Dealing with Wicked Issues: Open Strategizing and the Camisea Case

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate, based on an extensive study of the Shell-led Camisea gas project in Peru, how what we believe to be a new approach to dealing with stakeholders, focusing on sense-making and combining industry dynamics and stakeholder empowerment, was developed. The project's success was measured by the fact that, unlike similar projects around the world, it did not meet with major opposition during its 4-year life span. Those involved in the Camisea project succeeded in creating an open approach to building stakeholder relationships, allowing them to navigate through a number of diverse and challenging socio-political and ecological issues. An integral part of Shell's approach was acting upon its commitment to high standards of operation and values. The insights from this case clearly indicate that stakeholder management and theorizing can profit from a less controlled, open and sense-making oriented strategizing with stakeholders.

Zones of participation (and non-participation) in open strategy: Desirable, actual and undesirable

“…First, we derived a zones of participation (and non-participation) model that shows why participation in open strategy is the result of the firm's strategy and individuals' capability and willingness to participate. Our model builds on work that shows the agency of middle managers (Wooldridge et al, 2008;Teulier & Rouleau, 2013;Wright et al, 2016) and other stakeholders (Appleyard & Chesbrough, 2017;Yanow, 2004;Chesbrough & Appleyard, 2007;Schmitt, 2011) in strategizing. We extended this by showing how actors' choices to participate in open strategy are shaped by firm-level and individual-level tensions related to inclusion and transparency.…”

“…Yet, those lower in the hierarchy have also been shown to have contributions to strategizing beyond simply carrying out its implementation, demonstrating an important and sustained role by middle managers (Mantere, 2008;Wooldridge, Schmid, & Floyd, 2008;Teulier & Rouleau, 2013;Wright et al, 2016) and other stakeholders beyond the managerial ranks in strategy processes. Driven by organizational, societal, cultural and technological forces (Whittington et al, 2011), the opening-up of strategy beyond the managerial ranks occurs either downwards (i.e., to include organizational members lower in the hierarchy (Yanow, 2004;Teulier & Rouleau, 2013) or outwards (i.e., to include interactions with key actors, such as governments (Schmitt, 2011), suppliers (Tavakoli et al, 2017), competitors, and users (Appleyard & Chesbrough, 2017;Chesbrough & Appleyard, 2007).…”

Corporate-community engagement strategies in the Niger Delta: Some critical reflections’

“…This, for example, is in contrast to the Camisea case described by Schmitt, 2010, where Royal Dutch Shell adopted an open, less controlled and power sharing strategy with the communities. According to Schmitt, 2010, this strategy meant that the project in return did not face any major opposition over its four-year life span and was also able to gain community support. Thirdly, internal fragmentation within communities due to the rentier context in the Niger Delta often means that different factions within local communities are likely to compete to secure oil related largess.…”

The Politics of Openness

“…Open strategy is based on principles of inclusiveness and transparency (Amrollahi & Ghapnchi, 2016); it builds stakeholder relationships (Schmitt, 2010) and improves engagement of internal and external actors (Dobusch & Kapeller, 2013). Examples of open approaches to strategy have been documented in IBM (Bjelland & Wood, 2008) Red Hat (Gast and Zanini, 2012) and the Wikimedia Foundation (Dobusch & Kapeller, 2013).…”