Open Strategy in a Smart City

Suvi Einola; Marko Kohtamäki; Harri Hietikko

doi:10.22215/timreview/1267

Technology Innovation Management Review (Sep 2019)

Open Strategy in a Smart City

Suvi Einola,
Marko Kohtamäki,
Harri Hietikko

Affiliations

Suvi Einola: <div>University of Vaasa</div><div>D.Sc. (Admin) Suvi Einola is Assistant Professor at the University of Vaasa. She acts as a program manager of the Master’s Programme in Strategic Business Development. Before joining academia, she worked in the public sector for fifteen years, holding managerial, training, and development responsibilities. In her research, Einola focuses on strategic practices and servitization challenges both in public and private organizations. Her articles have been published in journals and books focused on both the public sector and industrial marketing.</div><div> </div>
Marko Kohtamäki: <div>University of Vaasa</div><div>D.Sc. (Econ) Marko Kohtamäki is Professor of Strategy and Director of the ‘Strategic Business Development’ (SBD) research group at the University of Vaasa. Professor Kohtamäki is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN). He takes special interest in industrial service business or servitization, strategic practices, and business intelligence in technology companies. He has published in several distinguished international journals, such as Strategic Management Journal, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, and Industrial Marketing Management, among others.</div><div> </div>
Harri Hietikko: <p>City of Vaasa</p><p>D.Sc. (Admin) Harri Hietikko is Development Manager at the City of Vaasa and a published author of several works. He has written crime fiction, nonfiction and plays that have been performed on several theater stages. In 2008, Hietikko received his doctorate from the University of Tampere on the subject “Power, Leadership, Destruction and Hope in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.” In 2010, a Finnish publisher launched Hietikko’s nonfiction work Management by Sauron – The Lord of the Rings Guide to Leadership, a guidebook on the practicalities of working life and leadership skills that draws on the characters and events of Tolkien’s famous novel. In 2018, this work was also published in Germany by Franz Vahlen.</p>

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22215/timreview/1267
Journal volume & issue: Vol. 9, no. 9
pp. 36 – 44

Abstract

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To attract new companies and a talented workforce in a way that increases income streams, cities are searching for strategic capabilities by using a variety of strategic practices. The present study participates in the theoretical debate between micro- and macro-strategizing by focusing on the interplay between the city organization and its institutional environment. As such, the study elucidates the open strategy process used in the strategy work of a medium-sized city in Finland. To make the strategy work open and encourage citizens’ participation, the city decided to utilize crowdsourcing as a tool that was part of a broader strategy process to develop a city strategy in a participative manner. The present study analyzes the responses of almost 2000 citizens who addressed the role of an open strategy in developing a smart city. The study contributes by depicting how the open strategy was utilized in practice and what types of outcomes it produced.

Published in Technology Innovation Management Review

ISSN: 1927-0321 (Online)
Publisher: Carleton University
Country of publisher: Canada
LCC subjects: Technology: Technology (General); Social Sciences: Industries. Land use. Labor: Management. Industrial management
Website: http://timreview.ca

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