Images underlying strategy tend to be simplistic, unimodal, visual abstractions. We suggest that multimodal imagery of strategy, which brings together verbal/narrative, visual/imagistic, and kinaesthetic/haptic nodes, can significantly enrich people's understanding of their organization and its strategy. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
This article explores how the link between the hand and the mind might be exploited in the making of strategy. Using Mintzberg's image of a potter undergoing iterative and recursive learning and knowledge-building processes as a point of departure, the authors develop a three-level theoretical schema, progressing from the physiological to the psychological to the social to trace the consequences of the hand-mind link. To illustrate their theoretical schema, the authors present an illustration case of managers from a large telecommunications firm experimenting with a process for strategy making in which they actively use their hands to construct representations of their organization and its environment. The authors conclude that new and potent forms of strategy making might be attained if the fundamental human experience of using one's hands is put in the service of all kinds of organizational learning. © 2005 Sage Publications.
Management process issues for forming cooperative ventures with an increased likelihood of subsequent success are addressed. The cooperative venture formation is based on Roos (1989) and is conceptualized in terms of 3 theoretical constructs: 1. the extent of sufficient internal push for the project, 2. the breadth and depth of analytical scope, and 3. the strength of key stakeholder support. These constructs are related to subsequent perceived performance. Data from 67 firms in Norway and Sweden were collected and analyzed via latent variable structural modeling a partial least square (PLS). The main managerial implication is that the process by which a cooperative venture is formed should largely be seen as a step-by-step approach, not as a discrete decision. The research demonstrates that a theoretically complex and seemingly impenetrable phenomenon can be explained by reducing it to a simple model of theoretical constructs.
Physics uses imagination and play to disclose new truths about nature. Building on this premise, the Imagination Lab Foundation, a not-for-profit body based in Lausanne, was founded in 2000. The body investigates how organizations can develop new ways of discussing strategy through communication tools. To date, feedback from a wide range of participats indicates that the exercise is more relevant to the typical scientific researcher than other strategic tools favored by management experts.
THE INK ON AACSB’S 2016 Collective Vision is barely dry, but business schools already are striving to become the institutions described in its pages: catalysts for innovation, co-creators of knowledge, hubs of lifelong learning, leaders on the development of leadership, and enablers of global prosperity. At Hult International Business School, we have launched a variety of programs that align with these five roles, but we are putting special emphasis on three.
Although corporate restructuring is a much-researched area in management literature, divestitures have not been discussed from the perspective of their negative effect on knowledge transfer and corporate performance. Georg von Krogh and Johan Roos examine this phenomenon in relation to the competence configuration of the firm, and suggest means by which corporate management can overcome these potentially negative outcomes. © 1994.
Many executives feel the need to articulate an ideal end-state for their organizations-often in the guise of a corporate vision. Striking the balance between novelty and believability of such an ideal end-state is often tricky, and empirical evidence shows that people are neither satisfied with the vision, nor the visioning process. This article argues that the very idea of having a corporate vision is of limited use in today's complex business landscapes. When you perceive your world as unstable and unpredictable what matters is being coherent rather than being visionary. Being coherent means acting in a manner that reinforces who you are, as an organization, given the current environment. It is such coherence that "makes sense" to us and to the others around us. The authors point out why executives need to replace visioning efforts with a focus on how to become and remain coherent throughout the organization. They also offer a few guiding principles on how to do this in practice. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
In this paper we will discuss (1) why a firm would want to go into a strategic alliance, (2) the different types of alliance, and (3) guidelines to follow when forming an alliance. © 1992.
Thinking of strategic alliance as a parental relationship is not a new idea, but it works. Two firms come together to give birth to an idea, a product, another firm, or research that embodies the best characteristics of each parent. And, just as in human parental relationships, the firms have varying levels of responsibilities toward their 'child'. The paper evaluates the decisions that have to be made to build successful strategic alliances.
The purpose of this paper is to build theory on peak performance at the group level. Peak performance transcends ordinary performance and is associated with a subjective experience in which one loses a sense of time and space as well as feels great joy and bliss. We chose to study this phenomenon at the group level through a methodology of participant observation in an orchestra. We found that groups can be transformed by their own performance in a reflexive process in which virtuosity, or individual peak performance, becomes collective. We offer a prepositional model of collective virtuosity in organizations, and offer directions for further research. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2007.
Organizational scholars have proposed a broad range of theoretical approaches to the study of organizational identity. However, empirical studies on the construct have relied on text-based organizational identity descriptions, with little exploration of multiple intelligences, emotions and individual/collective identity representations. In this paper, we briefly review the empirical literature on organizational identity, and propose a novel method for empirical study involving structured interventions in which management teams develop representations of the identities of their organizations using three-dimensional construction toy materials. Our study has five main implications. By engaging in a method that draws on multiple intelligences, participants in this study generated multifaceted and innovative representations of the identities of their organizations. The object-mediated, playful nature of the method provided a safe context for emotional expression. Because it involved the collection of both individual and collective-level data, the technique led to collective constructions of highly varying degrees of 'sharedness'. Finally, the organizational identity representations integrated unconscious or 'tacit' understandings, which led to the enactment of organizational change. © 2007 British Academy of Management.
L'identité organisationnelle fournit un cadre qui peut faciliter ou inhiber la créativité organisationnelle. Cet article étudie comment les managers de trois entreprises définissent les identités de leurs organisations par le biais des matériaux 3D. Nous constatons que les métaphores favorisent la construction de sens autour de l'identité organisationnelle et révèlent des pensées préalablement cachées, et que les matériaux 3D créent un environnement où les facteurs émotionnels peuvent se manifester avec certitude. Avec cette approche, les managers formulent des descriptions de l'identité surprenantes, chargées d'émotions, plus riches et donc plus favorables à la créativité organisationnelle.
This article addresses the relative lack of empirical studies of how self-managed teams in high velocity environments handle unexpected critical incidents. It presents an interpretive case study of the LEGO Mindstorms project team, and focuses in particular on how this team responded to three critical incidents, Our study results in three core findings concerning how this team responded to the unexpected in its high velocity environment. These include: the importance of increasing presence; creating a context for a shared and emotionally grounded identity; and developing a shared set of guiding principles for action, behaviour, and decision-making. The authors further describe interconnections among these three core findings, proposing a higher-level 'virtuous circle' that illustrates how this team responded effectively to critical incidents.
This paper presents a field study of decision-making processes at two organizations operating in high-velocity environments. It reviews existing literature on managerial knowledge structures and decision-making, and identifies methodological and conceptual limitations with these approaches with respect to organizations in high-velocity environments. The authors develop two interpretive cases that focus on the articulated and social methods management teams used to make decisions. They found that both organizations used rules of thumb or heuristic reasoning in their decision-making, that these rules of thumb functioned as headlines of deeper organizational narratives, and that these narratives were grounded in emotional as well as purely rational considerations. They suggest that the term 'guiding principle' usefully integrates their three findings into a second-order concept that may be further explored in future research of both a descriptive and prescriptive nature. Copyright © 2005 SAGE Publications.
Although much of the growing literature on organizational identity implicitly recognizes the normative nature of identity, the ethical implications of organizational identity work and talk have not yet been explored in depth. Working from a meta-ethical perspective, we claim that the dynamic, processual, and temporal activities recently associated with organizational identity always have an ethical dimension, whether "good" or "bad." In order to describe the ethical dimensions of organizational identity, we introduce the balance theory of practical wisdom as a theoretical framework, and connect this theory to existing organizational identity concepts. We present an empirical case focused on an international paint company to illustrate the relevance of this theory for empirical organizational identity research. Our intention is to expand existing theory by bringing an aspect of organizational identity that has been tangentially acknowledged to the forefront, and by identifying it as a fruitful avenue for future theory development as well as empirical research. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
It is individuals who own and control the knowledge of organizational members, the chief source of competitive advantage. Intangible assets often tell one more about the future earnings of the company than today's conventional measures. Until 1980, competitive advantage was based on understanding the competitive environment. Then came the "resource-based" perspective. It became apparent that knowledge was a, if not the, key to sustainable competitive advantage. This touched on invisible assets and core competencies. Strategic management has now in fact shifted from looking externally to the realization that "internal" resources are the tools which need to be exploited. Kaplan and Norton introduced the "Balanced Scorecard" techniques which Skandia used as the foundation for its measurement of intellectual capital. The issues that are involved include treating intellectual capital as the sum of the company's hidden assets which are the most important source of competitive advantage and visualizing intellectual capital systematically. The findings of a research study showed a welcome for the explicit recognition of what intellectual capital was all about as well as a categorization of intellectual capital as human, customer relationship, business processes, organizational and intellectual. Models were developed which resulted in a number of conclusions. Maturity, clear goals and explicit commitment are essential. The intellectual capital (IC) system should focus on long-term earning capability and must be based in corporate culture. A set of indicators needs to be provided for each IC category. The balance sheet approach to IC does not provide information on the move from one category to another ; it is only a snapshot. There appear to be three methods of deriving indicators. One is to develop those which are firmly based on the driving forces behind the vision. Second, they need to be grounded in the selected intellectual capital categories and third, they need to reflect the intercapital flows. There are many difficulties in dealing with indicators, such as selecting the right ones, prioritizing them and making sure they are precise. An IC model needs to be able to be applied to small and large firms, parts as well as the whole. To be viable, an IC system has to be aligned with existing managerial processes. The conclusions from this research need to be tested with a larger sample. This will allow the development of a dimension-free process model for managing intellectual performance and arriving at an index such as Return on Intellectual Capital (ROIC). © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Despite decades of efforts to promote gender equality, most leadership positions in business, politics, education, and even NGOs are occupied by men, and most people still work in occupations dominated by one sex. This book argues that gender imbalances in leadership and occupations are not simply a moral issue or an economic issue, but a governance issue. Gender imbalances persist in large part because the very people with the authority and influence to do something about them know very little about gender and how it works in their organizations and in society at large. Gender imbalanced governance is an expression of entrenched ideas about masculinity and femininity that lead to poor decision making. Improving the quality of governance requires action to counteract the main justifications for the status quo. Based on interviews and conversations with leaders and managers in Europe and the United States, the book presents seven of the most common explanations for persistent gender imbalances and shows how they are based on common stereotypes and myths about men's and women's abilities and preferences. This book provides a guided tour of current research about gender from a multi-disciplinary perspective. It challenges commonly held assumptions and offers alternative explanations and corresponding principles to guide individual decisions, action, and behaviour toward achieving gender balance.
Science, technology, engineering and maths (the so-called STEM subjects) are the driving force behind the most promising and lucrative businesses of the future. But turning such developments into commercially successful innovations requires people who understand STEM as well as organisation and management.
Gone are the days when an MBA generalist with a strong marketing education could fathom the potential of new businesses creating products and services to utilise STEM advances. Today’s managers need a solid business background but also the knowledge of the innovative potential deriving from their company’s progress in STEM fields.
Do not be lulled by today’s strong management education market, says Johan Roos. Business schools still need to find a grander vision of hope, change and community to counter emerging shadows
Business school deans are smiling and optimistic these days. Things have improved since the 2008 crisis. Applications are skyrocketing at most schools, enrolments are up and, with a few notable exceptions, the crucial role of business in economic affairs and global progress is recognised and respected. We can boast that there are over 10,000 business schools around the globe and about one-fifth of the world’s students are studying business and management.
This anti-intellectualism may reflect the growing ranks of high school dropouts, non-college educated youth, senior citizens on the brink of poverty and the unemployed precariat class. School is becoming a place for skills training, losing sight of the need for a broad education that produces responsible citizens who can think deeply and expressively. To defeat the shadow, business schools should become light bearers of hope, change, and global community. Business schools and their deans cannot disregard the darkness that threatens to halt the progress most of the world has made since 2008 to rebuild capitalism and strengthen social democracies. The consequences are unparalleled as strong "anti-progress" forces that encompass a variety of evolutionary or revolutionary movements coalesce power. These collectively function to protest, prevent and even sabotage policies and practices that most agree are beneficial to humanity. The chapter presents five elements: the rise of the "precariat", anti-globalism, anti-intellectualism, extreme inequality and tolerance of greater asymmetry.
The ability to make new distinctions in management, and to diffuse these rapidly throughout a company into shared practices, will be a corporate strategic advantage in the future. Johan Roos justifies this view on the grounds that knowledge development provides the foundation for distinction making, and it is the management of this knowledge that provides the driver. The author argues it is the process of distinction making which is a conscious managerial process. He first discusses the art of making distinctions in general, and then focuses on a particular form of distinction making: pattern recognition. He concludes with three managerial actions that can be taken to enhance the pattern recognition capability of an organisation. Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.