CALL FOR PAPERS: OPEN STRATEGY: TOWARDS MORE OPENNESS IN STRATEGY PROCESSES IN R&D

In recent years there has been an increasing interest in “open strategy” among academics and practitioners. The term “open strategy” suggests that openness does not only relate to managing openness in an individual R&D project or in the idea-to-launch process. Open strategic planning implies a more open approach towards managing the strategy and policy processes. Open strategy as a process is emerging in private firms which open up their corporate R&D strategy processes. In addition, public organizations emphasize openness when developing strategies and policies. Openness in strategy processes may appear in many different forms, such as the integration of a large number of internal employees. In addition, there are open strategy processes where organizations engage with external stakeholders to co-create novel strategic ideas for emerging strategic areas. In some cases, open strategy making is more concerned with communication to the public. Participatory strategy processes regularly making use of IT (e.g. crowd-sourcing platforms) which affords novel ways to engage a large number of participants. There are two key dimensions that characterize open strategy making, namely (1) greater internal and external transparency as well as (2) greater inclusiveness of various actors in strategy-making, internal and external. Greater openness on these dimensions is clearly opposed to conventional notions of strategy which treat it as exclusive and secretive rather than inclusive and transparent. Information systems may both afford or constrain openness in strategy processes. With this special session we call for papers that tackle open strategy in R&D and the strategic use of information systems in open strategy in R&D from different perspectives and theoretical lenses (e.g. network theory, micro-political approaches, theory of affordances). We are interested in advancing existing theory and strongly encourage empirical contributions that span both the private as well as the public sector. Submit your abstract (300 words) via https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?key=7862068.n2ODscjZmOin9yU5 Extended Deadline for Submission: January 25, 2014 Session chairs: Sabine Brunswicker, Purdue University Research Center for Open Digital Innovation Industry Partners: Hyve AG (Johann Fueller & Giordano Koch) Extended Deadline for Submission: January 25, 2014 More Information » If you have questions related to the special session, please contact sbrunswi@purdue.edu or giordano.koch@hyve.net. Accepted papers are considered for publication in the R&D Management Journal, Technovation and the International Journal of Technology Management.