Our third meeting
The DFG Network „Digital Strategizing“ held a successful workshop in Berlin on 02.-03.02.2023. Scholars gathered at the HIIG Berlin for a dynamic and enlightening event, full of insightful keynote speeches and productive paper development sessions. The workshop provided a great opportunity for attendees to network with one another, gain new perspectives on their work, and find inspiration for their research.
One of the highlights of the workshop was the keynote speech by Jen Rhymer, which provided valuable insights on the topic of location independent organizing. Another keynote speaker, Hans Berends, delivered a thought-provoking talk on exploring new ways of integrating open science in qualitative research. The attendees were also able to engage in productive discussions during the paper development session and exchange ideas during the research idea/project world coffee session. The workshop ended with a reflection session and farewell, which allowed attendees to reflect on their takeaways and make plans for future research. Overall, the workshop was a great success, providing valuable opportunities for scholars to expand their knowledge and connect with one another.
Second in-person network meeting in Berlin (June 7-8, 2022)
After a period of pandemic-caused virtual meetings, our second in-person meeting occurred at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) in June 2022.
On day one, we had a practitioner input by Dr. Benjamin Seibel, Director of Ideation & Prototyping Lab at Technologiestiftung Berlin. He talked about the Technologiestiftung Berlin’s involvement in the Berlin administration’s strategy development. He emphasized how the strategy process had emerged from practice and contributed to reducing bureaucracy and accelerating the digitization process in the administration while at the same time increasing legitimacy. Afterward, we had a method input by Maximilian Heimstädt on “Digital Strategizing meets Heterodox Computational Social Science.”
On day two, we had two paper development sessions on “Digital Organizing” by Ali Aslan Gümüsay and “Toward a Theory of Organizational Identity as Polyphony” by Matthias Wenzel. In the second part, we divided into two parallel reading groups and discussed recent publications by Henri Schildt on “The Institutional Logic of Digitalization” (Research in Sociology of Organizations) and by Paula Jarzabkowski, Mustafa Kavas, and Elisabeth Krull on “It’s Practice. But is it Strategy? Reinvigorating Strategy-as-Practice by Rethinking Consequentiality” (Organization Theory). Our network co-organizer Violetta Splitter enriched the debates about these articles with a brief presentation on different strategy perspectives. Finally, we closed day two with a reflection and outlook for future meetings and activities.
Virtual Check-in September 2021
The uncertainty of the Corona Crisis combined with the potential breakdown of rail services in Germany (an issue that has been resolved) resulted in another virtual check-in instead of a physical meeting. Nevertheless, our session was very productive.
As a keynote speaker, we invited Krsto Pandza. Krsto Pandza is a Professor of Strategy and Innovation at the Leeds University Business School. He has led Strategy & Organization Subject Group at LUBS and acts as Director of the Centre for Technology Innovation and Engagement. Krsto’s research interests lie at the intersection of strategy, technology innovation and organizational theory. He is increasingly interested in how advanced digital technologies influence processes of strategic decision making and practices of professional strategists and innovation managers. Krsto has won two major EU-funded projects focused on strategic management of technology innovation, which enabled him to collaborate closely with companies such as Ericsson, Intel, GSK, IBM, and Bayer. His keynote featured an inductive case study from a large organization where he and his co-auhtors develop a theoretical framework of bridging between formally established and hierarchically structured strategy processes and participative strategizing in online community.
Following the keynote, we engaged in a research dialogue among our network members to keep each other updated on what we work on, exchange best practices, and kickstart collaborations.
Virtual check-in of our network
The Covid-Crisis makes a physical meeting, which are at the heart of our network funded by the German Research Council (DFG). But the keep the momentum, we decided to do regular digital half-day check-ins to maintain the momentum of our network. For each of these session we invite a keynote speaker.
Our latest digital check-in took place on 1st April 2021. Kristina McElheran from the University of Toronto gave a talk on „Strategic Fit of IT in the Age of Cloud Computing“. In her talk she highlighted in contrast to the discourse, traditional in-house IT structures are not dead. Network member Theresa Langenmayr presented her work on open strategy (together with Violetta Splitter and David Seidl) and got feedback as part of our paper development session.
Network members organize a workshop at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management
Digital technologies such as platforms, big data analytics, and algorithms are reshaping how firms strategize. They are altering the strategy-making processes by rendering them less exclusive and secret and by making them more flexible. Digital technologies are also redefining practices of strategy-making, allowing actors to participate from afar or to utilize the wisdom of the crowd.
To address the dynamics, members of the network organized a workshop at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (online). The workshop gave an overview of recent theoretical and empirical advancements in process and practice studies on digital strategizing, discussed the suitability, advantages and disadvantages of selected theoretical perspectives and methods to further advance corresponding research; and synthesized and shared with the scholarly community the outcomes to sharpen the future research agenda on the processes and practices of digital strategizing. More information and material can be found here: https://sap.aom.org/sap/webinars/digistrat
The digital second network meeting
Due to the ongoing pandemic, we held our second network meeting online. Although we would have preferred to meet and discuss in person, the digital environment was also inspirational for our digital strategizing network.
During the first session we were discussing the (for us) fundamental question “What is digital strategy (in SAP research)?”. This was followed by two enlightening paper presentations by two network members Violetta Splitter and Matthias Wenzel. The second day started with a keynote by Leonhard Dobusch on “Digital Strategy between Communicating Strategy and Strategic Communication”. Here, we had a lively discussion around how digital strategy communication constitutes organizational identities. We concluded with a session on AI (artificial intelligence) talking about potential research projects in the field of digital strategizing. Joint lunches and coffee breaks also enabled informal chats about topics such as teaching in times of a pandemic.
Our second meeting: Cancelled due to Corona Crisis
We planned our second meeting to take place in March 2020 in Berlin. Due to the Corona Crisis we cancelled and postponed the meeting. Our next meeting will hopefully happen in September at the University of Lüneburg.
The first meeting at WU Vienna
Our first meeting took place at WU Vienna in November 2019. On day one we had a Keynote from Felix Stalder, professor for Digital Culture at the Zurich University of the Arts on “The Digital Condition), and from Richard Whittington (University of Oxford), who talked about the “Digitalization of strategy making – Implications from a SAP perspective”. On day two we focused on what we want to do and how we want to work together in this network.
Digital Strategizing Network at AOM 2019
The symposium was our international kick-off for our DFG Research Network on Digital Strategizing. One purpose of our network is turn scholarly attention to the topic digital strategizing. Hence, we organized a symposium on digital strategizing at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Boston (August 2019).
Scholarship on value creation and capture on digital platforms, in ecosystems, and through online communities is growing rapidly. However, we still have a limited understanding of the implications of digital technologies for strategy making. To break new grounds in this direction, our symposium assembles distinguished scholars to discuss, across scholarly domains, the opportunities of digital technologies for strategy making; the challenges of digital technologies for strategy making; and the role of digitally-mediated actors (such as crowds and ecosystems participants) and of digital tools (such as idea platforms and big data analytics) for strategy making. Moreover, in line with the overall conference theme, the symposium reflects upon an integrated understanding of digital strategizing across different scholarly views and management domains.
Our distinguished panelists were:
Shahzad Ansar, Cambridge University
Tomi MM Laamanen, University of St. Gallen
Ann Majchrzak, University of Southern California
Richard Whittington, University of Oxford
You can find the slides in a project update of our research gate group.
Digital Strategizing Network 