Search results

This paper expresses the author's viewpoint on how to advance research and practice on managing business networks and addressing convergence across industries.

The paper is based on the authors extensive prior research in strategy and business experience.

The author suggests differentiating networks by purpose and framing role spaces can be useful abstractions that help researchers study networks and managers to navigate the design of networks. The author raises critical questions around business network design.

The paper presents novel suggestions for studying business networks in a pragmatic way.

When the price is right, profits follow.

Knowledge assets are a critical basis of competition, but knowledge management (KM) often fails to deliver in effectively growing the value of these assets. This paper aims to lay out four shifts required to make knowledge management more effective.

The paper defines four shifts likely in the evolution of KM: “Knowledge Clouds” where knowledge assets within and outside the company become permeable and interconnected in a cloud computing environment; the use of social media and ratings to co‐create user generated ratings, taxonomies and collective organization of knowledge; integrating KM with learning and decision support so users are better empowered to learn, decide and do useful things with knowledge; and everybody becomes a knowledge manager and is clear about how the can contribute to the creation, projection, organization and use of knowledge of assets within and outside the walls of the company.

The paper presents clear reasons KM is vital to the future of business, but probably best obliterated now.

Much of the discussion on KM is centered on the firm. This paper pushes forth provocatively to suggest that the future of KM is best served by obliterating centralized KM to create a more social process where everyone is a knowledge manager.

How can executives improve the odds of generating breakthrough ideas and solutions in their organizations? In contrast to methods like brainstorming and widely available ideation methods – this viewpoint proposes more disciplined approaches to thinking can greatly enhance the odds of breakthroughs. Through a series of illustrative examples primarily focused on creating differentiated thought leadership, this article outlines five approaches to critical thinking that can enhance the likelihood of new strategies and discoveries.

As a viewpoint this article is based on personal reflection and analysis of prior professional experiences

This viewpoint outlines five strategies that executives can use to sharpen their thinking skills to generate breakthroughs. These include: attending to anomalies; pushing ideas to their limit and beyond; changing coordinate frames; building on and adapting prior models to new contexts; and “black box” abstraction as approaches every strategist and researcher can adopt to generating breakthroughs. The five techniques are illustrated through personal and other examples.

This reflective viewpoint provides pragmatic critical thinking tools that can help strategists and thought leaders improve the options for creating breakthrough ideas and solutions.

The worldwide web continues to evolve as a key capability for commercial and human interactions. This paper lays out how the web is likely to evolve and key capabilities businesses must harness to realize the future value of the web.

The article defines five stages of evolution of the web. Web 1.0 was primarily a publishing and transactional environment. Web 2.0 as a space where users co‐create value. Web 3.0 as a semantic space where machine intelligence combines with human intelligence to create new insights. Web 4.0 as a mobile space where users and real and virtual objects are integrated together to create value. Web 5.0 a sensory emotive space where we are able to move the web from an emotionally flat environment to a space of rich interactions. The article outlines how companies must adapt to each stage.

The article presents clear reasons for why the web might evolve across these five stages and what businesses must focus on to harness the web.

Much of the discussion today centers around Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. This article pushes forth to a new space provocatively and with reason to suggest future outlines of the evolution of the internet.

Across companies, and even the public sector, there is a looming challenge as baby boomers and many current leaders retire. This is the challenge of developing the next generation of leadership ‐ not just at the CEO level, but in the various functions of the organization.

For this study, fifteen leading CFOs were interviewed, asking them to describe their journeys to leadership.

While the research was based on interviews of CFOs, the findings could pertain to many leadership roles in companies.

The research found there were five key traits to leaders: curiosity, courage, perseverance, personal ethics, and confidence. Of these five traits, what was surprising was the consistent importance of curiosity as a valued trait among nearly all the CFO participants.

The purpose of this paper is to ask what companies should do when sustainable growth rates far exceed revenue growth rates.

Provides an overview of US corporate profitability.

Finds that today, for the first time since 1969, corporate profitability as a share of the gross domestic product exceeds business investments.

Is of value in suggesting that shareholders and executives should question how to unlock greater value more quickly from their companies, and understand future shape of businesses in America.

This paper aims to examine how managers can respond to recessions and navigate their companies to success looking at the last two recessions in the US.

The research identified those companies that substantially exceeded the performance of their peers in the last two recessions. News stories and publications on these companies were cross case analyzed to establish hypotheses of how managers can best manage through a recession.

The research found those organizations that sustained their focus on revenue growth and market share, and where managers had broad mindset and considered a broad set of options for action were most likely to succeed, in contrast to those who did across the board staff and cost cuts.

This examination of prior strategies offers managers guidelines for navigating recessions. There is little published research on this topic in strategy.

The re‐engineering movement focused on obliterating functional silos and creating processes. As processes become more prevalent, today's challenge is to overcome process silos and synchronize them within and across companies. This paper lays out the key drivers of synchronization challenges and many responses to address them.

The article defines synchronization and uses examples to articulate its impact on businesses. It then identifies six key drivers of synchronization failure: uncertainty, ambiguity, complexity, volatility, urgency, and differing agency incentives across processes. The article then outlines strategies for responding to these shortcomings and examples of organizations that derive competitive advantages from synchronization.

The article presents five steps to improving synchronization within an organization: identify key synchronization opportunities; identify responses to the opportunities; stimulate, evaluate and examine interdependencies; execute select initiatives; and evaluate and iterate.

Synchronization is difficult, and firms who successfully synchronize key processes are likely to have advantages that are difficult to replicate. As we enter an economic slowdown in the United States, managers may discover that improving synchronization will be a better strategic move than simply cutting costs.