My new article, entitled “Sense, seize, reconfigure: online communities as strategic assets,” was recently published in the Journal of Business Strategy. The article was co-authored by my colleagues Matthias Wenzel, Heinz Theo-Wagner and Jochen Koch. Its purpose is to explore and illustrate how organizations may use online communities strategically to adapt to a changing business environment, specifically from a dynamic capabilities perspective. We draw on three cases to show how communities may be used to sense opportunities and threats (case 1: Notebooksbilliger AG), seize opportunities (case 2: BMW Group) and reconfigure organizational assets (case 3: Funke Mediengruppe).
While I’ve always attempted to make my work available as drafts or working papers on this website (see Publications section), this article is my first open access piece, so it’s available to everyone free of charge, i.e. without the usual restrictions of a paywall and limited access through institutional subscriptions, e.g. by university libraries. I’m curious to see how much of a difference the publication format makes when it comes to dissemination and use of the paper. It’s started off well, with more than 450 downloads in the first month.
Reference:
Wagner, D., Wenzel, M., Wagner, H.-T., & Koch, J. 2017. Making strategic use of online communities. Journal of Business Strategy, (38)5: 27-34. [Article]