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For most knowledge‐intensive companies at present, the business environment where they compete is complex, characterized by rapid change and uncertainty. Employees and other intangible resources (i.e. intellectual capital) generally represent the most critical resources in the value creation process. Crafting strategy in such contexts is not helped by conventional models and tools of strategy. The assumptions which underpin many of them do not hold in the present competitive environment, making them at best irrelevant, but at worst leading to the development of strategies that can put the success of a company in jeopardy. New metaphors for describing these companies and their competitive realities, as well as tools for navigating in them, are required, if the strategy discipline is to remain relevant for practitioners. In this paper, it is suggested that the intellectual capital perspective can provide a bridge to the practical application of a vision‐ and values‐based strategy through the notion of embodying strategy in organizational resources. A conceptualization of strategy, that links strategy, identity and intellectual capital, more suitable to knowledge‐intensive companies competing in uncertain environments, is introduced and described.

Uses the case of telecommunications software company APiON to illustrate how the company developed and implemented a growth strategy that allowed them to realize a dramatic increase in shareholder value through proactively focusing on managing their intellectual capital (IC) resources. While there are many perspectives on value creation, they all share a weakness in identifying specific actions and in mobilizing organizational resources. As it has emerged out of practice, the IC perspective has a distinctive practitioner focus, emphasizing resource accumulation and deployment in the value creation process. Presents the key concepts and language of the IC perspective, illustrating its implementation using the case of APiON. Closes with some conclusions and remarks concerning further development of the IC perspective.

This conversation with Göran Roos explores leveraging the interrelated roles of intellectual capital and strategy in contemporary organizations. Roos has created frameworks which make the intangible of intellectual capital understood as a very real asset and to be cultivated, measured and appropriately exploited for competitive advantage. The conversation examines how to work with management to rethink strategies and practices to determine and utilize the drivers for intellectual capital growth, as well as how to rigorously valuate and effectively use intellectual resources throughout their enterprises to make significant differences. These approaches have been used in a wide variety of both private and public sector organizations around the world in a broad range of market segments.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze business model (BM) and intellectual capital (IC) of a firm with a focus on their common elements. The common bases in the field of strategic management for these two concepts are, among others, resource-based view, knowledge-based view, intellectual capital-based view, dynamic capabilities, and configurational approach. It indicates areas in which these two concepts can benefit from each other, e.g. in classification of components, their configuration, or dynamic approach. This general review examines the following research questions: What are the common concepts for the BM and IC? What are their common components? What does the dynamic approach to IC and BM mean?

The Web of Science™ Core Collection database was selected for the period 1975-2014 and the Journal of Intellectual Capital (JIC) indexed in Scopus^® (Elsevier) was incorporated into the analysis for the period it had been indexed by Scopus (1990-2015). These databases were selected because they offer a reliable overview of historical data regarding journals, articles, and citation impact. The key filter criteria were the presence of the phrases “business model” or “intellectual capital” in the article title, abstract, and key words in order to narrow down the selection to the most appropriate results for the research area.

This paper investigates two concepts from the point of view of their underpinnings in management, definitions, and components, as well as value creation. Analysis of the foundations in management allows the author to present a cohesive model, which depicts a comprehensive approach to analysis of these two concepts. Many common elements have been identified and investigated.

First, it provides an indication of the common underpinnings of the analyzed concepts within the framework of strategic management and proposals for their development toward resource, knowledge, and IC accumulation, combination and heterogeneity-based views. Second, it presents an analysis of the BM and IC components, showing common elements between them. Third, it provides a description and analysis of dynamic view of BM and IC components in a value creation context.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how strategic alignment of the corporations’ real estate with the organisational strategy may be used to facilitate change within an organisation’s collaborative culture. The focus is on the interconnectedness between spatial and behavioural artefacts in the transition process to a new workplace concept.

The discussion builds on observational studies and semi-structured interviews with 65 employees in a Norwegian organisation.

The findings indicate that the physical change, when supported by behavioural artefacts as change management actions, paved way for a cultural change towards increased collaboration between employees and across hierarchical levels. However, misalignments between the new workplace concept and existing behavioural artefacts and cultural constructs also restricted the organisation in fully achieving the intended ends.

Applying a socio-material perspective with explicit focus on issues such as management and culture in workplace studies is important to develop better models for strategic use of a corporations’ real estate.

When new workplace concepts are implemented with the aim of effecting organisational change they require support of a focused change management process where both spatial and behavioural artefacts are designed to support employee adaptation to the new concept. By conducting the change as a continuous iterative process, extending beyond the moving process itself, the corporate real estate management (CREM) may add to the success by guiding and steering the organisation in the right direction.

The study aims to provide insight on the relationship between a newly implemented workplace concept, its intentions, the actual use and ultimately its ability to function as a strategic tool. By addressing the intended and unintended consequences of planned spatial arrangements, the interest lies in studying underlying factors affecting the concepts’ ability to function as a strategic tool.

The case study builds on semi-structured interviews and observational studies from a larger Norwegian organisation that recently implemented an activity-based workplace concept. Concept descriptions and architectural drawings have also been important sources to study how the concept was interpreted and used by different groups.

Taking a socio-material perspective, the findings illustrate that spatial aspects and different concept structures, together with issues such as employee mobility and time spent in the office, different work processes, management style and departmental cultures influenced the way the activity-based workplace concept was perceived and taken into use.

The findings indicate that social and cultural aspects may play a more significant role in the adaptation process than previously emphasised. The article further provides knowledge on how organisations, in planning and implementation of such concepts, may address the right issues to overcome challenges and achieve the higher strategic ends.

The purpose of the paper is to explore the use of, and challenges associated with, spatial change management strategies. This is done through a discussion on how spatial environments may be utilised to effect organisational change. The intention is to provoke new thinking on physical change initiatives and to challenge the often highly deterministic view on the effects of contemporary workspace concepts.

The paper is structured as a case study-based literature review, drawing on literature from the fields of environmental psychology, organisational branding, corporate real estate and facility management, as well as organisational change management.

The study indicates that space management strategies may fail because of the lack of understanding of how organisational events and other contextually specific aspects correlate with the physical change initiative. Succeeding with the spatial strategy requires a strong focus on socio-material relationships and the employee meaning-making process during the spatial change process.

Contrary to the traditional and rational focus on functional space management strategies, the paper takes a socio-material approach suggesting that there is a need for more empirically based research into the employee meaning-making process and the role of human and organisational practices in the development of new workplace concepts. Focusing on how organisational members understand and “make use of” spatial environments may substantially improve organisations and building consultants’ abilities to strategically manage the physical change initiative and achieve the intended ends.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on how firms draw on historical references in corporate marketing. The paper seeks to analyze the logic behind such efforts from a corporate identity perspective and to propose potential risks and/or benefits of doing so. The paper aims to inspire the understanding of how references to history are used in marketing and the outcome of such use.

The paper mainly draws on literature relating to corporate marketing and the use of history in organizations. Combining these theories, and pointing at empirical examples, the paper clarifies why references to history can be important manifestations of corporate identity. The paper comes up with propositions concerning what consequences the reference to history in corporate marketing can have for firms' marketing strategies and business development.

The paper outlines a connection among corporate identity, organizational identity, and image through corporate communications. It suggests that among the range of corporate characteristics, historical references can be particular valuable for corporate communications thanks to the reliability age can provide (as opposed to liabilities of newness). Still, elaborations suggest that the planned use of historical references has both pros and cons in terms of business development.

Despite the notion that history, as an inevitable and distinctive firm feature, can play an important role in corporate marketing, research on the topic is quite scarce. This paper offers some remedy to this gap by elaborating on the internal and external rationales for applying historical references and how these can be explained in connections between corporate identity and history.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how service design practices reshape mental models to enable innovation. Mental models are actors’ assumptions and beliefs that guide their behavior and interpretation of their environment.

This paper offers a conceptual framework for innovation in service ecosystems through service design that connects the macro view of innovation as changing institutional arrangements with the micro view of innovation as reshaping actors’ mental models. Furthermore, through an 18-month ethnographic study of service design practices in the context of healthcare, how service design practices reshape mental models to enable innovation is investigated.

This research highlights that service design reshapes mental models through the practices of sensing surprise, perceiving multiples and embodying alternatives. This paper delineates the enabling conditions for these practices to occur, such as coaching, diverse participation and supportive physical materials.

This study brings forward the underappreciated role of actors’ mental models in innovation. It highlights that innovation in service ecosystems is not simply about actors making changes to their external context but also actors shifting their own assumptions and beliefs.

This paper offers insights for service managers and service designers interested in supporting innovation on how to catalyze shifts in actors’ mental models by creating the conditions for specific service design practices.

This paper is the first to shed light on the central role of actors’ mental models in innovation and identify the service design practices that reshape mental models.