The purpose of this thesis is to explore the phenomenon of grassroots initiatives (GRI) and their stakeholders’ roles and perceptions to be able to understand how such initiatives can become successful by engaging their stakeholders. The thesis is based on a single case study of the Grassroots House (Pan, 2015) named Spielraum für Alle e.V. in Innsbruck, Austria. The data was primarily collected by semi-structured interviews with Spielraum für Alle e.V.’s internal and external stakeholders in February 2018. The research identified three major misalignments in the grassroots organization’s performance by engaging stakeholders’ roles and perceptions. These misalignments have been identified on the (1) individual level (vision) which includes the key individual’s ambitious vision, on the (2) group level (culture) which consists of the misalignments in the grassroots organizational (sub-) culture(s) and on the (3) societal level (image) which is mainly the diverging perception of stakeholders of the organizational image, vision and values. Future research could explore if there are similar dynamics in grassroots organizations in other countries. Initiators of grassroots organizations should attempt to engage stakeholders in their organizational purposes in order to become aware of potential (unaware) misalignments. Grassroots research, in general, addresses challenges that could lead to the failure of the initiative, such as issues concerning finances. However, this thesis presents new insights by identifying misalignments, which grassroots initiatives are not necessarily aware of and grassroots literature does not specifically address, for instance, the misalignments in terms of organizational identity.
Keywords: grassroots initiatives, success and failure (factors), stakeholders’ roles and perceptions, organizational identity