Adopting Openness with Closed Eyes: Mobilizing Participation in Agile-based Open Strategy Processes

Abstract

Lured by potentials to induce organizational flexibility, Agile methods have been opening up organizations’ strategy processes to broader internal and external actors. While prior literature on open strategy focuses attention on the ‘giving’ of participation in the strategy process, it largely takes the ‘taking’ of participation for granted, as if the prospects of participating would be attractive enough for actors to participate. Our paper extends this literature by denaturalizing participation in the strategy process as an accomplishment that must be effortfully invoked. Based on an in-depth study of the adoption of Agile in the strategy process of a large bureaucratic firm, we identify four bundles of practices through which actors mobilize, but also abstain from participation in open strategy. Thereby, our study extends beyond interests in Agile as a seemingly innocent method for spurring flexibility by conceptualizing it as an organizing form that builds on ‘openness’ as an organizing principle.