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The paper asks how leaders in organizations address complex situations or challenges where past experiences are no longer helpful or might pose an obstacle for success. The authors use the metaphor of the blank canvas to describe the work of entrepreneurs or innovators who connect to an emerging future possibility. Based on their research, the authors argue that social technologies allow actors in organizations to connect to an emerging future, and break through habitual patterns of the past.

Underlying this paper, are action research projects in change management and organizational learning. While social science methods tend to be based on observational data, the founder of action research, Kurt Lewin, and his successors, including Ed Schein, Chris Argyris, Peter Senge, and Bill Torbert, claim that we have to use more than just observation (third‐person views) to get meaningful data about social reality. According to Bill Torbert organizational researchers need to access third‐, second‐, and first‐person knowledge – that is, observational data (third person), conversational data (second person) and experiential data (first person) that stem from participative action inquiry.

The paper concludes that organizational innovation and change processes cannot be outsourced. Profound innovation and change are only sustainable and successful when connected to the knowledge of the individuals involved, and when created by the people who will use them and be responsible for the results they produce.

Any social action can originate from different inner places; every actor, an individual or a group, even an organization, can choose between different places from where their action originate. How we choose to attend to the world is the leverage we have to determine the outcome of our actions. The arts provide processes that allow actors in organizations to access this quality of knowledge and leverage it.

Peters and Waterman brought the concept of excellence into the conscious practice of organizations during the early 1980s. Theory has timidly followed afterwards. However, the concept existed before and it is broadly used nowadays. This article attempts to synthesize the evolution of excellence, especially in the last 20 years, during which time some legitimate counter developments have shown important limits for these “excellence stages”. Those counter developments tend to be enlightening but have often brought about confusion. Where could excellence be tomorrow and what should organizations do about it? Concludes from this analysis that: deep conceptual work is necessary; the importance of implementation is often mentioned in the literature but not addressed in detail; the idea of sustainability may need further development, especially concerning a clear separation between the socio‐ecological and the competitive advantage perspectives; the different excellence approaches have not looked deeply into the differences between large and small enterprises, public and private sectors, and the organization itself and its components.

This paper aims to explore the challenge of learning and reinvention from the twin perspectives of academia and the earthy pragmatism of popular culture. It provides a set of lessons to assist organisations to learn and, more importantly, unlearn, so that they can stay ahead.

The paper starts with a brief review of some of the more important ideas around learning. It is followed by a case study of a “glorious failure”, taken from the music business using action research as the methodology.

The main findings may be summarised are: selected people who are able and willing rather than simply putting up with what you have available at the time; if your project is much bigger scale/different than that attempted previously to recognise this and act accordingly; when working with highly creative people, ensure that there is sufficient focus on end customer requirements to avoid the project becoming too self‐obsessed. These findings are highly transferable from the original field of the music industry to other environments.

Some principles for commencing the processes required to encourage learning and unlearning are developed for adaptation to particular organisations in the paper. These will be of value to anyone who seeks to introduce adaptive or transformative change in their organisation.

This paper describes the personal history and intellectual development of Morris B. Holbrook (MBH), a participant in the field of marketing academics in general and consumer research in particular.

The paper pursues an approach characterized by historical autoethnographic subjective personal introspection or HASPI.

The paper reports the personal history of MBH and – via HASPI – interprets various aspects of key participants and major themes that emerged over the course of his career.

The main implication is that every scholar in the field of marketing pursues a different light, follows a unique path, plays by idiosyncratic rules, and deserves individual attention, consideration, and respect … like a cat that carries its own leash.

In the case of MBH, like (say) a jazz musician, whatever value he might have depends on his originality.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how contractor firms manage their relationships with extended supply chain tiers and investigate the range of ICT technologies used to facilitate such practices.

An on-line questionnaire survey was conducted to gather information about supply chain management operations, supplier relationship management and the ICT technologies used by contractor firms to manage their extended supply chain tiers.

The extended supply chain relationships of contractor firms are primarily composed of contractual, technical and financial entities, but findings suggest that the vision to consider extended supply chain firms when selecting suppliers are still myopic. Majority of ICT technologies are used between Tier 1 supply chain firms and there is an inconsistency in the number of technologies adopted with the extended supply chain tiers. Despite having a high involvement relationship with Tier 2 downstream firms, findings indicate a lack of use of ICT technologies to manage the organisational, personal and technological interactions with these firms.

On the basis of different relationship types this study develops an initial framework for management of supply chains that are facilitated by relevant ICT technologies.

This paper provides insights into the management of extended supply chain firms by contractor firms from a relationship-centric perspective and develops an initial framework for relationship-centric supply chain management.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which narratives of collaborations tagged as successful may be constructed around common characterizations of participants, in order to provide insights to the ways in which stories may be constructed as vehicles for the adoption or adaptation of good or promising practices.

Qualitative interview data from three collaborative situations are analysed through a narrative‐centred procedure with a particular focus on micro‐stories.

The paper provides a set of recurring characterizations observed within narratives of successful collaboration and their employment within the stories offered by collaborating partners. It also suggests the relationship that these characterizations might have to the stimulation or retardation of good collaborative practices.

The paper is derived from interviews in the UK context and extrapolation to other contexts seems plausible but should be conducted cautiously and with reflection.

The particular style of narrative analysis conducted in this work has not been employed to the consideration of collaborative accounts and the characterizations derived may have utility as anchoring elements in stories of collaboration, helpful in both the elicitation and interpretation of such accounts.

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Log onto the McDonald's web site and you'll immediately see pictures of happy, smiling staff and a comment that the corporation is proud of its long‐standing commitment to its workforce. “Oh, really?” might be some people's incredulous response.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to digest format.

Research on behalf of the IABC into the potential links between business success and communication competence has suggested strongly that the communication function(s) can only contribute significantly to short‐ or long‐term business goals if it is focused on improving the communication competence of the organisation as opposed to that of the function itself. The implications of this research are considerable and have led researchers to begin to develop a body of theory, upon which further research will be based, around the concept of the communicating company. The communicating company is defined as “an organisation that actively integrates communication systems and processes across and between all its significant activities, with the intention of achieving competitive advantage”. This paper aims to explore: what the communicating company might look like and how it differs from today’s organisations; what structures and systems might underlie the communicating company and help it achieve/sustain competitive advantage; how the debate around this emerging topic and the future of the communication function might be progressed.