Can co-creation lead to better strategy? An exploratory research

In this article, we propose co-creation as a more efficient and effective way of formulating and implementing strategy. We rely on the foundations of procedural justice theory which states that when a decision making process is considered as “fair”, people to whom the process is applied demonstrate a higher level of trust and commitment. A fair process implies that people can voice their opinion and feel part of a group. These two requirements are often not considered enough in “traditional” strategy processes. We identify co-creation as a tool to address the fair process requirements of being heard and belong to a community. Taking these requirements into account will improve both the strategy formulation (e.g. because more and better ideas are generated) and the strategy implementation (e.g. because of a larger buy-in of middle management). Using an exploratory co-creation research setting we explored to what extent corporations are actually following fair process principles in their strategy creation process and what is their appetite for strategy co-creation. From this test, it appeared that major concerns exist with respect to the current strategy creation process and a strong desire to introduce co-creation principles and techniques in that process. Finally, we propose a conceptual model explaining how fair process can be applied through co-creation and lead to improved strategy selection and implementation. As such, we aim to contribute to the analyses of the drivers, the potential and the application of an “open strategy” approach.