Date of Conferral

5-6-2025

Date of Award

May 2025

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Public Policy and Administration

Advisor

Lori Demeter

Abstract

It is important within strategic planning to conduct stakeholder analysis and provide stakeholder participation; however, this can be a problem for organizations with a large number of stakeholders. A gap in current research exists regarding the nuanced application of crowdsourcing and open innovation explicitly applied to stakeholder analysis and participation in public organizations’ strategic planning process. While the emerging ideas of open innovation and crowdsourcing can effectively reach stakeholders, their success in involving them has had limited evaluation. The purpose was to determine the extent to which open innovation and crowdsourcing can be used to involve stakeholders in the strategic planning process. The theoretical framework used was Mitchell et al.’s theory of stakeholder identification and salience, which provides strategic planners a method to determine a stakeholder’s significance through an analysis of their influence, legitimacy, and urgency, and served as a lens to address the research problem. This qualitative study used Ying’s single-case study design with embedded multiple units of analysis. Key findings were that the majority of interview participants indicated both crowdsourcing and open innovation would be helpful to include external stakeholder involvement in the strategic planning process if filters were used to help sort out the negative from the positive impacts; strong motivation were used for stakeholders to participate; and the participation was limited to like-minded individuals. The implications related to social change are that it provides the opportunity for potential positive impacts associated with collaboration, advocacy, and civic engagement within the communities served by public organizations with large numbers of stakeholders.

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