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Project-based organization (PBO) can serve as a temporary organizational form in response to uncertainty or turbulent environmental conditions. An updated retrospective study of the Danish hearing aids maker Oticon illustrates the role of PBO (the so-called spaghetti organization) in guiding the company through a specific period of industry turbulence and the company leader's search for a more effective structure to organize innovation within the company. The spaghetti organization was experimental in two distinct senses. First, the spaghetti organization tested the limits of decentralization, bottom-up self-organizing innovation, and PBO. Inspired by the experience of just how dysfunctional hierarchy could become, Oticon's spaghetti organization tested the limits of nonhierarchy. And unlike the failed Brook Farm utopia of the 1840s, the utopia of radical project-based organizing at Oticon proved highly successful as a means of promoting innovation even if the spaghetti organization was not sustainable in its original form and required subsequent modification. Second, Oticon was essentially a natural experiment testing and refuting the complementarities-based claim that intermediate forms of organization which include elements of both hierarchical organization and team (or project-based) organization are inherently unstable.

The paper investigates the successful establishment of a strong corporate brand with a particular emphasis on analysing the corporate branding literature’s assumptions about coherency. Successful corporate branding is claimed to imply a shared set of coherent statements about the company’s values towards its external and internal stakeholders over time. An empirical test is applied to the coherency assumption. First, the coherency of a corporate brand over time is investigated as it develops in the media. Secondly, the coherency between two stakeholders’ perceptions of the corporate brand, organisational members and the media is investigated. This research suggests there are three distinct types of coherencies in corporate branding strategies over time: statement coherency, interpretation coherency and uniqueness coherency. On the one hand, a strong corporate brand is characterised by tight coherency, as top management’s statements about values remain the same over time and towards different stakeholders, ie statement coherency. On the other hand, a strong corporate brand is simultaneously characterised by a loose, or even absent, coherency between stakeholders’ interpretations of top management’s statements as well as a lack of coherency in stakeholders’ interpretations of the corporate brand over time, ie interpretation coherency. Finally, a third coherency phenomenon is observed, ie stakeholders’ emphasis on changing topics over time, which they relate to the corporate brand. Stakeholders agree that these themes are unique features and hence the company is considered unique, ie the uniqueness coherency. The implications of multiple interpretations are discussed as well as changing interpretations in corporate branding. It is argued that statement coherency is a necessary element in successful corporate branding, and the viability of the ambition to develop interpretation coherency over time and across stakeholders in corporate branding is discussed from the point of view of allowing room for interpretation incoherency. Finally, the question of maintaining uniqueness coherency is discussed: for how long can a company represent “newness” in the eyes of its stakeholders – including itself? Implications for management are discussed.

To identify some of the major issues and problems firms face, when they collaborate with suppliers in new product development.

The paper presents a case study of a leading Danish hearing aid manufacturer.

Early involvement of suppliers in new product development reduces time‐to‐market, but increases the risk that proprietary knowledge is leaked to the competitors. Therefore, the supplier approval process is very important.

The paper discusses the implications of platform management for new product development and sourcing strategies. The paper is based on a single case study. In order to generalize the findings, it is necessary to study more companies from different industries, with different technologies, competition, and contextual features.

The paper illustrates the risk of single sourcing and raises the question, how buyers without leverage can become an interesting customer for large suppliers.

The paper analyzes the implications of platform management for new product development and supply chain management at the interfaces between focal company and its suppliers and customers.

Spotlights Danish hearing aid manufacturer, Oticon, and the way it swept away four shibboleths of human capital management which were: departments and titles would go; no more job descriptions; no offices; and no memos. Highlights, in a box, Oticon's customer intelligent products. Shows that employees and managers share responsibility for training and career development, helping one another to access and use information for the company's benefit. Spotlights, in another box, Oticon's success story.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a typology of organization behavior based on the guidelines from Manusmriti, an ancient Indian law text. The paper also purports to provide guidelines from the text for values‐based corporate governance.

The paper first develops an organizational behavior typology based on Manusmriti. The paper then provides guidelines for various aspects of values‐based corporate governance.

The paper finds that the guidelines from Manusmriti are relevant in providing a holistic approach to corporate governance which promotes ethical and social idealism.

The paper has practical implications to practitioners of corporate governance in terms of developing structures which promote ethical and socially responsible behavior.

The originality of the paper is in deriving guidelines for values‐based corporate governance from Manusmriti.

This article discusses both the management of tacit knowledge and the tacit approach to knowledge management. Tacit knowledge must be made manageable by being explicated and separated from the knowledge workers, so that the knowledge resources do not go home at night. However, the less knowledge leaving in the evening, the less knowledge will return the following morning. Making the organization as independent as possible of the tacit knowledge of its knowledge workers is an ironic program for knowledge management, since it advocates a reduction of the total resource pool for the sake of managerial control. The article searches for alternatives to knowledge management exercised from a position of control and ownership. A case study of product development is analyzed. This specialized context focuses attention on knowledge mobilization rather than knowledge control and sharing. The artifact provides sufficient pressure for order and coordination to emerge spontaneously. Knowledge management can in such circumstances become tacit without losing its value.

Manufacturers are in the midst of one of the most significant transformations in history. The kaleidoscopic nature of the global economy has created an environment of unprecedented hyper‐complexity and dynamic change. So much so that the rules of the competitive game are shifting faster than managers can react to them. Moreover, these dynamics bode continuous sea changes in work and sources of value‐added. Looking to past solutions for rationing resources and controlling costs is not an option. The drivers of change indicate one point: Successful manufacturers tomorrow will not look much like those of today.