EXPRESS: Open Strategy and Traditional Workplace Democracy: Bridging Breadth and Depth of Inclusion

Open Strategy (OS) aims to make strategy making more inclusive. Yet its focus on breadth (engaging many voices) often neglects depth (ensuring those voices count), risking tokenism that undermines durability. To address this deficit, we juxtapose the broad-but-shallow approach of OS with the deep-but-narrow practices of Traditional Workplace Democracy (TWD). From this, we develop a two by two framework that reveals four archetypes of inclusion in strategy making. The framework positions most OS practices as Consultative Strategizing (high breadth, low depth) and TWD as Negotiated Strategizing (low breadth, high depth). To overcome its depth deficit, we propose mechanisms that embed depth in OS without sacrificing breadth, such as the formalization of roles and the delegation of decision rights. Such a synthesis allows moving toward more effective and resilient forms of inclusion, including Co-Governed Strategizing (high breadth, high depth), thereby ensuring that inclusion in strategy making is both meaningful and durable.