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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of the Directed Evolution methodology, illustrate its usefulness in creating systemic change, and how it can be implemented in face of strong resistance to change. The paper aims to demonstrate how comprehensive product/program systems redesign for higher organizational effectiveness can be realized through a well‐defined Directed Evolution implementation.

A novel model and process for Directed Evolution implementation to facilitate systemic change in organizations and in communities are described. After successful implementation in several types of organizational units, the model was examined for congruence with well‐known frameworks in change management.

The paper finds that the model has congruence with several systemic change management frameworks. It complements systems thinking by harnessing organizational knowledge through creative involvement of organizational members, employing five‐phase execution to sustain organizational members’ motivation throughout the program; and realizing comprehensive patent and intellectual property redesign while improving program and product functionality.

The study show‐cases system thinking and new innovation tools and techniques as an excellent systemic change intervention.

The age of innovation is here. In most business organizations, creativity is a means to an end, which is innovation. Creativity is the process of generating something new that has value to an organization, group or individual. Innovation is the process of generating a new mindset to produce something that has significant value to an organization or an individual or to society in general. The operative word that distinguishes innovations from creativity is significant. Innovation is the successful implementation of a new concept or product. Innovation is the sustainable process that provides a significant competitive advantage. Research has turned innovation from a haphazard, random occurrence into an understood process that anyone can benefit from. This paper reveals how this new exciting problem-solving and product/process development methodology has become the cornerstone of our Innovative Problem Solving model and the promise of exciting new things to come.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the structural characteristics, the governance and the performance of two French and Italian groups of wine cooperatives, with two objectives in mind. On one hand, the study will analyse the presence of similarities between the characteristics of the two groups of companies which were founded in the same period within a similar legal framework; on the other, it will study the presence of links between the strategic policy of the companies and their structural, governance and performance characteristics.

The study uses survey data obtained from interviews with 25 wine cooperatives. It covers the topics of their structure, organisation, strategies, management and performance in Italy (specifically in Umbria, a region in the centre of Italy), and in France (in Languedoc‐Roussillon, a region in southern France). Other indicators of performance, calculated from the balance sheets of the companies, were added to this analysis, and a careful analysis was drawn up to check the factors which condition the performance of the companies.

The main finding underlines some strong differentiating elements between those cooperatives selling the biggest part of their production as bulk wine and those selling it as packaged wine. But the first situation does not lead automatically to inferring a decline or an involution of these cooperatives. On the contrary, the mitigated performances that were found clearly question whether there is a strategic evolution towards more specialisation (intermediate phases of product transformation, leading to business‐to‐business differentiation strategies) which could be more profitable for their growers‐owners than further integration towards packaged wine sales.

The analysis deals with the problem of performance and governance of the transformation cooperative companies in the wine sector, which produce more than 50 percent of the entire wine production both in France and Italy.