Space and the Dynamic Between Openness and Closure: Open strategizing in the TV series Borgen

In this paper we examine how the use of space shapes the dynamic between openness and closure in open strategizing. To do this, we draw from research that has defined organizational space as a process that is both a social product and produces social relations. We analysed the use of space in open strategizing in the Danish TV series and political drama Borgen. In our analysis we focused on three building blocks of space: boundaries, distance and movement, that allowed us to elaborate how the dynamic between openness and closure is shaped. Drawing on our analysis, we revealed three spatial features – physical visibility, strategizing artefacts, discursive designation – that play a role in the dynamic between openness and closure in strategizing. We constructed a conceptual framework that shows how these spatial features, and their different combinations, are associated with pivots between openness and closure. Thus, our findings advance prior open strategy research by providing potential explanations of why openness turns to closure, despite the attempts to keep the strategizing process open. We argue that taking space seriously provides a more nuanced understanding to some of the contingencies and possibilities related to the dynamics of openness and closure in strategizing.

For the future to be open, space must be open too. (Massey, 2005, p. 11) The argument about openness/closure [. . .] should not be posed in terms of abstract spatial forms but in terms of the social relations through which the spaces and that openness and closure are constructed [. . .] (Massey, 2005, p. 165) Recent research has shown open strategy to be a multifaceted and highly dynamic phenomenon (Seidl, von Krogh, & Whittington, 2019) highlighting that openness in strategizing also entails closure (Dobusch, Dobusch, & Müller-Seitz, 2019). Focusing on the two dimensions of openness, namely transparency and inclusion (Hautz, Seidl, & Whittington, 2017;Whittington, Cailluet, & Yakis-Douglas, 2011) research has already examined the dynamics of openness in terms of who should be included or excluded in the strategy process at the organizational (Mack & Szulanski, 2017;Vaara, Rantakari, & Holstein, 2019) and inter-organizational level (Seidl & Werle, 2018); what kind of information should be shared and to what extent (Malhotra, Majchrzak, & Niemiec, 2017); and how openness can be promoted or impeded (Whittington & Yakis-Douglas, 2020). However, the question of 'where' has gained less attention and left the role of organizational space untheorized in open strategy research. Thus, we need to build a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which material and social production of space shapes the dynamic between openness and closure in open strategizing.
In this paper, we address this question of 'where' of open strategizing. Recent scholarship on organizational space (Beyes & Holt, 2020;Beyes & Steyaert, 2012;Stephenson, Kuismin, Putnam, & Sivunen, 2020;Weinfurtner & Seidl, 2019) has conceptualized space as a social and relational phenomenon as much as a material or physical location. These studies draw from Lefebvre's (1991) idea of space as a process that is both a social product and produces social relations. In this vein, we refer to organizational space as the location that emerges constitutively from organizational activities, objects, arrangements and social practices (Beyes & Steyaert, 2012;Stephenson et al., 2020). Embedded in this understanding, we examine the use of space through its three key building blocks: boundaries, distance and movement (Weinfurtner & Seidl, 2019) that allows us to elaborate how the dynamic between openness and closure is shaped. We ask the following research question: How does the use of space shape the dynamic between openness and closure in strategizing?
To answer this question, we draw on the Danish TV series Borgen. Borgen is a political drama that follows the rise and fall of a politician, Birgitte Nyborg, as leader first of the 'Moderates' then of her new party the 'New Democrats'. The TV series tracks her path to Prime Minister, subsequent defeat and exit from politics, and then her return. Borgen is the nickname of Denmark's Christiansborg Palace, which houses the Danish Parliament, Prime Minister's office and Supreme Court. Borgen depicts open strategizing with diverse stakeholders and reveals openness in strategizing procedures (Dobusch et al., 2019;Hautz et al., 2017). In our analysis of Borgen, we use visual fiction to examine the connections between openness and the use of space, because space is relatively difficult to textualize with more conventional research approaches (Holt & Zundel, 2014;Panayiotou & Kafiris, 2011). Visual fiction is fiction that is dramatized through entertainment media, such as TV or film. Moreover, visual fiction is relevant since it lends openness to our research process. Our analysis reveals three spatial features -physical visibility, strategizing artefacts, discursive designation -that shaped the dynamic between openness and closure. Our findings suggest that these spatial features, in different and varying combinations, are associated with pivots that are potential turning points in the dynamic between openness and closure.
Our study contributes to research on open strategy (Hautz et al., 2017;Seidl et al., 2019;Whittington et al., 2011) and open organizing (Kornberger, Meyer, Brandtner, & Höllerer, 2017;Tkacz, 2012) by examining how the use of space shapes the dynamic between openness and closure. While strategy practice research has already suggested how the use of space both enables and constrains strategizing (Hydle, 2015;Jarzabkowski, Burke, & Spee, 2015) our study provides a potential explanation as to why, despite the attempts to keep the strategizing process open, open strategizing eventually turns towards closure. Second, we provide a conceptual framework that elucidates how spatial features and their use, in different combinations, are associated with pivots in the dynamic between openness and closure.

Openness and space in organizing
Openness has become increasingly pervasive as a new form of organizing (Puranam, Alexy, & Reitzig, 2014) not least due to the development of new technologies (Zammuto, Griffith, Majchrzak, Dougherty, & Faraj, 2007) since technology plays a key role both in terms of who is included and what is the extent of information shared (Faraj, von Krogh, Monteiro, & Lakhani, 2016;Kornberger et al., 2017). As an organizational concept, openness is connected to notions of participation, collaboration and transparency (Tkacz, 2012) and associated with collaboration both inside and outside organizations to increase knowledge, creativity, or scientific discovery (von Krogh & Geilinger, 2019). However, from the perspective of organizational space, openness is mainly mediated through digital or virtual spaces that provide the architectures and affordances of openness (Chesbrough, 2003;Puranam et al., 2014).
With the focus on digital and virtual spaces, open organizing research has empirically examined open source software development, webpages and digital forums (O'Mahony & Bechky, 2008;Puranam et al., 2014;von Hippel & von Krogh, 2003). On the one hand, this research has shown how even in the absence of physical space, hard-to-codify knowledge such as competence and experience can be shared (Faraj et al., 2016). On the other hand, scholars have shown the limits of this knowledge sharing in virtual spaces, as the principles of openness clash with more traditional forms of organizing (Kornberger et al., 2017). However, in open organizing, consideration of space and particularly physical space has still largely been addressed implicitly (Kornberger & Clegg, 2004).

Open strategy and space
Strategy scholars have similarly interpreted openness as a new mode of being  and defined open strategy as a 'dynamic bundle of practices that affords internal and external actors' greater strategic transparency and/or inclusion, the balance and extent of which respond to evolving contingencies derived from both within and without organizational boundaries' (Hautz et al., 2017, p. 298). As a dynamic phenomenon, openness in strategizing also entails closure to some extent (Dobusch et al., 2019). By focusing on the two dimensions of openness -transparency and inclusion (Whittington et al., 2011) -open strategy research has already elaborated questions of who participates (Vaara et al., 2019) or is included (Hutter, Nketia, & Füller, 2017;Mack & Szulanski, 2017), what information should be visible and available (Malhotra et al., 2017), and how openness is enabled (Gegenhuber & Dobusch, 2017). A few studies have also distinguished between participation as gathering informational inputs from stakeholders and inclusion as fostering the commitment of participants to organizational strategizing (Mack & Szulanski, 2017;Quick & Feldman, 2011).
However, open strategy research has dealt with the question of space implicitly rather than explicitly, not least because open strategy research has mainly focused on openness mediated through digital and virtual spaces (Dobusch et al., 2019;Hutter et al., 2017;Luedicke, Husemann, Furnari, & Ladstaetter, 2017). Nonetheless, digital and virtual spaces have played a key role in dematerializing structural and social barriers of openness, thereby promoting equal opportunities for both participation and idea development (Mount, Clegg, & Pitsis, 2020). For example, Luedicke and colleagues (2017) examined email participation as a form of radically open strategizing and showed how virtual spaces may promote transparency, although not necessarily inclusion. Similarly, Hutter and colleagues' (2017) study of online crowdsourcing projects showed that virtual spaces alone were insufficient to create senses of community or belonging.
As one of the pivotal studies of open strategy research, Dobusch and colleagues (2019) examined how open strategizing practices enact ideals of organizational openness. They studied how the use of wikis promoted the involvement of actors, both internal and external to the organization, alongside their access to sensitive information. As virtual spaces of open strategizing, wikis represent a collaborative workspace of interlinked webpages, where all actors could amend and modify text, both in terms of content and structure (Dobusch et al., 2019). However, their study showed how openness in shaping strategy content was also dependent on forms of closure. Moreover, Dobusch and colleagues (2019) argued that openness should not be interpreted simply in terms of a lack of organizational structure since unstructured openness may lead to exclusion in strategizing. Last, in one of the rare studies examining open strategy beyond virtual spaces, Splitter, Jarzabkowski and Seidl (2021) showed that even with the intention to increase participation in strategizing, openness remains challenging and requires closure.

Space and strategizing
While the notion of space has not yet received explicit attention in open organizing or open strategy research beyond virtual space, strategy process and practice research has touched upon questions of organizational space more broadly (Healey, Hodgkinson, Whittington, & Johnson, 2015;Hydle, 2015;Jarzabkowski et al., 2015). Conceptually, space both enables and constrains strategizing since physical surroundings impact how we perceive and respond to stimulus (Lê & Spee, 2015) and plays a role both in enacting and setting out future strategizing (Jarzabkowski et al., 2015).
Strategy process studies have addressed how spaces designed for strategizing purposes such as boardrooms (Hodgkinson & Wright, 2002) and strategy workshops held off-site (Healey et al., 2015;Johnson, Prashantham, Floyd, & Bourque, 2010) shape strategizing. These spaces allow multiple participants to influence strategizing, especially by challenging current strategies, innovating and focusing on future needs (Concannon & Nordberg, 2018;Hodgkinson, Whittington, Johnson, & Schwarz, 2006;Johnson et al., 2010). By distancing participants from the constraints of everyday surroundings, boardrooms and workshops may be considered liminal spaces for strategizing, namely 'in between' and 'unstable' (Concannon & Nordberg, 2018;Johnson et al., 2010). However, this liminality comes with a caveat since the outcomes are not usually integrated within everyday strategic decision-making (Johnson et al., 2010).
Strategy practice research has shifted attention to everyday spaces of strategizing. Jarzabkowski and colleagues (2015) examined how actors constructed strategizing spaces through orchestrations of bodily, material and discursive resources. By focusing on spaces as multimodal, social accomplishments, Jarzabkowski and colleagues (2015) illustrated the processual and fluid use of space. They revealed various transition points in the use of space and showed that the construction of spaces-within-spaces is critical to accomplishing strategic outcomes. In addition, Hydle's (2015) study of spatiotemporal dimensions examined the use of space in shifts between deliberate and nondeliberate strategizing (Chia & Holt, 2006). Hydle (2015) showed that when actors share the same physical space their interactions tend to be more social and informal and inform non-deliberate strategizing. In contrast, when actors are in different physical spaces but share temporality, interaction requires more facilitation and management, informing deliberate strategizing instead.
In sum, strategy process and practice research has elaborated various ways in which different spaces and their use may influence strategizing and its outcomes. More specifically, studies have shown how spaces such as boardrooms and off-site locations are planned and arranged to support strategizing, and how these spaces are used by strategists (Healey et al., 2015;Hodgkinson & Wright, 2002;Johnson et al., 2010). Thus, we suggest that to build a more nuanced understanding of the connection between the use of space and strategizing, we also need to look at spaces that are unexpected and not prearranged for a strategizing purpose. Similarly, while open strategy research has taken the distinctive step to explicitly examine the dimensions of openness, namely inclusion and transparency , this openness still needs to be considered in terms of space. Given that openness unfolds through the dynamic between openness and closure (Dobusch et al., 2019), what remains to be explored are the various ways the use of space may shape this dynamic. These are not just theoretical gaps per se, but also missed opportunities to deepen our understanding of the contingencies and possibilities of open strategizing more broadly. This is why we next take a closer look at the concept of organizational space.

The concept of organizational space
Outside studies of open organizing and open strategy, the intimacy between space and organizing more generally is broadly acknowledged (Beyes & Holt, 2020;Beyes & Steyaert, 2012;Stephenson et al., 2020;Taylor & Spicer, 2007;Weinfurtner & Seidl, 2019). We draw from this organizational literature and refer to space as the location that constitutively emerges from organizational activities, objects, arrangements and social practices (Stephenson et al., 2020;Taylor & Spicer, 2007).
In early research, space had been used as an umbrella construct (Hirsch & Levin, 1999) that referred only to the various physical locations of organizing and was therefore understood as a fixed, dead and immobile concept (Taylor & Spicer, 2007, p. 325). However, relying on the work of Lefebvre (1991), current organization research has conceptualized space as a social and relational phenomenon as much as a material and physical one, produced and reproduced in everyday practices of organizing, a context in which material, bodily and discursive exchange is constructed (Beyes & Holt, 2020). Thus, space is now seen both as a social product and a generative force (Beyes & Steyaert, 2012;Stephenson et al., 2020;Taylor & Spicer, 2007). In other words, space is more than just a thing or mere physical platform on which organizational agents act; it shapes organizing (Massey, 2005;Stephenson et al., 2020).
Organization research has examined space from various perspectives. It is argued that space controls organizational processes by placing people and things in particular locations, enchanting people with meanings and emotions, and constraining how people conduct workplace activities (Dale & Burrell, 2008). Space also constitutes the boundaries of organizing and the interaction within it, defining where, who, or what is included or excluded (Beyes & Holt, 2020). Furthermore, space connects, separates and sorts organizational actors (Dale, 2005) as well as encourages and discourages their behaviour (Fayard & Weeks, 2007).
Despite these contributions, we argue that organizational scholars need to unpack some of the links between space and openness. In a recent review on organizational space, Weinfurtner and Seidl (2019) identified three key conceptual building blocks of space: boundaries, distance and movement. These building blocks provide an analytical lens that considers the materiality and physicality of space, while acknowledging its social and processual nature. More importantly, we argue that this lens is useful in examining organizational openness, since boundaries, distance and movement may also be considered constitutive of openness.
Boundary conventionally refers to the physical and material structure of space, its barriers and borders (Stephenson et al., 2020) thus providing physical structure for openness in strategizing. However, boundaries are not solely fixed entities, but also social accomplishments (Langley et al., 2019). Boundaries isolate physical spaces and distribute the positions of actors in them (Rodner, Roulet, Kerrigan, & vom Lehn, 2020). The notion of boundaries helps to elaborate openness through the demarcation of distinct organizational spaces that can shape both the inclusion or exclusion of participants and their actions (Weinfurtner & Seidl, 2019).
Distance allows us to pinpoint the type and extent of physical, material and social connections and relations between various actors (Weinfurtner & Seidl, 2019). With distance we can elaborate how various actors use space either to isolate themselves or connect with one another (Rodner et al., 2020). In terms of openness, distance helps us look at the degree of inclusion and transparency. However, distance is also not a fixed category, but should be considered a dynamic between distance and proximity. This dynamic may manifest via the distribution of positions in space, but also through discourse and symbolism (Lefebvre, 1991).
Movement can be considered in two ways: first, how actors move in and between different physical and material spaces (Weinfurtner & Seidl, 2019). Second, space itself may be in a continuous state of movement through the actions, practices, events, episodes, flows, trajectories and performances that create, maintain and transform it (Beyes & Holt, 2020;Stephenson et al., 2020). The meaning of space may change if different actors alter how they use it and talk about it (Lefebvre, 1991). Thus, movement as a spatial concept is particularly helpful when examining the dynamic between openness and closure in strategizing and the pivots therein.
Consequently, we ask: How does the use of space shape the dynamic between openness and closure in strategizing? To answer this question, we turn next to our empirical case.

Research Design
The empirical material Introduction of Borgen. Borgen illustrates everyday strategizing in Danish coalition politics. Created by Adam Price, Jeppe Gjervig Gram and Tobias Lindholm, Borgen first aired in Denmark in 2010, running for a total of three seasons, across 30 episodes or 'chapters' and broadcast between autumn 2011 and January 2013. Season one traces the rise of Birgitte Nyborg from relative obscurity to the position of Prime Minister. Season two focuses on the challenges she faces and her attempts to introduce controversial reforms, and ends with Birgitte leaving politics after losing the election. We focus on season three, which depicts her return to politics. Birgitte Nyborg's old party, the Moderates, had moved to the political right amid the increasingly polarized debate around immigration. Discouraged from re-joining, she establishes a new political party, the New Democrats, with a core team comprising two serving politicians, Jon Bethelsen and Nete Buch, her former mentor Bent Sejrø, Erik Hoffmann as the former vice-chair of the conservative New Right party and Katrine Fønsmark as head of PR for the new party.
Why Borgen? We chose Borgen because it illustrates the key dimensions of transparency and inclusion in open strategizing (Hautz et al., 2017) and portrays both the extent and procedures of openness from the perspective of a variety of stakeholders (internal and external) (Dobusch et al., 2019). Borgen also depicts a case where openness is a requirement of strategizing due to the multiparty political system. We considered Borgen a revelatory study of open strategizing as follows. First, Borgen exhibits transparency since it shows how political parties must reveal their positions regularly. Second, Borgen portrays ongoing dynamics of inclusion and participation since political parties are membership organizations that sustain a community of interacting stakeholders (Hautz et al., 2017). Third, the extent of transparency and inclusion vary according to the political issue, which changes periodically. Fourth, decision-making here must be democratic, procedurally and actually (Dobusch et al., 2019).
A strategic episode of open strategy in Borgen. At the beginning of season three, Birgitte Nyborg had to develop a new strategy for her political comeback. At that point, the staging moves from Christiansborg to a shabby warehouse that became the headquarters of Birgitte's new party. We were intrigued by this move. Initially, the warehouse served as a space for the core team to strategize. However, the action soon expanded to include a multitude of volunteers and stakeholders, and the warehouse then became the centre of strategizing during three chapters (22-24).
First, we conceptualize this relocation and the strategizing in the warehouse as a strategic episode, given the clearly defined initiation, conduct and termination pattern (Hendry & Seidl, 2003;Jarzabkowski & Seidl, 2008). Also, strategizing there was important and consequential for the new party to develop its strategy (Jarzabkowski et al., 2015). Second, it showed the following features of open strategizing. There was broad involvement by stakeholders (Baptista, Wilson, Galliers, & Bynghall, 2017) inside and outside the existing boundaries of the new party (Whittington et al., 2011), and transparency of strategic information shared (Mack & Szulanski, 2017) to which the participants had access (Baptista et al., 2017). Third, the strategic episode involved a discrete spatial aspect, both in the beginning with the relocation to a warehouse and at the end when the volunteers were asked to leave, the whiteboards were dismantled, and the core team returned to Borgen.

Visual fiction
Our empirical material was video data (Gylfe, Franck, LeBaron, & Mantere, 2016;Jarzabkowski et al., 2015) in the form of visual fiction (Holt & Zundel, 2014;Panayiotou & Kafiris, 2011) in a TV series. Prior organization research has argued that fiction contributes to our understandings of work, organizations and management (Bell, 2008;Dale & Burrell, 2008;Holt & Zundel, 2014;Savage, Cornelissen, & Franck, 2018). Fiction is largely grounded in social and organizational practice and never simply told from the specific viewpoint of a scriptwriter or author. Instead, the observer as much as the author is implicated in the telling (Eco, 1981;Savage et al., 2018). Moreover, texts in whatever form may be considered expressions of human meaning, constructed simultaneously between an author and an audience with a subject and actions, events, characters, experiences and situations (Küpers, Mantere, & Statler, 2013). Thus, fiction can hold real power over people by shaping how they make sense of organizations.
Visuality (Quattrone, Ronzani, Jancsary, & Höllerer, 2021) and particularly visual fiction dramatized through visual means, such as TV or film, has additional expressive power because it portrays and attempts to understand behaviour where life is being lived, without the airbrushing rendered by high-grade abstractions of theory, even if the status of such representations is complex and ambiguous (Holt & Zundel, 2014;Zundel, Holt, & Cornelissen, 2013). Furthermore, visual fiction is a vehicle for understanding organizational space since space is often seen solely as a platform of organizational life and has thus remained relatively difficult to textualize (Panayiotou & Kafiris, 2011). In our view it is because visual fiction provides a clearly discernible account of organizing in which we can, through the study of film or TV, better examine how space frames meaning in organizing. Last, it offers openness to the research process since the characters, events and meanings are all there on the screen, available for everybody to view and re-view (Holt & Zundel, 2014).

Analysis of the empirical material
Here we outline how we worked through (Zundel et al., 2013) the strategic episode in Borgen. The nature of the material meant that we each watched Borgen independently as many times as we wanted, focusing first on what we considered important for openness and then making notes. To discuss the material we held Skype meetings approximately bi-monthly over a 24-month period. In these meetings we reviewed the material collectively and identified discrete moments of action and dialogue that could be categorized as open strategizing involving multiple participants in different spaces. The first author watched the series in the original Danish with English subtitles. The second author also watched the series in the original Danish with both English and Finnish subtitles and with some understanding of the original language. This allowed us to compare the accuracy of the translations. For example, the broom cupboard was translated as 'boardroom' in the English subtitles rather than as 'meeting room' in the original Danish. In addition, we had several informal meetings outside the setpiece material review sessions.
Our analysis consisted of 233 minutes of running time in the above-mentioned strategic episode. We excluded scenes that focused on personal lives of the characters or revolved around the media. This left approximately 60 minutes of continuous strategizing across the three chapters that we transcribed for in-depth analysis. We agreed on 53 scenes or discrete visual sequences, from which we selected 309 stills and placed them in a PowerPoint document, thus maintaining the video sequencing.
We constructed a narrative timeline (Langley, 1999) to identify the key strategic events of the episode and the spaces in which those took place (see supplementary material). From the timeline we then examined the dynamic between opening and closing (Dobusch et al., 2019) by distinguishing different phases of strategizing characterized by openness and closure, and the pivots between these phases as follows by looking at the changes in the number of actors and different levels of involvement. We identified inclusion at the beginning of the strategic episode when everyone who so desired could participate and contribute their strategic ideas on the whiteboards and where strategic information was transparent to everyone. However, this inclusion turned into participation as the core team moved to other spaces, then keeping pieces of strategic information with them. Participation continued in the main room, but became a lesser form of engagement (Mack & Szulanski, 2017;Quick & Feldman, 2011). Last, we noted exclusion when the core team either explicitly or implicitly rejected input or sought refuge from the multitude of volunteers, for example when participants were directly denied access to the broom cupboard, or when the core team no longer shared all strategic information with everyone.
To distinguish the spaces where strategizing took place and how these spaces and their use evolved, we undertook a detailed analysis of 53 scenes within the timeline, which we timestamped. We identified six spaces in use in the warehouse, but only three distinct spaces for strategizing in order of appearance: the main room in the warehouse, the broom cupboard and the bike shed. The timeline shows what strategic issues were discussed and in which spaces. In our detailed microanalysis of the spaces (Jarzabkowski et al., 2015) we focused on boundaries, distance and movement (Weinfurtner & Seidl, 2019) in two steps. First, we examined the physicality and materiality of these three spaces, and second, we focused on their social and processual aspects.
For physical boundaries, we focused on the existence, absence and transparency of the physical barriers and borders (Stephenson et al., 2020) that would shape inclusion and/or transparency and thereby their materialized openness. We observed boundaries, such as doors and walls of each space, to elaborate how actors were able to enter and/or exit the space and how the space was demarcated. Also, we noted the transparency of boundaries, for example windows, and whether the actors could see or be seen in a space. Concerning physical and material distance, we focused on the physical and material gap between actors within each space and between spaces. By looking at how different actors positioned themselves we elaborated the connection between actors to reveal their distance from each other (Stephenson et al., 2020;Weinfurtner & Seidl, 2019). We examined how this distance between the actors was shaped by the material features of spaces, for example by looking at the artefacts used as tools for strategizing and how they favoured, shaped, invited and constrained action (Zammuto et al., 2007). Last, we focused on physical movement by looking at how different actors moved in and between the spaces and how the layout of each space enabled or constrained this movement.
Second, we focused on the social and processual aspects of spaces, namely, their use. With respect to the use of boundaries, we focused on how actors strategically created, removed and renegotiated boundaries both sociomaterially and discursively, how they opened spaces for participation by inviting or disinviting others and how actors created new barriers, for example by referring to a booking system. In terms of distance, we focused on how actors adjusted social distance to each other either to enable or hinder social connectedness or create isolation for strategizing purposes (Rodner et al., 2020). We did this by looking at how crowded the spaces were, the number of actors and strategizing artefacts present, how often and how actors used these strategizing artefacts, for example when they placed something on the whiteboards, and which actors did so. We examined how the actors used movement in two ways. First, we focused on why actors moved in and between the spaces, for example when they apparently left a crowded space to seek refuge, and how they referred to that movement in their talk. Second, we focused on how the actors gradually altered the meaning of the spaces (Beyes & Holt, 2020) by putting them to different uses, for example by bringing in strategizing artefacts or taking them out and/or how they referred to or changed how they referred to the spaces in their talk.
We returned to the narrative timeline to trace the various uses of spaces in relation to the dynamics of openness in strategizing. We then looked for any explanation in the use of these spaces that could have played a role in shaping those dynamics. At this point, we identified three distinct spatial features: physical visibility, strategizing artefacts and discursive designation. These features and their different combinations played a role in the pivots in the dynamic between openness and closure.

Findings: The Spaces and Phases of Open Strategizing
We present our findings in four sections. First, we present the different phases of openness in strategizing related to the use of space and the pivots in between them, to provide an overview of the dynamic between openness and closure during the strategic episode. Second, to show the connections between this dynamic and space, we describe the spaces and elaborate their strategic use in terms of boundaries, distance and movement. Third, based on this elaboration, we note three spatial features, the use of which plays a role in the dynamic between openness and closure: physical visibility, strategizing artefacts and discursive designation. This allows us to look at how these features and their different combinations are associated with the pivots in the dynamic between openness and closure. Last, we present our conceptual framework to describe the connections between different combinations of these spatial features, the patterns they form, and the pivots in the dynamic between openness and closure.

Phases of openness and pivots in opening and closing
The first phase in the strategic episode was the increase of openness in strategizing. It started when Birgitte first rented a warehouse as the headquarters for the new party. While this was a conscious choice on her part, it was also a necessary move. The new party needed mass membership and a location where members could easily meet and develop the party. Following an open invitation, there was a rapid increase in the number of participants. In addition, a space that was initially empty soon incorporated tables, chairs, multiple whiteboards, a printing station and a coffee area, enabling both participation, inclusion and transparency of strategic information in the strategizing process. Once Birgitte opened up the warehouse, it became a space for mass participation.
The second phase in the strategic episode was partial decreasing of openness in strategizing. The pivot from increasing openness to partial decreasing of openness occurred when the core team initially became frustrated with the mass participation in the main room. Jon asked Birgitte to retreat to a broom cupboard (Chapter (C) 23-01.08-03.04) saying 'We just can't talk here [in the main room]'. He was in turn followed by one of the volunteers, who was refused entry: 'Sorry. We're in a meeting' (C15-01.08-03.40). The door was closed while the mass participation continued in the main room. This was the first spatial manifestation of decreased openness. At this point it was significant that the core team toasted their success in creating 'a mass movement', although Jon thought it was more like 'a mass of movements' (C23-01.08-03.04). Strategizing by the core team in the broom cupboard again increased once it was designated as a meeting room with a meeting table and chairs (C23-09.58-10.43) and thus explicitly recognized as a strategizing space. As the strategic episode progressed the broom cupboard gradually became more crowded. Movement from the main room to the broom cupboard and back became more frequent, allowing the members of the core team to be more selective about who participated, what information was shared, and to what extent.
The third phase in the strategic episode was an acceleration in the decreasing of openness in strategizing. The pivot from partial decreasing to an acceleration of the decreasing of openness occurred when Nete and Katrine first sought refuge in the bike shed to continue their discussion after being evicted from the broom cupboard by Jon (C23-11.54-13.15). These moves to the bike shed first from the broom cupboard, later from the main room, ultimately became a back-and-forth movement between these spaces. For example, when the broom cupboard was double booked (C23-29.19-29.53) and Jon failed to find a space in the main room to meet with Birgitte about party funding, he moved to the bike shed, saying 'I might as well move my desk out here'. These moves often appeared unintentional, for example as the core team left the main room on their way home and continued to discuss the integration expert in the bike shed (C23-19.30-20.28). However, these shifts back and forth illuminate how open strategizing seemed to be the aim of the core team, despite the observable decrease in openness.
Despite all this, the increased number of participants seeking to contribute to strategizing and the growing diversity of perspectives and agendas continued in the main room until the very end of the strategic episode. The fourth phase was increasing closure in strategizing. The pivot from an acceleration in the decreasing of open strategizing to increasing closure occurred when Birgitte noticed that the mass participation had become unmanageable and called the core team to the broom cupboard, where she announced: 'It is time to do the political work and put the summer camp glee behind us' (C24-53.51-54.34). The fifth phase was closure. The pivot from increasing closure to closure in strategizing occurred when the core team moved from the broom cupboard to the main room, and when Birgitte climbed onto a chair, drew attention to the whiteboards and said 'in many ways our party resembles that notice board. You could say that right now our party is that notice board. Now it's time to slim down and set its course' (C24-54.35-58.10). The strategic episode was closed and mass participation ended when Birgitte thanked the participants, asked them to leave, and cleaned the whiteboards. These different phases are illustrated in our conceptual framework (Figure 1).

Spaces and their use
The main room. The main room in the warehouse was a central space throughout the strategic episode; it was visible and designated as the party headquarters. The room generally appeared shabby, with exposed electrical cables, a concrete floor, doors patched with tape, and cracked and dirty windows. In the beginning the main room was largely empty with no material or social references to strategizing and 'a far cry from Borgen, huh' (C22-40.54-43.42). Due to this emptiness, the main room provided few material cues about its use (Fayard & Weeks, 2007). As the strategic episode progressed it was soon furnished with strategizing artefacts such as whiteboards, undesignated tables, chairs, lamps, laptops, fixed telephone lines and photocopiers (C23-08.50-09.57). Each new day began with Birgitte entering the main room (C23-01.08-03.04) and, although the core team moved into other spaces, they always returned here.
The strategic use of the main room was two-fold. Initially, it was used by the core team to strategize over formation of the party. Once the new party was launched, the main room was used as an open strategizing space for mass participation, the core team, and a variety of volunteers and experts. Here, participants advocated for several different and sometimes contradictory strategic issues. As in a conventional setting, strategizing was manifested in strategizing artefacts where ideas and information were shared.
With respect to boundaries, the main room was first used as a space for strategizing by invitation when Birgitte invited Katrine (C22-1.21-13.52) and later other participants (C22-31.54-33.50 and 38.36-40.52). Thus, Birgitte's invitation permitted others to cross the first boundary. Later, the main room lacked explicit boundaries and participants could come and go as they pleased in an open invitation (C23-01.08-03.04).
In terms of distance, first the main room was initially only inhabited by the core team. There was social distance to some extent since Birgitte manifested ownership over the space by inviting and showing it to others. However, as the main room was filled with mass participation, social distancing diminished physically, materially and socially between all actors, including uninvited participants. Moreover, when mass participation peaked the core team appeared bothered by the lack of distance and sought refuge elsewhere.
Concerning movement, at the beginning of the strategic episode practically all strategizing took place in the main room even though it contained only a few explicit strategizing artefacts. At this point, increasing movement in the space occurred when the number of participants noticeably grew and the space was subsequently furnished with more strategizing artefacts. Although the core team continued to use the main room for strategizing throughout the strategic episode, they progressively moved to other spaces. In addition, we observed movement in the meaning of the main room. Even though the main room was a central space throughout the strategic episode, its importance to core team strategizing decreased as the strategic episode progressed, while it remained open and mass participation continued until the end of the strategic episode.
The broom cupboard. The broom cupboard was the first space used by the core team to escape the mass participants, although it was not initially set up or designated as a strategizing space. First, it was full of cleaning products, mops and buckets and lacked any reference to strategizing. Because it was separated from the main room by a frosted glass door and had glass windows to the main room, it was visible to all participants. As the strategic episode progressed, the cleaning products were replaced by strategizing artefacts, including a table with four chairs and a flipchart. It became discursively designated 'the meeting room' (C23-11.20-11.53).
The broom cupboard was the only space with explicit physical boundaries, for example a lockable frosted door and windows with blinds. Like a meeting room, it was a space apparently visible to all through windows and a door that controlled access. The door and windows were also social barriers, allowing the core team to select by invitation those who could participate (Seidl & Werle, 2018) thereby regulating the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. Thus, while the main room was portrayed as open and allowing inclusion and participation, the broom cupboard was portrayed as exclusive and enabling strategizing by the core team only.
Regarding distance, the broom cupboard was physically close to the main room, but due to the physical and social boundaries it was socially distant from all but a few participants. In relation to other spaces, the broom cupboard was used by the core team to increase distance by physically isolating themselves from other participants (Rodner et al., 2020), and also by discursively designating the broom cupboard as a meeting room. The room itself was cramped without much opportunity for physical distance between actors once they were in the space. Despite this, Birgitte created a sense of hierarchy by sitting on the table when she chastised Jon about the nature of funding he had secured (C23-39.45-41.21), thus manifesting social distance (Mount et al., 2020).
Movement in the broom cupboard was two-fold. First, there was regular movement in and out of the space, but only by a few actors. Second, we observed movement in the meaning of the space as its use for strategizing by the core team evolved. These shifts in meaning occurred through embodied behaviour as explained above, and also through discursive negotiation. Its status changed again when Birgitte redesignated it as the broom cupboard (C24-53.12-53.50).
The bike shed. The bike shed was extremely visible, located outdoors in plain sight near the main entrance to the warehouse and used by all participants to store their bikes. It lacked any reference to strategizing either through strategizing artefacts or discursive designation. Though the bike shed was accessible to all, its use for strategizing was established only among members of the core team. Unlike other spaces, the bike shed remained the same throughout the strategic episode.
The bike shed lacked physical boundaries such as walls or doors to restrict the entering and exiting of participants. However, its inconspicuous nature did not socially invite large-scale participation, even though universal use of the space is especially common in the Danish context where nearly everyone bikes to work.
The bike shed was the only space with physical, social and material distance. Its location outdoors first meant there was explicit physical distance from mass participation. Second, it had not been designated as a strategizing space either discursively or materially, it provided distinctive social distance between the core team and other participants. Third, the bike shed was sociomaterially distant from strategizing as it lacked the requisite strategizing artefacts and thus provided no material cues (Fayard & Weeks, 2007) for strategizing. Movement to and from the bike shed was implicit. It was the sole remaining refuge in which the core team could strategize. Moreover, the actors beyond the core team were largely unaware of its strategic use.
We summarize the spaces and their use in terms of boundaries, distance and movement in Table 1.

Spatial features
Our combined findings regarding the pivots in the dynamic between openness and closure and the spaces and their use, allowed us to reveal three spatial features -physical visibility, strategizing artefacts, discursive designation -that shaped openness in strategizing. In the following, we describe these spatial features, and then discuss how these features and their different combinations play a role in the pivots in the dynamic between openness and closure.
Strategizing artefacts. By strategizing artefacts we refer to objects that could be considered epistemic for strategizing (Jarzabkowski, Spee, & Smets, 2013;Kaplan, 2011). Artefacts such as whiteboards, meeting tables and other office supplies enabled participants to contribute strategizing and share strategic information, thereby enabling openness (Hautz et al., 2017).
When first used in the strategizing episode neither the main room nor the broom cupboard housed any strategizing artefacts. However, both spaces soon had an increasing amount of such artefacts. In the main room Birgitte first introduced whiteboards for outlining the strategic direction of the party. Subsequently, the number of whiteboards increased and were later used by all participants. This led to a rapid build-up of ideas on the whiteboards and participants became used to contributing to strategizing with little discretion. Other strategizing artefacts such as communal tables, chairs, lamps, laptops, fixed telephone lines and photocopiers soon appeared in the main room. When the core team first sought refuge in the broom cupboard it was full of cleaning products. Soon the broom cupboard was furnished with a meeting table, chairs and filing cabinets. This accumulation of strategizing artefacts was similar to the main room. The only space that lacked any strategizing artefacts was the bike shed and yet, from its first use until the end of the strategizing episode, it remained a space for the core team to strategize and exchange more critical strategic information.
Discursive designation. By discursive designation we mean any claim the actors made in labelling a space strategic, which is conceptually related to the idea of discursive legitimation (Vaara & Tienari, 2008;Vaara, Tienari, & Laurila, 2006) but with a spatial dimension (de Vaujany, 2019).
Two spaces were defined as strategic via discursive designation. Birgitte first chose an empty warehouse and discursively designated it as the headquarters of the new party. In addition, the broom cupboard was first designated a meeting room and then redesignated as a broom cupboard.
Discursive designation played a role particularly in opening spaces for participation. Designating an empty room as headquarters served as an invitation for mass participation and designating the broom cupboard as meeting room allowed Jon to invite external experts, but also to evict Katrine and Nete. When Jon was challenged about having booked the meeting room, he referred to a booking calendar that was not evident to the observer. Jon thus simultaneously legitimized and occupied the broom cupboard as a space for strategizing. The bike shed was never designated a strategizing space, despite the increased strategizing by the core team there.
Physical visibility. Physical visibility was directly connected to the physical conditions of the spaces: physical boundaries, physical distance and physical movement in and between spaces. However, physical visibility as a feature of space in itself did not enable openness because it did not serve as an invitation for participation or inclusion.
As an open plan space, the main room itself was physically visible to the participants. At the beginning of the strategic episode this physical visibility enabled participation and inclusion, and provided transparency of strategic information. However, once strategizing artefacts were added to the main room and it was discursively designated as a strategizing space, this accumulation of spatial features seemed to prompt the core team to seek refuge in the broom cupboard. The broom cupboard with window blinds and a frosted door presented limited physical visibility for core team strategizing. Nevertheless, participants who remained in the main room could still see this strategizing. Similarly, once strategizing artefacts were added to the broom cupboard and discursively designated as a strategizing space, this accumulation of spatial features coincided with the core team's movement to the bike shed.
The most distinctive space in terms of physical visibility was the bike shed. It was in plain sight just outside the warehouse. Despite this extreme physical visibility, the bike shed seemed to be strategically invisible, since throughout the strategic episode it did not house strategizing artefacts nor was it designated as a strategizing space. This strategic invisibility also manifested when Katrine and Nete retreated there to continue their conversation and other participants did not see this movement in between spaces. Thus, strategizing in the bike shed was kept for those in the know.

Framework: Spatial features and the pivots between openness and closure
We now draw our findings together into a conceptual framework that elaborates how three spatial features -physical visibility, strategizing artefacts, discursive designation -shape open strategizing. While there is no predetermined order between the three spatial features in themselves or in combination, we show how these features connect to the dynamic between openness and closure in strategizing. Considering that openness is a dynamic phenomenon always entailing closure to some extent (Dobusch et al., 2019), we conceptualize changes in this dynamic as pivotspotential turning points between openness and closure. Figure 1 shows how spatial features and their different combinations shaped open strategizing and the pivots in this dynamic between openness and closure. In our case, the episode of open strategizing unfolded through pivots between openness and closure, in a progression starting from increasing of openness to decreasing of openness and ultimately an acceleration towards closure. In other cases, such pivots would also occur and may even be associated with different combinations of spatial features. Thus, these pivots may also do the opposite to our case, where instead progression is towards the maintenance or even increase of openness over time. Figure 1 reveals connections between different combinations of spatial features and the pivots in the dynamic from openness towards closure. First, the combination of space that was physically visible, featured no strategizing artefacts, and was discursively designated for strategizing purposes, was associated with the first pivot (pivot 1), namely a rapid increase of openness both in terms of inclusion of participants and transparency of information. A different combination of spatial features was connected to the second pivot (pivot 2), from increasing of openness to partial decreasing of openness, namely reduced inclusion of participants and less transparency of information. In this combination, the space was physically visible for all, there was a significant increase in the number of strategizing artefacts, and the space was discursively designated for strategizing purposes. We note the third pivot from partial decreasing of openness to an acceleration of the decreasing of openness (pivot 3) when there was a combination of limited physical visibility, the number of strategizing artefacts rapidly increased, and the space was designated for strategizing purposes. The combination of space that was physically visible to all, had no strategizing artefacts, and was either de-designated as non-strategic or never designated for strategizing purposes, was associated with the fourth pivot, where an acceleration in decreasing of openness turned into an increasing of closure (pivot 4), with reduced inclusion of participants and less transparency of information. The final and fifth pivot from increasing closure to closure (pivot 5) took place in a combination of limited physical visibility, the removal of strategizing artefacts, and the discursive designation of the space for strategizing purposes.
From Figure 1 we were able to reveal patterns (Table 2) between the different combinations of spatial features and the dynamic between openness and closure in strategizing. First, pattern 1 towards increasing openness (pivot 1) occurs in a space that contains only few material cues for strategizing, namely the space is physically visible and there are no strategizing artefacts, although the space is discursively designated for strategizing purposes. Second, pattern 2 towards closure (pivots 2 and 3) takes place in spaces where features of physical visibility, an increasing number of strategizing artefacts, and designating the space for strategizing purposes, coexisted. Third, pattern 3 of accelerating closure (pivots 4 and 5) occurs in spaces where there are features of physical visibility sometimes to the extreme, a decrease in the number or absence of strategizing artefacts, and lack of discursive designation or redesignating the space as non-strategic. Notably, pattern 3 is revealed when we compare the combinations of spatial features associated with pivot 1 and pivot 4. Interestingly, these two patterns, opposites in terms of the dynamic between openness and closure, apparently have the same features except in terms of discursive designation. A combination of physical visibility, the absence of strategizing artefacts and discursive designation seemed to result in a pattern of increasing of openness. The same combination of extreme physical visibility and no strategizing artefacts, but without discursive designation, appeared to result into patterns toward closure. These patterns reveal three insights about the connection between spatial features and the dynamic between openness and closure in strategizing. In our case, adding strategizing artefacts or the existence of a multitude of strategizing artefacts stimulates the decreasing of openness. In addition, the lack of designation of a space as strategic or redesignating a space as non-strategic stimulates an acceleration of closure. Interestingly, it seems that discursive designation plays a critical role in whether the dynamic between openness and closure pivots toward openness or closure. Although physical visibility at first seemed to have no explicit role in the dynamics of openness, a space physically the most visible accommodates the most exclusive strategizing. One explanation may be that physical visibility alongside social visibility is vital for the dynamic of openness, and discursive designation may be one way of ensuring social visibility.
We anticipate that our findings would be applicable to other organizational contexts where patterns of openness associated with similar spatial features of physical visibility, strategizing artefacts and discursive designation may emerge. However, we foresee some potential variations as follows. In our case, the organizational conditions in Borgen are comparable to a start-up; among start-ups there are often few or no strategizing artefacts, and strategizing processes are less established. On the other hand, in more established organizations, for example multinational corporations or public sector organizations, there are often strategizing artefacts already in common use, and as part of more established strategizing processes. While in our case the pattern of increasing openness (pattern 1) is associated with physical visibility, discursive designation and a lack of strategizing artefacts, in other cases increasing openness may be maintained even with the introduction of strategizing artefacts. Similarly, we could expect that as in our case the pattern of decreasing openness (pattern 2) is associated with the reduction of physical visibility and simultaneously the maintenance of discursive designation, the increasing of strategizing artefacts may not have the same association. Thus, to extend our findings it would be interesting to study the question of whether decreasing the number of strategizing artefacts would lead to increasing of openness, and conversely whether increasing the number of strategizing artefacts would lead to decreasing of openness in other organizational contexts.

Discussion and Conclusion
In this study, we have examined how the use of space shapes the dynamic between openness and closure. Our study contributes to open strategy research (Hautz et al., 2017;Seidl et al., 2019;Whittington et al., 2011) by showing the role of space (Beyes & Holt, 2020;Stephenson et al., 2020;Weinfurtner & Seidl, 2019) in the dynamic between openness and closure (Dobusch et al., 2019). We add to prior research by elucidating how the use of space shaped open strategizing, turning the direction from increasing of openness towards closure. Our empirical analysis of the TV series Borgen revealed three spatial features that played a role in the dynamic between openness and closure in strategizing: physical visibility, strategizing artefacts and discursive designation. We constructed a conceptual framework that provides one possible explanation of how the use of these spatial features in different combinations was associated with the pivots in the dynamic between openness and closure in strategizing. We discuss the contributions of our study in more detail below.
First, we advance understanding of the dynamic between openness and closure in strategizing by illustrating how, in the use of space, openness turns into closure. Prior research of open strategy has already extended our understanding by elaborating the dimensions of openness, namely transparency and inclusion (Hautz et al., 2017;Seidl et al., 2019;Whittington et al., 2011) and shown how technology has provided virtual spaces to enable this openness (Hutter et al., 2017;Mount et al., 2020). Further, one of the key contributions in this field has been to show how openness also necessitates closure to some extent (Dobusch et al., 2019). Our study extends this work by conceptualizing the turning points in the dynamic between openness and closure as pivots. Our conceptual framework provides insight as to how no single feature of space, nor a single planned or emergent use of it, independently determines pivots in the dynamic between openness and closure. Instead, we argue that scholars of open strategy may consider how spatial features in different combinations are connected to such pivots. In our work, we showed three patterns of spatial features that each have implications for the dynamic between openness and closure: a pattern of increasing openness, a pattern towards closure and a pattern of accelerating closure. In this way, our study empirically connects to the relational and processual view (Beyes & Holt, 2020;Stephenson et al., 2020) that space is more than just a mere physical platform for strategizing, it continuously emerges in and through its material and social production (Lefebvre, 1991;Massey, 2005).
Second, we extend previous research by showing the potential related to all of the spatial features -physical visibility, strategizing artefact, discursive designation -in providing explanations to why openness eventually turned towards closure, in spite of the attempts to keep the strategizing process as open. While previous studies have illuminated the various benefits of open strategizing (Hautz et al., 2017;Whittington et al., 2011;Whittington & Yakis-Douglas, 2020), we provide a case where openness was a requirement for strategizing and, notwithstanding this requirement, this openness turned towards closure.
Interestingly, we showed some surprising findings in terms of strategizing artefacts, a feature likely to be found in many conventional strategizing spaces (Jarzabkowski et al., 2013). For example, space that was physically visible, had no strategizing artefacts, and was discursively designated for strategizing purposes, was associated with an increase of openness. However, when a significant amount of strategizing artefacts were brought into the same space, this new combination seemed to lead to decreasing of openness. This decrease in openness may be an accumulation effect, where a significant amount of strategizing artefacts in a space encouraged the increasing involvement of participants, access to strategic information and knowledge sharing, but to the extent that strategizing became unmanageable (Healey et al., 2015). Alternatively, strategizing artefacts as one aspect of discourse may also produce alienating effects, such as mystification (Mantere & Vaara, 2008) leading to closure.
Another finding relates to the spatial feature of discursive designation. Prior strategy research has elaborated the use and outcomes of spaces that are pre-arranged to support strategizing and thus also discursively designated for a strategizing purpose (Healey et al., 2015;Johnson et al., 2010;Hodgkinson et al., 2006). We add to these studies by examining use of space that is not initially pre-arranged for strategizing purposes, and that either subsequently became arranged for strategizing purposes or remained unarranged. Our findings showed what happened as the actors moved between arranged and unarranged spaces and where discursive designation as a spatial feature played a role in the dynamic between openness and closure. In our case, space with physical visibility, no strategizing artefacts, but discursively designated as strategizing space, seemed to lead to increasing of openness. However, a space with physical visibility, no strategizing artefacts and no discursive designation for a strategizing purpose seemed to lead to acceleration towards closure. Thereby, discursively designating a space for strategizing was connected to increasing openness, and similarly, not discursively designating a space for strategizing was linked to closure.
In terms of physical visibility, our study connects to prior research on transparency in open strategizing (Malhotra et al., 2017). Initially, the physical visibility of the space played a seemingly minor role in the dynamic between openness and closure. In combination with strategizing artefacts and discursive designation, physical visibility as a feature of space seemed to connect to both increasing and decreasing of openness. Interestingly, a space that may be considered as the most physically visible contained closed strategizing both in terms of inclusion and transparency. Thus, physical visibility, whether limited or extreme, seemed not to serve as a social invitation for open strategizing.
Third, we suggest the usefulness of visual fiction for future open organizing and open strategy research. Strategy scholars have already advocated increased use of video-ethnography to better understand the situated and embodied nature of strategizing (Gylfe et al., 2016;Jarzabkowski et al., 2015;Vesa & Vaara, 2014). To complement these ideas, we suggest that visual fiction as one form of video-ethnography allows scholars to elaborate aspects that are more difficult to textualize, such as the use of space (Panayiotou & Kafiris, 2011). With its expressive power (Holt & Zundel, 2014) visual fiction is also helpful in informing us of strategizing not otherwise accessible to researchers, such as decision-making, influence and communication, oftentimes filled with inaudible imperatives, corrections and hints of what is of strategic relevance and what is not (Gylfe et al., 2016).
We also acknowledge the limitations of visual fiction. As with other forms of video-ethnography, attention may shift to details instead of more important patterns, practices or processes of strategizing, risking information overload (Vesa & Vaara, 2014). While visual fiction narratives may portray the extreme, the unusual and the inaccessible (Buchanan & Hällgren, 2018), they also may replicate social patterns that are easily recognizable (Panayiotou & Kafiris, 2011). In our study, although recognizing that strategizing in real life may depend on randomly chosen common spaces, we chose to focus on the three central spaces of strategizing in the strategic episode. However, there are constraints in visual fiction related to staging, not least production costs that for example may have partially dictated the use of the warehouse in Borgen as the filming location. Nonetheless, within these limitations, some of the potential randomness of strategizing and space did manifest, for instance in the use of the broom cupboard and bike shed. Nonewithstanding, while our findings may apply to other contexts of open strategizing, it is possible that in other cases similar or different spatial features may manifest and lead to varying results in terms of the dynamic between openness and closure. Thus, it would therefore be important to examine the connections between space and dynamic between openness and closure in other organizational contexts, not least randomly chosen common spaces, especially those not discursively designated as strategic, to compare the findings.
Last, we know that open organization research (Armbrüster & Gebert, 2002;Kornberger et al., 2017;Tkacz, 2012) has mainly focused on openness that takes place in virtual spaces (von Krogh & Geilinger, 2019) since technology has significantly influenced the ways openness has become increasingly pervasive in contemporary organizing (Puranam et al., 2014;Zammuto et al., 2007). Our study thus suggests that more attention be paid to the various ways in which organizational spaces and their use shape the dynamic between openness and closure to understand the intricate connection.