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/04/facebook-cambridge-analytica-user-data-latest-more-than-thought, accessed 16.04.2018Google Scholar
Spaeth, S., von Krogh, G., & He, F. (2014). Research note – Perceived firm attributes and intrinsic motivation in sponsored open source software projects. Information Systems Research, 26(1), 224–237.Google Scholar
Stieger, D., Matzler, K., Chatterjee, S., & Ladstaetter-Fussenegger, F. (2012). Democratizing strategy. California Management Review, 54(4), 44–68.Google Scholar
Swan, M. (2015). Blockchain: Blueprint for a new economy. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media, Inc.Google Scholar
Tapio Lindman, M. (2002). Open or closed strategy in developing new products? A case study of industrial NPD in SMEs. European Journal of Innovation Management, 5(4), 224–236.Google Scholar
Tavakoli, A., Schlagwein, D., & Schoder, D. (2015). Open strategy: Consolidated definition and processual conceptualization. In International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) 2015, Fort Worth, TX, USA.Google Scholar
Terwiesch, C., & Xu, Y. (2008). Innovation contests, open innovation, and multiagent problem solving. Management Science, 54(9), 1529–1543.Google Scholar
Tkacz, N. (2012). From open source to open government: A critique of open politics. ephemera, 12(4), 386–405.Google Scholar
Tremblay, D.-G., & Yagoubi, A. (2017). From open innovation to crowd sourcing: A new configuration of collaborative work? American Journal of Industrial and Business Management, 7(03), 223.Google Scholar
Tucker, C. E. (2014). Social networks, personalized advertising, and privacy controls. Journal of Marketing Research, 51(5), 546–562.Google Scholar
Van de Vrande, V., de Jong, J. P. J., Vanhaverbeke, W., & de Rochemont, M. (2009). Open innovation in SMEs: Trends, motives and management challenges. Technovation, 29(6–7), 423–437.Google Scholar
Van de Vrande, V., Vanhaverbeke, W., & Gassmann, O. (2010). Broadening the scope of open innovation: Past research, current state and future directions. International Journal of Technology Management, 52(3–4), 231–235.Google Scholar
Vanhaverbeke, W., Van de Vrande, V., & Chesbrough, H. (2008). Understanding the advantages of open innovation practices in corporate venturing in terms of real options. Creativity and Innovation Management, 17(4), 251–258.Google Scholar
Vinod, B. (2013). Leveraging BIG DATA for competitive advantage in travel. Journal of Revenue & Pricing Management, 12(1), 96–100.Google Scholar
von Krogh, G., Haefliger, S., Spaeth, S., & Wallin, M. W. (2012). Carrots and rainbows: Motivation and social practice in open source software development. MIS Quarterly, 36(2), 649–676.Google Scholar
West, J., & Bogers, M. (2014). Leveraging external sources of innovation: a review of research on open innovation. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 31(4), 814–831.Google Scholar
West, J., & Gallagher, S. (2006). Challenges of open innovation: The paradox of firm investment in open-source software. R&D Management, 36(3), 319–331.Google Scholar
West, J., Salter, A., Vanhaverbeke, W., & Chesbrough, H. (2014). Open innovation: The next decade. Research Policy, 43(5), 805–811.Google Scholar
Whittington, R., Cailluet, L., & Yakis‐Douglas, B. (2011). Opening strategy: Evolution of a precarious profession. British Journal of Management, 22(3), 531–544.Google Scholar
Whitty, M. T., & Joinson, A. (2008). Truth, lies and trust on the Internet. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Yakis-Douglas, B., Angwin, D., Ahn, K., & Meadows, M. (2017). Opening M&A strategy to investors: Predictors and outcomes of transparency during organisational transition. Long Range Planning, 50(3), 411–422.Google Scholar
Zuboff, S. (2015). Big other: Surveillance capitalism and the prospects of an information civilization. Journal of Information Technology, 30(1), 75–89.Google Scholar
- 3
- Cited by