Conference “Organizing Crowds & Innovation“, Saïd Business School & Nuffield College, University of Oxford, October 30-31, 2015

1. Open Strategy-making Between Crowd and Community
Lessons from Wikimedia and Creative Commons
Conference “Organizing Crowds & Innovation“
Saïd Business School & Nuffield College, University of Oxford
October 30-31, 2015
Leonhard Dobusch
Freie Universität Berlin
Jakob Kapeller
Johannes Kepler University Linz

2. From Open Innovation…
§ Organizations increasingly rely on contributions by
external actors in innovation and beyond
(e.g. Baldwin & von Hippel, 2011; Dell’Era & Verganti, 2010; O’Mahony & Ferraro, 2007)
§ Open innovation is an ‘open strategy’but
not open strategy-making
(Chesbrough & Appleyard, 2007; Whittington et al. 2011)
>> strategically relevant ideas from external actors in
open innovation processes (e.g. Bayus 2013; Yoo et al. 2012)
Leonhard Dobusch & Jakob Kapeller

3. …to Open Strategy-making
§ Organizations invite external actors to participate in
strategy-making processes
(Doz & Kosonen, 2008; Matzler et al. 2014)
§ Particularly important for organizations that already
rely on external crowds and communities
>> open strategy-making with different types of
external actors
Leonhard Dobusch & Jakob Kapeller

4. Crowd! Community!
Public tasks of surveying and classify craters on Mars.
Kanefsky et al., 2001"
Community structure of modules in the apache project
González-Barahona et al., 2004"
Examples from: Müller-Birn, C.: How applicable are conditions for success in online peer-production communities for scientific communities?
Invited Talk. Institute for Research Information and Quality Assurance, 11/2012
Leonhard Dobusch & Jakob Kapeller
Members interact and
self-identify as members
(Jarvenpaa & Lang, 2011; O’Mahony,
2007; O’Mahony & Lakhani, 2012)
Members share a common
practice in isolation
(Bonabeau, 2009; Jeppesen & Lakhani,
2010; Surowiecki, 2004)

5. Research Question
How do organizations that rely on
contributions by crowds and communities
perform open strategy-making?
Leonhard Dobusch & Jakob Kapeller

6. § U.S. Non-Profit with network of
100+ affiliate organizations
§ Provides set of alternative copyright
licenses
§ Community of copyright lawyers
§ Crowd of Creative Commons
license users
§ U.S. charitable organization with
network of 40+ chapter associations
§ Provides infrastructure for
Wikipedia, Wiktionary, etc.
§ Community of volunteer
contributors („Wikipedians“)
§ Crowd of Wikipedia readers
Case Comparison
Leonhard Dobusch & Jakob Kapeller
Data:
~100 semi-structured interviews, mailing-lists, wikis and websites

7. Community of
Wikipedians
Wikimedia
Crowd of
Creative
Commons
license users
Creative
Commons
formal organization community
Crowd of
Wikipedia
readers
crowd
Community of
copyright lawyers
Leonhard Dobusch & Jakob Kapeller

8. Open Strategy Initiatives
Leonhard Dobusch & Jakob Kapeller
2001 2002 2003 2005 2006 2007 2008 20102009
Initiative CC#2:
Defining NCInitiative CC#1: Explaining NC
2004 2011
Initiative CC#3:
Versioning NC
2012
Initiative
WM#2:
Strategy
Process
Initiative
WM#1:
Relicensing
Initiative WM#3:
SOPA/PIPA
Protest
Foundation of
Creative Commons
Foundation of
Wikipedia
Foundation of
Wikimedia
Launch of CC
licenses 1.0

9. Data set CC1:
52 interviews
Strategy initiative CC#1:
Explaining NC
Case Selection Categorization
Data Sets Strategy
Practices
Data set CC2:
2 mailing-lists
Strategy initiative CC#2:
Defining NC
Reporting practices
- Collecting opinions from
external actors
- Collecting suggestions
Democratic practices
- Registering voters
- Voting
Exclusive practices
- Condensing suggestions and
communicating decisions
Data set CC3:
website/wiki pages
Strategy initiative CC#3:
Versioning NC
Data set WM1:
47 interviews
Strategy initiative WM#1:
Re-licensing
Strategy initiative WM#2:
Strategy process
Data set WM3:
website/wiki pages
Strategy initiative WM#3:
SOPA/PIPA protest
CreativeCommonsWikimedia
Data set WM2:
1 mailing-list
Reviewing practices
- Reporting of and exchange
on different interpretations
and applications
- Negotiating interpretations
and objectives
- Discussing suggestions
- Petitioning

10. Open Strategy-making Practices
Emerging open strategy-making
practices
Practice
category
Description
Degree of
Openness
-- Condensing suggestions and
communicating decisions
Exclusive
practices
Centralized
strategizing
very low
-- Collecting opinions from external
actors
-- Collecting suggestions
Reporting
practices
unidirectional
provision of inputs
-- Reporting of and exchange on
different interpretations and
applications
-- Negotiating interpretations and
objectives
-- Discussing suggestions
-- Petitioning
Reviewing
practices
interactive
discourse on
strategy-making
-- Registering voters
-- Voting
Democratic
practices
transfer of decision
power to external
actors
Leonhard Dobusch & Jakob Kapeller
very high

11. Example WM#3: SOPA/PIPA Protests
Leonhard Dobusch & Jakob Kapeller
§ Reporting: proposals for protest activities
§ Reviewing: discussions on Wikipedia
§ Democratic: publicly support or oppose
§ Exclusive: definite decision made by HQ

12. Leonhard Dobusch & Jakob Kapeller
Crowds and Communities in a Continuum
of Openness in Strategy-making

13. Discussion & Conclusion
Greater variety of strategy-making practices:
§ Intensified interaction but also loss of control
§ Different practices with crowds and communities
Variants of closure in open strategy-making:
§ Mostly: exclusive practices for decision-making…
§ …but also: democratic practices as alternatives
Communities actively seek participation:
§ Interlinking actors to transform crowds in
communities?
Leonhard Dobusch & Jakob Kapeller

14. Thank you.