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This book considers how the sales function informs business strategy. There are many books that address how to manage the sales team tactically, however, this text addresses how sales can help organizations to become more customer-oriented. Many organizations are facing escalating costs and growing customer power, making it necessary to allocate resources more strategically. The sales function can provide critical customer and market knowledge to help inform both innovation and marketing. Sales build customer knowledge; network both internally and externally to create additional customer value; and manage customer relationships and selling. The text considers how sales organizations are responding to increasing competition, more demanding customers, and a more complex selling environment. Possible solutions to the many challenges facing organizations are discussed. The book considers the changing nature of sales and how activities can be aligned within the organization, as well as market-sensing, creating customer focus, and the role of sales leadership. Short case studies by a range of organizations operating in various industries are provided. Sales and senior management play an important role in ensuring sales teams’ activities are aligned to business strategy and in creating an environment that allows salespeople to successfully new business opportunities and build long-term profitable business relationships. The book also considers how academic sales literature has changed in the last five years and integrates it with examples from sales practice to provide a more complete picture of the role of sales within the modern organization.

In Aligning for Advantage, it is argued that to deliver successfully on a company’s overarching purpose and intent, competitive strategy needs to be synchronized with strategies for political and regulatory activism and social and environmental engagement. Moreover, these market and nonmarket strategies must be equally attuned with, and informed by, the corporate vision, values, and objectives. The ability to align with and across both the market and the nonmarket is a key determinant of competitive advantage in a multipolar world economy. A managerial process and a conceptual framework are advanced for aligning a company’s business objectives and market positions with its political requirements and social obligations. Strategic alignment is a pragmatic and proactive approach for modern enterprises to engage with the forces and events affecting their business choices and actions at home and abroad. Companies must strive for a balanced and mutually reinforcing approach to corporate strategy, political activity, and social responsibility. In some cases, alignment may mean deep, strategically embedded partnerships with governments, NGOs, or other stakeholders. In others, alignment may consist of looser, more ad hoc collaborations with outside organizations and institutions. Whatever the approach, the relationship between nonmarket and market strategies should be conscious and deliberate, not accidental or artificially constructed. Truly aligned strategies seek to reconcile and modulate the sometimes conflicting external demands that a company encounters in a way that is appropriate for the firm’s geographic and market positions, while at the same time leveraging the overall nonmarket strategy as a source of competitive advantage.

The United States has a large number of well-educated, experienced professional women ready, willing, and able to move into the boardrooms and executive suites of corporate America. They represent a great, untapped economic resource and this book argues that this is America’s competitive secret. Drawing on in-depth interviews with top executives and middle managers, and the latest research on working women and organizational change, the author describes the unique contribution of female professionals. Her profiles of top women managers reveal that they cope well with ambiguity, are comfortable sharing power, and tend to empower others' leadership traits that lead to increased employee productivity, innovation, and profits. The book offers evidence that the changes that help organizations more fully utilize the talents of women are the same changes that will give them an important edge in today’s global workplace. The author explains why the glass ceiling still prevents many competent women from reaching the upper echelons of management. She analyses why women and men are perceived and evaluated differently at work, and provides new insight into the feelings of men who are asked to interact with women in new roles when there are few new rules. The book shows that removing the glass ceiling can no longer be viewed solely in terms of social equity—it is now an economic imperative.

This book explores the evolution and origins of contemporary moral culture, with a particular focus on the challenges it poses for managers and business leaders. It is argued that in today’s bimoral society, people govern their lives by two contrasting sets of principles: those associated with traditional morality and its duties and obligations, which remain powerful even though the authorities supporting them have been considerably weakened; and those associated with the pursuit of self-interest, which have escaped their traditional constraints and acquired a degree of social legitimacy unparalleled in history. The tensions arising from this situation are apparent in all areas of social life, but are especially so in business. The same developments that have led to the bimoral society have also led to new, more flexible forms of organizing that have released people’s entrepreneurial energies and significantly enhanced the creative capacities of business organizations. Working within such organizational cultures, however, is fraught with moral tensions as obligations and self-interest conflict and managers are pulled in all sorts of different directions. As the technical problem-solving that previously characterized managerial work is increasingly accomplished by technology and market mechanisms, the key tasks of management become those of political and moral leadership: determining purposes and priorities, reconciling divergent interests, and nurturing trust in interpersonal relationships. The book also explores the challenge for societies developing forms of corporate governance appropriate to the new environment.

In the case of an acquisition or a merger, it is very often the case that when an individual or company perceives itself to be the winner, subsequent events will show that the victory was overvalued. Both psychological and market based forces often lead managers to greatly overestimate what they are buying, resulting in the “winner’s curse”. In an effort to grow their companies, competitive and overly confident managers with high compensation packages make rash decisions. The pressure put on values by the stock market, stock analysts, and investment bankers is coupled with the presence of a bidding psychology. When senior management experiences “buyer’s remorse”, having made overly optimistic forecasts about the future of the company, a true financial “curse” often ensues. In the event that a company does “win” by making it to the top of its industry, complacency or hubris caused by a sense of invulnerability often conspire to move the company out of the winner’s column. This book examines the phenomenon of the “winner’s curse”. It presents a number of cases illustrating the curse, and examines the reasons for it in each instance. It also looks at situations where CEOs decided to walk away from “winning” because of their sober ability to trade-off the risks of winning versus the real returns. In particular, the last chapter presents a series of “take-aways” for any manager to follow to avoid the winner’s curse.

A new era of global banking and insurance is emerging, with leading banks eager to serve international markets. This book explores the issues that arise for banks in their strategic choices as they move into these new international markets. This book challenges conventional assumptions from the international management literature on topics such as the limits of globalization, the importance of cultural and institutional distance, the nature of economies of scale and scope, the existence of first mover advantages, the logic behind the global value chain configuration, the speed and timing of market entry, as well as organizational architecture. It focuses on fundamental strategic decisions such as when, where, and how to enter foreign markets and how to design the organizational architecture of the multinational financial services firm. Using simple theoretical frameworks illustrated by case examples, this book provides a guide to the challenges of the international market for financial services firms.

How do firms cope with changing environments? Is flexibility really the solution? How can we measure a firm's flexibility? Can a more flexible firm be created? Based on an Igor Ansoff Award-winning study this book shows how flexibility has become the new strategic challenge for contemporary firms. Although traditional organizational forms have worked well in the relatively stable environments of the past, the globalization of markets, rapid technological change, shortening product life cycles, and increasing aggressiveness of competitors have radically altered the ground rules for competing in the 1990s and beyond. Increased competition forces firms to move more quickly and boldly than before, and to experiment in ways that do not conform to traditional administrative theory. This book offers a wealth of insights into the way firms can increase their flexibility. It is based on extensive interviews with practitioners and supported by many longitudinal case studies on flexibility improvement within large corporations. The book provides a strategic framework which explains what types of flexibility are effective under different organizational conditions and environmental characteristics. It also demonstrates an integrated method for diagnosing a firm's flexibility and for guiding the transition to greater flexibility and responsiveness.

Business model innovation is an important source of competitive advantage and corporate renewal. An increasing number of companies have to innovate their business models, not just because of competitive forces but also because of the ongoing change from product-based to service-based business models. Yet, business model innovation is also a massive organizational change process that challenges existing processes, structures and modes of control. The specific angle, and the novel feature of this book, is to thoroughly examine the organizational dimension of business model innovation. Drawing on organizational theory and empirical observation, the contributors specifically highlight organizational design aspects of business model innovation, focusing on how reward systems, power distributions, routines and standard operating procedures, the allocation of authority, and other aspects of organizational structure and control should be designed to support the business model the firm chooses. Also discussed are how existing organizational structures, capabilities, beliefs, cultures and so on influence the firm’s ability to flexibly change to new business models.

In the past decade or so, systems integration has become a key factor in the operations, strategy, and competitive advantage of major corporations in a wide variety of sectors (e.g., computing, automotive, telecommunications, military systems, and aerospace). In the past, systems integration was confined to a technical, operations task. Today, systems integration is a strategic task that pervades business management not only at the technical level, but also at the management and strategic levels. This book shows how and why this new kind of systems integration has evolved into an emerging model of industrial organization whereby firms and groups of firms join together different types of knowledge, skill, and activity as well as hardware, software, and human resources to produce new products. The business of systems integration has fundamental implications for the capabilities of firms. Firms have made a transition from being vertically integrated to being the integrator of somebody else's activities. The book delves deeply into the nature, dimensions, and dynamics of the new systems integration, deploying research and analytical techniques from a wide variety of disciplines including, the theory of the firm, the history of technology, industrial organization, regional studies, strategic management, and innovation studies.

Managers, strategy consultants, and strategy and entrepreneurship teachers will find this book’s new paradigm illuminating. In non-academic style the author takes off from the Knightian uncertainties or knowledge absences that pervade business and make strategizing both necessary and valuable. He sketches a structured practice that managers and consultants might choose to follow, not a theory. Firms create value only by acting out newly imagined solutions to the opportunities that uncertainties open up. Strategic judgment is the necessary complement to rigorous analysis as these are engaged. Spender follows philosophy’s turn to language, suggesting firms form first as an idiosyncratic constructed language (jargon) that helps their participants select what to pay attention to and interpret what they learn. The entrepreneur’s/CEO’s most fundamental task is thus to create and control the firm’s language (its business model) and thereby its knowledge. The arc of practice–uncertainty–judgment–rhetoric–collaborative practice—turns strategy discourse on its head, presenting it as a constructive value-creating activity rather than the application of theory. This also shows how strategic work is morally and ethically burdened. Chapter 1 introduces these ideas. Chapters 2 and 3 review the languages implicit in consultants’ strategic tools and academics’ theories of the firm. Chapter 4 analyses the constraints to innovative strategic language that, in Chapter 5, is used to draw in the judgments of those others the entrepreneur needs to build a viable firm. Chapter 6 considers the context of private sector strategic work today. There are appendices on case-work, teaching strategy, current strategy texts, and further reading.

Organizations turn to multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs) to meet challenges they cannot handle alone. By tapping diverse stakeholders’ resources, MSPs develop the capability to address complex issues and problems, such as health care delivery, poverty, human rights, watershed management, education, sustainability, and innovation. This book provides a comprehensive understanding of MSPs, why they are needed, the challenges partners face in working together, and how to design them effectively. Through the process of collaboration partners combine their differing strengths, vantage points, and expertise to craft innovative responses to pressing societal concerns. The book offers valuable advice for leaders about how to design and scale up effective partnerships and how to address potential obstacles partners may face, such as dealing with the conflicts and power issues likely to arise as partners negotiate with each other. Drawing on three comprehensive cases and countless shorter examples from around the world, the book offers practical advice for organizations embarking on an MSP, as well as theoretical understanding of how partnerships function. Using an institutional theory lens, it explains how partnerships can effect change in institutional fields by reducing turbulence and negotiating a common set of norms and routines to govern partners’ future interactions within the field of concern. Topics covered include: the nature of working collaboratively, why partnerships are needed, types of partnerships, guidelines for partnership design, partnerships and field dynamics, how to deal with conflicts among partners, negotiating across power differences, partnerships for sustainability, collaborative governance, working across scale differences, and how partnerships transform fields.

Harvard professor, Michael Porter has been one of the most influential figures in strategic management research over the last three decades. He infused a rigorous theoretical framework of industrial organization economics with the then still embryonic field of strategic management and elevated it to its current status as an academic discipline. Porter's outstanding career is also characterized by its cross-disciplinary nature. Following his most important work on strategic management, he then made a leap to the policy side and dealt with completely different set of analytical units from his earlier work. More recently he has made a foray into inner city development, environmental regulations, and health care services. Throughout these explorations Porter has maintained his integrative approach, seeking a road that links management case studies and the general model building of mainstream economics. Porter's cross-disciplinary exploration has created tensions within the various fields to which he has contributed, and his work on both strategic management and economic development has met with criticism. With expert contributors from a range of disciplines including strategic management, economic development, economic geography and planning, this book assesses the contribution Michael Porter has made to these respective disciplines. It clarifies the sources of tension and controversy relating to all the major strands of Porter's work, and provides – academics, students and practitioners – managers and policymakers – with a key and critical guide for the application of Porter's models. The book highlights that while many of the criticisms of Porter's are valid, they are almost an inevitable outcome for a scholar who has sought to build bridges across wide disciplinary valleys. His efforts have provided others with a toolbox of frameworks to explore in more depth the nature of competition, competitive advantage, and clusters from a range of vantage points, such as firm, nation, or regional levels.

This book integrates both the changing structure of the commercial banking industry in Europe and the strategic implications of these changes. It begins by concentrating on the economics of banking, presenting an analysis of the principal environment forces affecting the financial sector: deregulation, internationalization, economic instability, technical change, and financial innovation. The second part offers valuable information on current trends in the five main EC countries. The analysis of each country includes a study of the recent evolution of its financial sector, in turn; each sector's inherent economic outlook in terms of profitability, costs, productivity, and competition; as well as the changes in the regulatory environment. The third part of the book is dedicated to an analysis of some of the strategic choices of European banks, such as scale, diversification, and internationalization. Finally, the pace of change within the European banking industry is evaluated, as well as how some of the banks are adapting to the new environment.

Strategic alliances are increasingly common, as many organizations look towards various partnering arrangements. This second edition of this text extends the first edition's comprehensive survey of strategic alliances. It presents different disciplinary perspectives (economics, strategy, organization theory) and numerous examples from the corporate world. The text has been revised and updated, taking account of new theoretical models, and its coverage of case studies has been extended.

Cooperation has become the leading strategy adopted by business and other organizations. It is taking on new forms that are adapted to changing market expectations and technological possibilities in the rapidly evolving business environment. This new edition of Cooperative Strategy provides a comprehensive view of the practical and theoretical literature concerning cooperative strategies, and the alliance and network organizational forms that are the enablers of these strategies. It takes the reader through the stages of developing a cooperative alliance, from choosing a cooperative form and selecting partners, to establishing an alliance and managing the process of cooperation. It examines cooperative strategies in different sectors as well as internationally, and discusses performance criteria and evolution of cooperation over time. With insights from internationally recognized experts on cooperative strategy, this book presents extensive research on the topic while also addressing practical issues of alliance management. Echoing the words of the famous social psychologist Kurt Lewin that “there is nothing so practical as a good theory,” the authors provide a sound understanding of the theory and research on cooperative strategy so as to inform its practice. In this respect, this new edition follows its predecessor as an essential resource for both students and managers alike.

Corporate governance has become a major issue in business over the last decade. The author of this book has played a central role in developing policies, good practice, and our understanding of the complex issues involved. In 1992 the author chaired the committee, sponsored by the Bank of England, whose Report on the Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance (commonly known as the ‘Cadbury Report’) put issues of corporate governance on the map. Ten years on, the author now reflects on issues of corporate governance and chairmanship drawing on his own business and policy-making experience. This book discusses and explains the central issues of corporate governance; provides practical advice to chairmen and directors on their roles and responsibilities; and surveys the major codes of practice that have been developed in the last decade. It also considers the implications of the current review of company law and speculates on the implications of electronic developments for shareholders' voice and voting, the extent of a company's social responsibility, and the changing relationship between boards, managers, and investors. This book is both an informed commentary and a practical guide.

The 2008 financial crisis calls for a re-examination of the basic premise of the orthodox shareholder-oriented model of the corporate firm and its governance. This book tries to meet this challenge. It posits that the primary raison d'être of business corporations is the organization of associative cognitive and physical actions to create corporate values broader than shareholders' values. It identifies five generic modes of organizational architecture distinguished by discrete combinations of human cognitive assets among management and workers, as well as their relationships to use-control rights of physical assets that are provided by the investors. For each of those architectural modes, a particular governance structure is associated as an essentially self-enforcing agreement among the three types of asset-holders. The selection of a corporate form from the possible varieties is evolutionarily conditioned and institutionally linked to stable outcomes of social and political games in which corporations are embedded and play. The book looks at the nature of the evolving diversity of the global corporate landscape and the rising importance of CSR, which contribute to the accumulation of corporate social capital. This evolving state appears to require the redefinition of the role of financial markets as informational, and governance infrastructures that are complimentary to diverse corporate organizations, rather than as dominant principals of corporations.

Examples of the value that can be created and captured through crowdsourcing go back to at least 1714, when the UK used crowdsourcing to solve the Longitude Problem, obtaining a solution that would enable the UK to become the dominant maritime force of its time. Today, Wikipedia uses crowds to provide entries for the world’s largest and free encyclopedia. Partly fueled by the value that can be created and captured through crowdsourcing, interest in researching the phenomenon has been remarkable. For example, the Best Paper Awards in 2012 for a record-setting three journals—the Academy of Management Review, Journal of Product Innovation Management, and Academy of Management Perspectives—were about crowdsourcing. In spite of the interest in crowdsourcing—or perhaps because of it—research on the phenomenon has been conducted in different research silos within the fields of management (from strategy to finance to operations to information systems), biology, communications, computer science, economics, political science, among others. In these silos, crowdsourcing takes names such as broadcast search, innovation tournaments, crowdfunding, community innovation, distributed innovation, collective intelligence, open source, crowdpower, and even open innovation. The book aims to assemble papers from as many of these silos as possible since the ultimate potential of crowdsourcing research is likely to be attained only by bridging them. The papers provide a systematic overview of the research on crowdsourcing from different fields based on a more encompassing definition of the concept, its difference for innovation, and its value for both the private and public sectors.

Managers, business owners, public relations practitioners, and others grapple daily with issues that have the potential to radically redefine the reputation of a person, company, or industry. They confront a fundamental question about contemporary crisis management: to what extent is it possible to control events and stakeholder responses to them, in order to contain escalating crises or safeguard an organization's reputation? This book addresses this question head-on. This book operates from a strong theoretical orientation. This book pairs real-world examples from across the globe with theory-based analysis to show why simplification often fails to alleviate crises, and can even intensify them. The book proposes a complexity-based approach to organizational learning that can allow organizations to adapt quickly to changing circumstances.

This book presents entrepreneurship as networking as a perspective. Persistent problems around the dominant “individual-opportunity” approach in the entrepreneurship field motivated the authors to focus on the social-interactive aspects and action orientation of entrepreneurship. The work promises to address the challenge of providing a more integrated account in which the entrepreneur’s agency is combined with a greater emphasis on the social environment. The importance of social relations and the associated interactions between entrepreneurs and their environment give insight into key entrepreneurial processes. The authors address the guiding questions of what a viable network is for (nascent) entrepreneurs and how networking activities affect their entrepreneurial endeavors. Therefore, they first create a synthesis of key network mechanisms and networking dynamics. This allows them (a) to shed new light on the origins of opportunities and improve understanding of how entrepreneurs access resources and subsequently mobilize and deploy them, and (b) to explain how entrepreneurs build legitimacy, facilitating them to act on perceived new combinations and thereby exploit their potential. Thus, this book highlights how networking is a central constitutive force in entrepreneurship. Previous work showed how networks can or will lead to entrepreneurial action as a facilitator. Going one step further, the authors posit that networking is entrepreneurial action, and entrepreneurial action is networking, thereby opening an entirely new research agenda.