A review of open strategy: bridging strategy and public management research

ABSTRACT

Strategy research has recently highlighted the need for ‘opening up’ strategy processes to enhance transparency and inclusiveness. Ideas of openness have long been embedded in public management, especially since the governance revolution. However, public management research on strategy processes has mostly neglected how strategy processes are ‘opened up’, rather examining the impact of strategy content and process characteristics on outcomes. By reviewing open strategy studies, this article discusses how organizations can open up their strategy processes. An activity-based theoretical framework centred on purpose, subject, community, object and practices of open strategy is applied and further developed to guide future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Open strategy
• New public governance
• Public value governance
• strategic planning
• strategic management

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2022.2116091.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maria Bak Skov

Jesper Rosenberg Hansen, Ph.D is a Professor in the Department of Management, Aarhus University, Denmark. His research focuses on public management and differences between public and private organizations. Among other things, he has studied strategic management, organizational behaviour, leadership, contracting out, and sector switching.

Madalina Pop is currently working as a postdoc at Aarhus University, Denmark, after completing a PhD in Management at Aarhus University. Her research focuses on interorganizational strategizing for grand challenges from a strategy-as-practice perspective. Her research interests include topics such as smart city, open strategy practices, space and sensemaking.

Maria Bak Skov is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Management, Aarhus University. She is currently involved in research on trust-based management in the public sector. Her primary research interests focus on the dynamics of strategizing, particularly in pluralistic contexts. She has a particular interest in using a practice lens to address the practices and processes through which organizational actors enact strategies.

Bert George

Bert George is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at the City University of Hong Kong. Previous tenured positions have been at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and Ghent University. Bert’s research focuses on strategic planning and management in public administration, public service performance and behavioural public policy. He is managing editor of Public Administration Review.