Low-power, high-influence : a case of IT-enabled open strategy formulation

Abstract

Despite the advocation for wider participation in strategy formulation, the literature is still dominated by perspectives that emphasize the importance of top and middle managers. In this paper, we focus on the role and potential of low-power actors that reside outside of management positions and influential departments in open strategy formulation. Building on a unique mixed methods study of an IT- enabled open strategy process deployed in a multinational online payments firm, we examine how low-power actors participate and what impact their participation has on the acceptability of ideas generated. Interestingly, low-power actors were more strategically productive than high-power actors, and ideas were most acceptable among the collective when they were solely produced and co- developed by low-power actors and void of any high-power involvement.