Engaging fringe stakeholders for competitive imagination

Executive Overview In a connected world, remote groups at the fringe of a firm's current operations can find common cause, exerting increasing pressure and calling into question the firm's legitimacy and right to operate—witness the recent debacles involving Monsanto, Shell, and Nike. Moreover, the knowledge needed to generate competitive imagination and to manage disruptive change increasingly lies outside the organization, at the periphery of firms' established stakeholder networks. Unfortunately, most companies still tend to focus management attention only on known, salient, or powerful actors to protect their advantages in existing businesses. In recognition of these challenges, we develop the concept of…