Open Strategy

Introduction

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Readings
• Stadler, C., Hautz, J., Matzler, K., & Friedrich von den Eichen, S.
2021a. Open Strategy: Mastering Disruption from Outside the C-
Suite. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Additional articles:
• Hautz, J, Seidl, D& Whittington, R (2017), Open Strategy:
Dimensions, Dilemmas, Dynamics. Long Range Planning, 50, 298-
309.
• Stadler, C., Hautz, J., Matzler, K., & Friedrich von den Eichen, S.
2021. Open Up Your Strategy. MIT Sloan Management Review,
December 2021.
• Stadler, C., Hautz, J., Matzler, K., & Von den Eichen, S. F. 2021. A
User’s Guide to Open Strategy. Harvard Business Review, November(
https://hbr.org/2021/11/balancing-open-innovation-with-protecting-ip).
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Course Map: Learning how to use Open Strategy
Getting ready
- Traditional strategy come undone (Chapter 1)
- Are you ready for open strategy? (Chapter 2)
- Designing your open strategy process (Chapter 3 and 4)
Strategic Ideas
- Harness the wisdom of the crowd (Chapter 5)
- Peer into the future(Chapter 6)
- Disrupt yourself before others do (Chapter 7)
Strategy Formulation
- Develop killer business model (Chapter 8)
- Use the crowd to develop better strategies (Chapter 9)
Strategy Execution
- Execute better (Chapter 10)
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Questions for today

• How can Open Strategy help you to

win?

• Is Open Strategy tried-and-tested or

an entirely new concept?

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Why open strategy?

5
6
 Open Strategy in-
creases commitment
7
to strategy 0

Open Strategy in-

creases number &
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diversity of ideas 9
7
Proportion of strategy initiatives which are open 1/3

Revenue and profit from openess 50%

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Exercise
• Group 1: think of a few situations
when open strategy is not a good
idea
• Group 2: think of a few situations
when open strategy is a good idea

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A bit of history

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 Shift towards more open forms of
Shifting to…. strategy-making, with more
Democratizing
transparency and more inclusion
Innovation
(von Hippel, 2005) (Whittington, Cailluet, & Yakis-
Strategy is not only Douglas, 2011)
created by people at the
top of a company or its
planning department. Open Innovation Crowdsourcing
(Prahalad, 1995) (Chesbrough, 2003) (Howe, 2008)

1995 2000 2005 2010

"Strategy making must be democracy of ideas

democratic ... (Hamel, 1996) (Hamel, 2007)

Widsom of the Crowd

(Surowiecki, 2004)
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Increased openness….

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What exactly is Open
Strategy?

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Open Strategy is a dynamic bundle of
practices that affords internal and external
actors greater strategic transparency and/or
inclusion, the balance and extent of which
respond to evolving contingencies derived
from both within and without organizational
boundaries.
HAUTZ, J., SEIDL, D. & WHITTINGTON, R. (2017), "Open strategy: Dimensions, dilemmas, dynamics", Long Range
Planning, 50, 3, pp. 298-309. 14
Dimensions of Open Strategy

Transparency is “the
internal or external
visibility of
information about an
organization’s
strategy.”
(Hautz et al., 2017, p.
299)
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Dimensions of Open Strategy

Inclusion concerns
external and internal
consultation in order to
exchange “information,
views and proposals
intended to shape the
continued evolution of an
organization’s strategy”
(Hautz et al., 2017) 16
Sub-dimension of Openness

Seidl, D., von Krogh, G., & Whittington, R. 2019. Defining open strategy: Dimensions, practices, impacts, and perspectives. In D. Seidl, G. von Krogh,
& R. Whittington (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Open Strategy: 9-26. Cambridge, Uk: Cambridge University Press.

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What you will learn
in this course

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19
Takeaways

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• Open Strategy is an effective approach to
• Generate new ideas
• Improve execution

• Open Strategy builds on prior concepts such as Open

Innovation

• A growing number of firms win by opening up their

strategy

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