Paper Number
ECIS2026-1736
Paper Type
SP
Abstract
Without the co-located interactions that foster strategic alignment, all-remote organizations risk fragmentation. While firms use shared documentation and company retreats, how they use digital technologies to create continuous strategic alignment remains unclear. We studied CreateDigital, an all-remote organization that made its board meetings public, virtual events. Using multimodal analysis of 15 recorded meetings from 2019 to 2025, we examine this practice as an organizational ritual. We find the public board meetings evolved in three periods: from an informal experiment in transparency, to a strategic stage for product launches and recruitment, and finally to an institutionalized ritual of public accountability. We introduce the concept of ritual inversion: how technology reconfigures a traditionally exclusive ritual to perform the opposite of its function. This study shows that digitally-native rituals can be powerful mechanisms for continuous alignment, contributing to research on all-remote organizing, corporate governance, and organizational ritual.
Recommended Citation
Prester, Julian; Marx, Julian; and Egodawele, Mekhala, "Beyond The Boardroom: Strategic Alignment Through Ritual Inversion In All-Remote Organizing" (2026). ECIS 2026 Proceedings. 7.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2026/conf_theme/conf_theme/7
Beyond The Boardroom: Strategic Alignment Through Ritual Inversion In All-Remote Organizing
Without the co-located interactions that foster strategic alignment, all-remote organizations risk fragmentation. While firms use shared documentation and company retreats, how they use digital technologies to create continuous strategic alignment remains unclear. We studied CreateDigital, an all-remote organization that made its board meetings public, virtual events. Using multimodal analysis of 15 recorded meetings from 2019 to 2025, we examine this practice as an organizational ritual. We find the public board meetings evolved in three periods: from an informal experiment in transparency, to a strategic stage for product launches and recruitment, and finally to an institutionalized ritual of public accountability. We introduce the concept of ritual inversion: how technology reconfigures a traditionally exclusive ritual to perform the opposite of its function. This study shows that digitally-native rituals can be powerful mechanisms for continuous alignment, contributing to research on all-remote organizing, corporate governance, and organizational ritual.
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