Crowdsourcing Strategizing: Communication Technology Affordances and the Communicative Constitution of Organizational Strategy

Abstract

Disruptive environmental trends are forcing organizations to be more innovative in their approaches to organizational strategy generation. Rather than using a traditional top-down approach, some organizations are turning to open strategizing, which involves a large number of stakeholders who communicate in transparent, virtual environments. This study used a case analysis to explore one organization’s use of crowdsourcing technology in a move from a traditional to an open strategizing approach. Drawing on technology affordance and communicative-as-constitutive perspectives, we identified individual and collective crowdsourcing technology affordances for strategizing. Subsequently, we explored how the technology affordances influenced organizational strategizing. Results showed that crowdsourced strategy was constituted as multivoice, divergent, egalitarian, and inclusive.