Strategic Flexibility: Managing in a Turbulent Environment

Moving towards the zenith of the technological age brings with it an ever–increasing amount of uncertainty, change and flux. Academic, business and consultative commentators around the world have for years been speculating on the divergent courses we may take through the information maze, and on the different possibilities we may attain when we get there. What is needed now is not another set of possibilities, but an entirely new way of looking, seeing and responding. The worldwide turbulence will require different perspectives on organizations, different styles of leadership, and perhaps most important, the strategic flexibility on which this volume focuses. This is summed up by Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad: "Developing a program of ideas new ideas, new theory, new applications, new concepts that are relevant to a manager facing the new millennium To do that we need to escape old constraints, old thinking, old questions, and address everything that is new. We hope that we can work together to help set the research agenda for the field of strategic management in the year 2000 and beyond. Let’s break out of old paradigms; let’s challenge received dogma; let’s have the courage to ask new questions; let’s rekindle our passion for relevance."

Spis treści:
INNOVATION.
Improving Innovation Performance in Older Firms: The General Manager′s Role (J. Christiansen).
Everyday Innovation/Everyday Strategy (G. Johnson & A. Huff).
Cooperative R&D and Competence Building (B. Quelin & C. Mothe).
Strategic Trajectories and Patterns of Innovation (J. Stimpert, et al.).
ORGANIZATION.
The H–P Way: An Application Using Deliberate and Emergent Corporate Cultures to Analyze Strategic Competitive Advantage (S. Kowalczyk & G. Giusti).
Good for Practice: An Integrated Theory of the Value of Alternative Organizational Forms (R. Miles, et al.).
Strategic Reengineering: An Inter nal Industry Analysis Framework (K. Pritsker).
Changing Formal and Informal Structure to Enhance Organizational Knowledge (T. Thompson & K. Valley).
LEADERSHIP.
Opening Pandora′s Box: Do Good Ethics Make Good Business? (P. Godfrey, et al.).
Sage, Visionary, Prophet and Priest: Leadership Styles of Knowledge Management and Wisdom (S. Green & P. Cooper).
Information Competences and Knowledge Creation at the Corporate Centre (Y. Merali & J. McGee).
Evaluating Board Performance (D. O′Neal & H. Thomas).
Where Do Strategic Ideas Come From? (P. Raimond).
PARTNERSHIP.
Strategic Supplier Segmentation: A Model for Managing Suppliers in the 21st Century (J. Dyer, et al.).
An Investigation of the Knowledge Structures of French and German Managers (S. Floyd, et al.).
COMPETENCE.
The Alchemy of Competence (T. Durand).
Structure Decisions and the Multinational Enterprise: A Dynamic Competence Perspective (D. Garvis & W. Bogner).
Discovering Strategy: Competitive Advantage from Idiosyncratic Experimentation (R. McGrath).
Strategic Renewal and Competence Building: Four Dynamic Mechanisms (H. Volderba & C. Baden–Fuller).

Nota biograficzna:
About the Editors Gary Hamel is Professor of Strategic and International Management at London Business School. He was formerly visiting Professor of International Business at the Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Michigan. Gary Hamel teaches on corporate senior executive programmes, and is a consultant to various American, European and Japanese multinationals. He is on the editorial board of the Strategic Management Journal and is a member of the Global Business Network. He is author of Competing for the Future with C. K. Prahalad. C. K. Prahalad is Harvey C. Fruehauf Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Corporate Strategy and International Business at the Graduate School of Business Administration, Unive rsity of Michigan. He has consulted with many multinational firms including Motorola, AT&T, Philips, Honeywell and Eastman Kodak. He is co–author with Gary Hamel of the McKinsey Award winning article, The Core Competence of the Corporation. Howard Thomas is Dean of the College of Commerce and Business Administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, and James F. Towey Professor of Strategic Management at UIUC. He became Dean in May 1992. Prior to this he was Foundation Professor of Management at the Australian Graduate School of Management, New South Wales, and Director of the Doctoral Program at London Business School, England. He is internationally recognized as one of the leading experts in the field of strategic management theory. He serves on the editorial boards of various management journals and is President for the Strategic Management Society and has published widely in the areas of corporate and competitive strategy. He has an international reputation as a consultant in strategy and serves on a number of boards. Donald O′Neal, MBA and PhD (Business Administration), University of Illinois is an Assistant Professor of Management at the University of Illinois at Springfield. After a successful business career, including management positions in engineering and sales, and, latterly, as Vice President of Human Resources he studied for a doctorate in strategic management at the UIUC. In addition to teaching his interests include research in corporate governance and consulting in the areas of strategy and leadership.

Okładka tylna:
Moving towards the zenith of the technological age brings with it an ever–increasing amount of uncertainty, change and flux. Academic, business and consultative commentators around the world have for years been speculating on the divergent courses we may take through the information maze, and on the different possibilities we may attain when we get there. What is needed now is not another set of possibilities, but an entirely new way of looking, seeing and responding. The worldwide turbulence will require different perspectives on organizations, different styles of leadership, and perhaps most important, the strategic flexibility on which this volume focuses. This is summed up by Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad: "Developing a program of ideas new ideas, new theory, new applications, new concepts that are relevant to a manager facing the new millennium To do that we need to escape old constraints, old thinking, old questions, and address everything that is new. We hope that we can work together to help set the research agenda for the field of strategic management in the year 2000 and beyond. Let’s break out of old paradigms; let’s challenge received dogma; let’s have the courage to ask new questions; let’s rekindle our passion for relevance."