Strategy formation and corporate citizenship : conversations and decisions that matter

A major deficiency of traditional strategy-making is that most minds within the organisation are not brought into the process. As corporate citizenship becomes imperative, a variety of internal and external stakeholders will seek more involvement in deliberations on business strategy and policy. In this respect, this paper provides a corporate citizenship framework for understanding and designing processes for generating and implementing strategic change. Several generic principles of strategy formation that draws on corporate citizenship are defined: inclusiveness, ethic of reciprocity, psychological safety, ideation and simple rules. These dimensions are illustrated by way of two approaches that have been extensively tested in a variety of organisations: appreciative inquiry and circular organising. We summarise and compare these approaches. As such, a key design parameter appears to be whether the main interest is in 'conversations that matter' or 'decisions that matter'.