Strategic Organization—Collective Strategy: Exploring the Contemporary Landscape of How Organization

The guest co-editorial team will be organizing an online information workshop on 19th September 2024, from 9-11 AM (EDT – Montreal), to assist authors interested in submitting to the special issue. The workshop will have two parts: first, an open session providing an overview of the special issue, including its themes and the editorial team’s submission expectations. The second part will be an exclusive feedback session for authors who have submitted a 500-word abstract in advance. Here, using a breakout format, the editorial team will provide preliminary feedback to authors on submission admissibility, offer advice regarding quality criteria, and address any queries. Please note, participation in the workshop does not guarantee subsequent paper acceptance. You can register for the workshop here: https://hecmontreal.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0vdeCoqTkpGNxqPmtmikNmgVVdbUFyKSvB#/registration.

Please submit abstracts latest by September 12th to: tatbeeq.razaullah@ntu.ac.uk.

Tatbeeq Raza-Ullah, Nottingham Trent University (tatbeeq.razaullah@ntu.ac.uk)

Saouré Kouamé, University of Ottawa (kouame@telfer.uottawa.ca)

Fleur Deken, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (f.deken@vu.nl)

Maria Bengtsson, Umeå University (maria.bengtsson@umu.se)

Aija Leiponen, Cornell University (aija.leiponen@cornell.edu)

Charlotte Cloutier, HEC Montreal (charlotte.cloutier@hec.ca)

The contemporary landscape reveals growing interest in new contexts for the study of collective strategy and strategizing. Collective strategy is indeed a necessity for organizations participating in the digital platform-based economy (Garud et al., 2022), open and collaborative innovation (Appleyard and Chesbrough, 2017; Deken et al., 2018; Laursen and Salter, 2020), open social innovation (Mair et al., 2023), global ecosystems and platforms (Nambisan et al., 2019), industry-wide standards, rules and norm-setting (Cloutier et al., 2023; Leiponen, 2008), the establishment and maintenance of private regulatory initiatives (Dinckol et al., 2023; Gurses and Ozcan, 2015), and collective movements and actions aimed at social change (e.g. Bridoux and Stoelhorst, 2022; Kouamé et al., 2022). These new contexts invite organizations to reframe known approaches like coopetition (Bengtsson and Kock, 2000; Brandenburger and Nalebuff, 1996; Yami et al., 2010) and reconsider how organizations define shared goals and navigate the conflicting interests of partners (e.g. Ansari et al., 2016; Raza-Ullah, 2020), among other concerns.

In the early 1980s, Fombrun and Astley (1983) laid the conceptual foundation for collective strategy, arguing that “companies must begin to view strategy from a collectivistic perspective” (p. 47). They defined collective strategy as “the joint formulation of policy and implementation of action by the members of interorganizational collectivities” (Astley, 1984: 526). Grounding their insights in the ecological and systems approach within organizational studies, these pioneering scholars posited that the intricate interdependence among organizations often required collective action, notably for navigating communal adaptation to the environment. Today’s interorganizational relationships, however, extend beyond managing interdependent interactions. Environments have become more complex and fast changing, the scope of collective strategy broader, its aims and focus more enduring, and the roles of partners, more ambiguous and changing. Renewed interest in collectivistic perspectives on strategy and strategy-making is thus both warranted and timely.

This special issue focuses on exploring and deepening our understanding of collective strategy as it unfolds and plays out in these new and dynamic contexts. Fruitful areas of inquiry include initiatives aiming to address societal challenges (Couture et al., 2023; Hilbolling et al., 2022; Zuzul, 2019), industries facing the potentially disruptive effects of digital innovations (Ansari et al., 2016; Khanagha et al., 2022), and cross-sector partnering for social innovation, among others. We are interested in research that raises new questions about the dynamics of interorganizational dependencies and collective agency that is likely to shed new light and theories on how organizations strategize together for a common purpose.

We invite both conceptual and empirical contributions employing qualitative or quantitative methods, or a combination, with a focus on, but not limited to, the following themes and questions: