http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/245/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39730/ 2013-03-01T00:00:00Z For sustained competitive advantage of established process manufacturing firms, technological process innovation to improve resource productivity and environmental performance has become of pivotal importance. These firms, however, often face intra-organizational tensions to reconcile pressures for exploration and exploitation across subsequent phases of technological process innovation. Firms may, therefore, need to perform the development phase - being the most sensitive to these tensions - in the inter-organizational context of an external dedicated development facility. This requires new-to-the-firm management activities, i.e., management innovation. However, the role of management innovation in enabling technological process innovation in an inter-organizational context remains largely unexplored. To address this gap, in developing propositions we use illustrative examples from the research context of an external development facility for sustainable process technology. The paper has two contributions. First, by adopting a process perspective we are able to clarify how both types of innovation are combined over time in an intertwined way. Second, we extend management innovation theory by conceptualizing management innovation in an inter-organizational context. We conclude with implications for theory, practice and future research. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39731/ 2013-03-01T00:00:00Z Innovation is considered to be the primary driving force of progress and prosperity. Consequently, much effort is put in developing new technological knowledge, new process technologies and new products. However, evidence from both SMEs and large firms shows that successful innovation is not just the result of technological innovation, but is also heavily dependent on what has been called 'management innovation'. Management innovation consists of changing a firm's organizational form, practices and processes in a way that is new to the firm and/or industry, and results in leveraging the firm's technological knowledge base and its performance in terms of innovation, productivity and competitiveness. Recent research shows that management innovation explains a substantial degree of the variance of innovation performance of firms. More active stimulation of management innovation and its leverage of technological innovation will be crucial to improve the competitiveness of firms. However, only solid research can increase our understanding of what matters in various kinds of management innovations. Just as technological change requires systematic R&D, the development and diffusion of management innovations require systematic research on the crucial determinants of success. In this paper we will define management innovation, discuss the multidirectional causalities between technological and management innovation, and develop a framework that identifies common areas of research in terms of antecedents, process dimensions of management innovation, outcomes and contextual factors. Moreover, we will position the papers of this special issue in this framework and develop an agenda for future research into management innovation. We conclude this introductory paper by specifying the most important research priorities for further advancing the emerging field of management innovation. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39732/ 2013-03-01T00:00:00Z This paper examines the effect of management innovation on a firm's ability to effectively adopt an emerging core technology. Organizing for technological change is often associated with structural dilemmas for incumbents: while structural contingent solutions such as spatially separated units and parallel organizations have been frequently discussed as enablers of handling contradictory requirements of existing and emerging technologies, there is empirical evidence that such solutions are likely to be either unfeasible or unsustainable in the cases of core technologies. Our analysis on the adoption process of a new core technology by a large telecommunication firm reveals the role of management innovation in fulfilling seemingly paradoxical structural requirements of knowledge accumulation in a dynamic knowledge environment. We discuss how a novel structural approach enabled the organization to overcome rigidities in the existing routines and foster a favorable environment for adoption of cloud technology and to overcome organizational challenges, with which the firm's conventional practices failed to commensurate. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37797/ 2012-10-24T00:00:00Z Top managers of multinational corporations are increasingly confronted with an accelerating rate of change in the external environment. Yet strategic renewal literature has devoted limited attention to the organizational mechanisms enabling firms to align internal with external rates of change, so as to achieve a dynamic firm-environment fit over time. This paper addresses that gap by taking a knowledge-based perspective. We develop a framework clarifying how a firm's potential absorptive capacity enables it to align internal with external rates of change. We illustrate the framework empirically by analyzing the rate of change in strategic renewal actions of Royal Dutch Shell as an indicator of the company's internal rate of change in the period 1980-2007, and by comparing it with external rates of change in the oil industry over the same period. The findings show that Shell's potential absorptive capacity was positively related to the alignment of internal and external rates of change. In addition, we find evidence that the degree of alignment was positively related to the company's performance during the observation period. Our study implies that managers who are aiming to align internal and external rates of change over time should: 1) monitor external rates of change through environmental scanning and boundary spanning, 2) create shared understanding of the long-term implications of change, 3) identify drivers of internal rates of change and understand how to pace the rate of strategic renewal actions, and finally, 4) maintain baseline levels of potential absorptive capacity, since increasing potential absorptive capacity takes time and requires a long-term perspective. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37437/ 2012-10-08T00:00:00Z Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a new profession often referred to as the technology transfer (TT) manager. TT managers apply various skills to accomplish transfer activities such as legal competencies; marketing and negotiation competencies; team work competencies; innovation competencies; and knowledge management competencies. Furthermore, the transfer of technology takes place in various contexts such as universities, business entities and governmental institutions. This special issue focuses on the profession of technology transfer. In particular, it examines the emergence of the technology transfer profession and the impact on the practice of technology transfer at the individual, unit, project and organizational level. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38047/ 2012-10-01T00:00:00Z As the importance of technology transfer activities to the growth and survival of public and private organisations has become evident in recent years, researchers have been paying closer attention to the resources and capabilities such organisations will need in order to compete in markets. Yet it is still unclear what skills that individuals who are considering the various activities and contexts they are part of need. This paper investigates the skills that individual technology transfer professionals generally need and how the importance of each of these skills varies by context. It is based on a multiple-phase qualitative and quantitative study of technology transfer skills at the individual level. Results indicate the importance for technology transfer professionals to possess a range of five particular soft and business skills besides having two hard skills such as those related to intellectual property rights and domain-specific knowledge. Our results also highlight the heterogeneity in skills that technology transfer professional mainly draw on depending on the contexts of which they are part. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38048/ 2012-10-01T00:00:00Z We examine how firms may accumulate and apply knowledge through their units at different locations. To that end, we assess the mediating role of units' knowledge stocks and disentangle how firms accumulate knowledge stocks through knowledge inflows and how they apply such stocks to innovative purposes at the unit level. Based on a questionnaire administered to branches of a large European financial services firm, our findings confirmed that horizontal knowledge flows develop units' breadth of knowledge stocks, which in turn positively relates to exploratory innovations. Contrary to expectations, depth of units' knowledge stocks was not fostered by vertical knowledge inflows, but instead by decentralising units. Depth of knowledge contributed not only to exploitative innovations, but also to exploratory innovations. Based on these results, our study illustrates how firms may create competitive advantage by developing and balancing distinct types of knowledge stocks at the unit level. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37448/ 2012-07-01T00:00:00Z In this paper, we attempt to reconcile contingency and institutional fit approaches concerning the organization-environment relationship. Whereas prior scholarly research has examined both theories and compared their impacts on organizational fit and performance, we lay the groundwork for a metafit approach by investigating how contingency and institutional fit interact to influence firm performance. We test our theoretical framework using a data set of 3,259 respondents from 1,904 companies, examining task environmental demands and institutional demands on organizational design across a broad range of industries and firm size classes. Our results show that contingency and institutional fit provide complementary and interdependent explanations of firm performance. Importantly, our findings indicate that for firms under conditions of " quasi fit" rather than perfect contingency fit or optimal institutional fit, improvements in contingency and/or institutional fit will result in better performance. However, firms with high contingency fit are less vulnerable to deviation from institutional fit in the formation of firm performance, whereas firms with perfect institutional fit will slightly decrease their performance when they strive to achieve contingency fit. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37436/ 2012-04-16T00:00:00Z This study attempts to increase the understanding of how offshoring influences the introduction of new products and services. Focusing on the offshoring of those business functions that provide direct knowledge inputs for innovation (i.e., production, R&D, and engineering), we propose that offshoring has an inverted U-shaped influence on firm innovativeness. Additionally, we provide an upper echelon contingency perspective by considering the moderating role of two top management team (TMT) attributes (i.e., informational diversity and shared vision). Using a cross-industry sample with lagged data, we find that offshoring has an inverted U-shaped influence on firm innovativeness and that this relationship is steeper in firms with high TMT informational diversity and in firms with low TMT shared vision. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31256/ 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z Recent research on management innovation, i.e. new managerial processes, practices, or structures that change the nature of managerial work, suggests it can be an important source of competitive advantage. In this study, we focus on management innovation at the organization level and investigate the role of leadership behaviour as a key antecedent. Due to its prominent role within organizations, top management has the ability to greatly influence management innovation. In particular, we focus on leadership behaviour and examine transformational and transactional leadership. Additionally, as contextual variables like organizational size may influence the impact of leadership, we investigate its moderating role. Findings show that both leadership behaviours contribute to management innovation. Interestingly, our study indicates that smaller, less complex, organizations benefit more from transactional leadership in realizing management innovation. On the other hand, larger organizations need to draw on transformational leaders to compensate for their complexity and allow management innovation to flourish. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/25723/ 2011-07-01T00:00:00Z Using the upper echelons perspective together with corporate governance and strategic renewal literature, this paper investigates how top managers' corporate governance orientation influences a firm's strategic renewal trajectories over time. Through both a qualitative analysis (1907-2004) and a quantitative analysis (1959-2004), we investigate this under-researched question within the context of a large incumbent firm: Royal Dutch Shell plc. Our results indicate that top managers having an Anglo-Saxon corporate governance orientation are more likely to pursue exploitative and external-growth strategic renewal trajectories, while those having a Rhine corporate governance orientation are more likely to pursue exploratory and internal-growth strategic renewal trajectories. We also found a positive moderating effect of the proportion of shareholders from the Anglo-Saxon countries on exploitative and external-growth strategic renewal trajectories. Our findings indicate that top managers' corporate governance orientation can be an important antecedent of strategic renewal and of organizational ambidexterity, both of which influence corporate longevity. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/23500/ 2011-06-01T00:00:00Z This article examines the coordination of an organization's onshore and offshore units from a co-evolution perspective. Literature based insights are combined with a case study of a leading IT-services provider to build new theory and a related propositional inventory. Counter-intuitively, our analysis suggests that managerial intent to promote onshore–offshore task coordination, by founding it on a common organization-wide identity and work context, can spark political conflict and result in the sub-optimal use of knowledge, skills and tools on individual projects. The analysis also reveals that effective solutions to the coordination problem are likely to emanate bottom-up, from practices that have been distilled from a range of routines and experiences as project teams learn and progressively accumulate knowledge of what works and what does not. We highlight the crucial role in this process of the senior management, proper timing of an offshore team's involvement in a project, horizontal communication and a joint onshore–offshore evaluation and reward system. Highlights ► Shared identity building programs are detrimental to onshore-offshore coordination. ► Focus on work-context standardization is counterproductive. ► Horizontal communication at different hierarchical levels fosters coordination. ► Joint rewards for onshore-offshore team members are important. ► Senior-management must encourage bottom-up emergence of coordination initiatives. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/25724/ 2011-06-01T00:00:00Z In this introductory paper, we first discuss the emergence of global sourcing of business services and how these have been largely ignored in the IB field. Offshoring of business services has reached substantial proportions. Despite the radical growth, IB research on global sourcing is still in its infancy. Offshoring of business services represents a new type of internationalization. The offshoring of high-value services confronts companies with many of the challenges that are typical of an internationalization process in which well-known models and concepts of internationalization are applicable but also leave important unanswered questions requiring reconsideration and revision of these theoretical positions. Offshoring of business services is fundamentally different from outsourcing offshore of manufacturing activities. Using data from the Offshore Research Network (ORN), we track patterns of the emergence and diffusion of global sourcing of business services. On the basis of these new insights, we make a plea for a more encompassing, co-evolutionary perspective of global sourcing stressing the interactions between managerial intentionality, path-dependent experience and knowledge accumulation, as well as the institutional and selection forces. In particular, we develop a co-evolutionary offshore decision model integrating managerial intentionality, knowledge/experience and institutional and selection forces that explain the heterogeneous outcomes of offshoring. Although emergent outcomes of co-evolutionary dynamics are highly idiosyncratic, we identify in this paper some underlying mechanism that drive specific global sourcing patterns. Finally, we position the papers of this special issue in this co-evolutionary model. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/26299/ 2011-06-01T00:00:00Z How does firm size impact on a firm's offshoring strategy? Are the underlying motives for offshoring, the particular functions considered, the locations to relocate, and the particular governance mode different for small, medium-sized and large firms? In this paper, cost, resource and entrepreneurial drivers are investigated for their relationship with firm size. Moreover, we hypothesize on the relationship between function, location and governance mode choices of offshoring and firm size. Using multi-country data of the Offshoring Research Network (ORN), we present empirical evidence on the three offshoring driver categories and function, location and governance mode choices of small, medium-sized and large firms. The results show offshoring might be used as cost, resource or entrepreneurial strategy. Cost drivers are most important for large and small firms, whereas resource drivers are especially important for medium-sized and large firms. Entrepreneurial drivers are most important for medium-sized firms, just like these firms have a relatively stronger preference for nearshoring. Small firms mostly offshore competence exploring activities, whereas large firms relocate competence exploiting activities. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31296/ 2011-05-13T00:00:00Z Large gaps appear to exist between the evolving corporate governance practices of organizations and those of international joint ventures (IJVs). Some of these gaps might well be appropriate given some of the unique features of IJVs, while others might require new consideration and attention by organizations engaged in alliances. The expansive literatures on corporate governance and IJVs have developed separately from one another, and there are important opportunities to combine them. We argue that a need exists for a new generation of IJV governance research that considers IJVs' boards of directors as well as other dimensions of governance. We highlight some research opportunities that are illustrative for the research agenda that we are calling for that builds bridges between the literatures on corporate governance and IJVs. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/25722/ 2011-04-21T00:00:00Z Entrepreneurship research has traditionally focused on opportunity recognition and resource formation as processes that foster the emergence of new business ventures, through both the lens of the individual entrepreneur and corporate venturing. Although we observe that research is vibrant in these traditional areas, we also argue that the continued revitalization of the field of entrepreneurship can be fostered through examining opportunities for research in areas such as industry change and competition, inter-organizational cooperation (which has proliferated more recently), university-sponsored entrepreneurship, venture finance, institutional differences that foster entrepreneurship (primarily between different countries), and appropriability regime differences (including legal and regulatory frameworks) that foster entrepreneurial activities and profit appropriation. Besides pointing scholars to new promising directions, we argue for more attention to the transformational role of entrepreneurship itself by issuing a call for more multi-level research efforts that connect the micro- and macro-foundations of entrepreneurship and explore the revitalization-related uncertainties such as the cost of creating an entrepreneurial orientation and whether there is an optimal level. © 2011 The Authors. Journal of Management Studies http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/30945/ 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z In today’s increasingly international world, it’s not uncommon for multinational companies to move some element of their headquarters to another country. Here’s how to evaluate the strategic costs and benefits of such decisions. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6534/ 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6537/ 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/20096/ 2010-11-01T00:00:00Z Research on strategic decision making has considered advice-seeking behaviour as an important top management team attribute that influences organizational outcomes. Yet, our understanding about how top management teams utilize advice to modify current strategies and pursue exploratory innovation is still unclear. To uncover the importance of advice seeking, we delineate between external and internal advice seeking and investigate their impact on exploratory innovation. We also argue that top management team heterogeneity moderates the impact of advice seeking on exploratory innovation. Findings indicated that both external and internal advice seeking are important determinants of a firm's exploratory innovation. In addition, we observed that top management team heterogeneity facilitates firms to act upon internal advice by combining different perspectives and developing new products and services. Interestingly, heterogeneous top management teams appeared to be less effective to leverage external advice and pursue exploratory innovation. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/23502/ 2010-11-01T00:00:00Z Recent research on management innovation, i.e. new managerial processes, practices, or structures that change the nature of managerial work, suggests it can be an important source of competitive advantage. In this study, we focus on management innovation at the organization level and investigate the role of leadership behaviour as a key antecedent. Due to its prominent role within organizations, top management has the ability to greatly influence management innovation. In particular, we focus on leadership behaviour and examine transformational and transactional leadership. Additionally, as contextual variables like organizational size may influence the impact of leadership, we investigate its moderating role. Findings show that both leadership behaviours contribute to management innovation. Interestingly, our study indicates that smaller, less complex, organizations benefit more from transactional leadership in realizing management innovation. On the other hand, larger organizations need to draw on transformational leaders to compensate for their complexity and allow management innovation to flourish. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/22248/ 2010-08-01T00:00:00Z The purpose of this perspective paper is to advance understanding of absorptive capacity, its underlying dimensions, its multilevel antecedents, its impact on firm performance, and the contextual factors that affect absorptive capacity. Twenty years after the Cohen and Levinthal 1990 paper, the field is characterized by a wide array of theoretical perspectives and a wealth of empirical evidence. In this paper, we first review these underlying theories and empirical studies of absorptive capacity. Given the size and diversity of the absorptive capacity literature, we subsequently map the existing terrain of research through a bibliometric analysis. The resulting bibliometric cartography shows the major discrepancies in the organization field, namely that (1) most attention so far has been focused on the tangible outcomes of absorptive capacity; (2) organizational design and individual level antecedents have been relatively neglected in the absorptive capacity literature; and (3) the emergence of absorptive capacity from the actions and interactions of individual, organizational, and interorganizational antecedents remains unclear. Building on the bibliometric analysis, we develop an integrative model that identifies the multilevel antecedents, process dimensions, and outcomes of absorptive capacity as well as the contextual factors that affect absorptive capacity. We argue that realizing the potential of the absorptive capacity concept requires more research that shows how "micro-antecedents" and "macro-antecedents" influence future outcomes such as competitive advantage, innovation, and firm performance. In particular, we identify conceptual gaps that may guide future research to fully exploit the absorptive capacity concept in the organization field and to explore future fruitful extensions of the concept. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/20455/ 2010-07-23T00:00:00Z Using the upper echelons perspective together with corporate governance and strategic renewal literature, this paper investigates how top managers’ corporate governance orientation influences a firm’s strategic renewal trajectories over time. Through both a qualitative analysis (1907-2004) and a quantitative analysis (1959-2004), we investigate this under-researched question within the context of a large incumbent firm: Royal Dutch Shell plc. Our results indicate that top managers having an Anglo-Saxon corporate governance orientation are more likely to pursue exploitative and external-growth strategic renewal trajectories, while those having a Rhine corporate governance orientation are more likely to pursue exploratory and internal-growth strategic renewal trajectories. We also found a positive moderating effect of the proportion of shareholders from the Anglo-Saxon countries on exploitative and external-growth strategic renewal trajectories. Our findings indicate that top managers’ corporate governance orientation can be an important antecedent of strategic renewal and of organisational ambidexterity, both of which influence corporate longevity. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/26295/ 2010-02-10T00:00:00Z Abstract This dissertation proposal investigates how personality and individuals’ social network position affect individuals’ involvement into the innovation process. It posits that people would feel inclined to become involved into the different phases of the innovation process depending on their Big Five personality traits. Additionally, this research elaborates on personality antecedents of social relationships and network structure. Furthermore, it accounts for the dynamic relationship between stages in innovation process and social network structure. Finally, it posits that there is potentially a mismatch between social network structure in different stages of the innovation process, and that this mismatch is caused by individuals’ personality. The suggested conceptual framework contributes to the innovation literature by enriching our understanding of why people create markedly different patterns of social ties in the workplace and how this tie formation process and personality influence innovation process. An empirical study aimed at testing the suggested propositions is suggested. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/16521/ 2009-09-01T00:00:00Z Onderzoek naar contractgebruik in interorganisatorische relaties, zoals allianties, joint ventures en outsourcing initiatieven, richt zich tot op heden voornamelijk op motivatie- en coördinatievraagstukken. In dit artikel stellen wij dat de onderhandelingsen contracteringsprocessen ook functioneren als middel om bewustwording en begrip te creëren. Door formele onderhandelingen te voeren, contracten te schrijven en discussies aan te gaan, scheppen contractpartijen bijvoorbeeld meer duidelijkheid over de mogelijkheden en beperkingen van een relatie, de middelen waarover beide partijen beschikken en hun intenties en belangen. Deze cognitieve functie van onderhandelings- en contracteringsprocessen heeft verschillende positieve effecten op de prestaties van samenwerkingsverbanden, waaronder: (i) betere expliciete beheersing en coördinatie; (ii) sterkere impliciete beheersing en coördinatie; (iii) beperking van onbegrip en misinterpretatie; en (iv) betere mogelijkheden voor het identifi ceren van kansen om samen waarde te creëren. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31062/ 2009-07-01T00:00:00Z Prior studies have emphasized that structural attributes are crucial to simultaneously pursuing exploration and exploitation, yet our understanding of antecedents of ambidexterity is still limited. Structural differentiation can help ambidextrous organizations to maintain multiple inconsistent and conflicting demands; however, differentiated exploratory and exploitative activities need to be mobilized, coordinated, integrated, and applied. Based on this idea, we delineate formal and informal senior team integration mechanisms (e.g., contingency rewards and social integration) and formal and informal organizational integration mechanisms (e.g., cross-functional interfaces and connectedness) and examine how they mediate the relationship between structural differentiation and ambidexterity. Overall, our findings suggest that the previously asserted direct effect of structural differentiation on ambidexterity operates through informal senior team (i.e., senior team social integration) and formal organizational (i.e., cross-functional interfaces) integration mechanisms. Through this richer explanation and empirical assessment, we contribute to a greater clarity and better understanding of how organizations may effectively pursue exploration and exploitation simultaneously to achieve ambidexterity. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31063/ 2009-07-01T00:00:00Z Previous research focuses on firm and business unit level ambidexterity. Therefore, conceptual and empirically validated understanding about ambidexterity at the individual level of analysis is very scarce. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by investigating managers' ambidexterity, delivering three contributions to theory and empirical research on ambidexterity: first, by proposing three related characteristics of ambidextrous managers; second, by developing a model and associated hypotheses on both the direct and interaction effects of formal structural and personal coordination mechanisms on managers' ambidexterity; and third, by testing the hypotheses based on a sample of 716 business unit level and operational level managers. Findings regarding the formal structural mechanisms indicate that a manager's decision-making authority positively relates to this manager's ambidexterity, whereas formalization of a manager's tasks has no significant relationship with this manager's ambidexterity. Regarding the personal coordination mechanisms, findings indicate that both the participation of a manager in cross-functional interfaces and the connectedness of a manager to other organization members positively relate to this manager's ambidexterity. Furthermore, results show positive interaction effects between the formal structural and personal coordination mechanisms on managers' ambidexterity. The paper's theoretical contributions and empirical results increase our understanding about managers' ambidexterity and about how different types and combinations of coordination mechanisms relate to variation in managers' ambidexterity. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/15326/ 2009-05-01T00:00:00Z Research has suggested that corporate venturing is crucial to strategic renewal and firm performance, yet scholars still debate the appropriate organizational configurations to facilitate the creation of new businesses in existing organizations. Our study investigates the effectiveness of combining structural differentiation with formal and informal organizational as well as top management team integration mechanisms in establishing an appropriate context for venturing activities. Our findings suggest that structural differentiation has a positive effect on corporate venturing. In addition, our study indicates that a shared vision has a positive effect on venturing in a structurally differentiated context. Socially integrated senior teams and cross-functional interfaces, however, are ineffective integration mechanisms for establishing linkages across differentiated units and for successfully pursuing corporate venturing. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/15144/ 2009-03-10T00:00:00Z Manuscript Type: Literature review. Research Question/Issue: Over the last four decades, research on the relationship between boards of directors and strategy has proliferated. Yet to date there is little theoretical and empirical agreement regarding the question of how boards of directors contribute to strategy. This review assesses the extant literature by highlighting emerging trends and identifying several avenues for future research. Research Findings/Insights: Using a content-analysis of 150 articles published in 23 manage-ment journals until 2007, we describe and analyze how research on boards of directors and strategy has evolved over time. We illustrate how topics, theories, settings and sources of data interact and influence insights about board-strategy relationships during three specific periods. Theoretical/Academic Implications: Our study illustrates that research on boards of directors and strategy evolved from normative and structural approaches to behavioral and cognitive approaches. Our results encourage future studies (i) to examine the impact of institutional and context-specific factors on the (expected) contribution of boards to strategy, and (ii) to apply alternative methods to fully capture the impact of board processes and dynamics on strategy-making. Practical/Policy Implications: The increasing interest in boards of directors’ contribution to strategy echoes a movement towards more strategic involvement of boards of directors. However, best governance practices and the emphasis on board independence and control may hinder the board contribution to the strategic decision-making. Our study invites investors and policy-makers to consider the requirements for an effective strategic task when they nominee board members and develop new regulations. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/16520/ 2009-03-01T00:00:00Z Research Question/Issue: Over the last four decades, research on the relationship between boards of directors and strategy has proliferated. Yet to date there is little theoretical and empirical agreement regarding the question of how boards of directors contribute to strategy. This review assesses the extant literature by highlighting emerging trends and identifying several avenues for future research. Research Findings/Results: Using a content-analysis of 150 articles published in 23 management journals up to 2007, we describe and analyze how research on boards of directors and strategy has evolved over time. We illustrate how topics, theories, settings, and sources of data interact and influence insights about board–strategy relationships during three specific periods. Theoretical Implications: Our study illustrates that research on boards of directors and strategy evolved from normative and structural approaches to behavioral and cognitive approaches. Our results encourage future studies to examine the impact of institutional and context-specific factors on the (expected) contribution of boards to strategy, and to apply alternative methods to fully capture the impact of board processes and dynamics on strategy making. Practical Implications: The increasing interest in boards of directors' contribution to strategy echoes a movement towards more strategic involvement of boards of directors. However, best governance practices and the emphasis on board independence and control may hinder the board contribution to the strategic decision making. Our study invites investors and policy-makers to consider the requirements for an effective strategic task when they nominate board members and develop new regulations. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38683/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z Abstract: On 12 November 2005, two state-of-the-art sailing boats, ABN AMRO ONE and ABN AMRO TWO, left Vigo, Spain, for Cape Town, South Africa, in the prestigious Volvo Ocean Race (VOR), finishing 216 days and 31,250 nautical miles later in Gothenburg, Sweden. This was the first time that ABN AMRO (AA) had participated in a global sporting event, let alone one with a worldwide client hospitality program, including a huge traveling pavilion that attracted over a million spectators in nine countries. Furthermore, the bank made the decision not just to sponsor an existing sailing team, but also to participate in the race. Through an embedded organization called ABN AMRO Brand & Sail Company (AABS), the bank organized two new sailing teams in-house, designed and built its own boats, and developed an extensive branding and marketing campaign. AA used the race to promote its ‘one bank philosophy’ to existing and potential customers, as well as employees of all its international branches. While moving towards their goal, however, AA encountered many obstacles. Daily marketing operations in particular were under stress. One could not help but wonder whether VOR was the best way to promote the ‘one bank philosophy.’ How and to what extent did the VOR contribute to promoting the philosophy? Was it worthwhile establishing a separate company 'AABS' to achieve such results? What alternatives might AA have explored? http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/13836/ 2008-11-05T00:00:00Z Prior studies have emphasized that structural attributes are crucial to simultaneously pursuing exploration and exploitation, yet our understanding of antecedents of ambidexterity is still limited. Structural differentiation can help ambidextrous organizations to maintain multiple inconsistent and conflicting demands; however, differentiated exploratory and exploitative activities need to mobilized, coordinated, integrated, and applied. Based on this idea, we delineate formal and informal senior team integration mechanisms (i.e. contingency rewards and social integration) and formal and informal organizational integration mechanisms (i.e. cross-functional interfaces and connectedness) and examine how they mediate the relationship between structural differentiation and ambidexterity. Overall, our findings suggest that the previously asserted direct effect of structural differentiation on ambidexterity operates through informal senior team (i.e. senior team social integration) and formal organizational (i.e. cross-functional interfaces) integration mechanisms. Through this richer explanation and empirical assessment, we contribute to a greater clarity and better understanding of how organizations may effectively pursue exploration and exploitation simultaneously to achieve ambidexterity. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31064/ 2008-10-31T00:00:00Z De belangrijkste motieven voor offshoring zijn de besparing op de loonkosten en de verbetering van de concurrentiepositie. De wens om dicht bij bestaande klanten te blijven wordt gezien als een belemmering voor offshoring. Van de bedrijven rapporteert 35 procent een afname en dertien procent een toename van de werkgelegenheid. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14656/ 2008-07-01T00:00:00Z Organizations capable of pursuing exploration and exploitation simultaneously have been suggested to obtain superior performance. Combining both types of activities and achieving organizational ambidexterity, however, leads to the presence of multiple and often conflicting goals, and poses considerable challenges to senior teams in ambidextrous organizations. This study explores the role of senior team attributes and leadership behaviour in reconciling conflicting interests among senior team members and achieving organizational ambidexterity. Findings indicate that a senior team shared vision and contingency rewards are associated with a firm's ability to combine high levels of exploratory and exploitative innovations. In addition, our study shows that an executive director's transformational leadership increases the effectiveness of senior team attributes in ambidextrous organizations and moderates the effectiveness of senior team social integration and contingency rewards. Hence, our study clarifies how senior executives reconcile conflicting demands and facilitate the balancing of seemingly contradictory forces in ambidextrous organizations. Implications for literatures on senior team attributes, transformational leadership and organizational ambidexterity are discussed. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/13562/ 2008-02-01T00:00:00Z Managing through projects has become important for generating new knowledge to cope with technological and market discontinuities. This paper examines how the fit between the creation of technological and market knowledge and important project management characteristics, i.e. project autonomy and completion criteria, influences the success of new business development (NBD) projects. In-depth longitudinal case research on NBD projects commercialised from 1993 to 2003 in the consumer electronics industry highlights that project management characteristics focusing only on the creation of technological knowledge contributed to the failure of those NBD projects that required new market knowledge as well. The findings indicate that senior management support and engaging in an alliance with partners possessing complementary market knowledge can offset this misalignment of the organisation of NBD projects. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14652/ 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z Van oudsher bestaan de hoofdverantwoordelijkheden van de raad van commissarissen uit het houden van toezicht op het beleid van de raad van bestuur en het bijstaan van de raad van bestuur door het geven van advies en het dienen als klankbord. Op het eerste gezicht lijken deze beide hoofdverantwoordelijkhedenmet elkaar te conflicteren: voor toezicht is namelijk onafhankelijkheid noodzakelijk, terwijl voor advisering een zekere mate van betrokkenheid noodzakelijk is (VanManen enVan der Reijden, 2005;Huse, 2007). In de praktijk worstelen commissarissen dan ookmet dit vraagstuk. Temeer doordat het wettelijk raamwerk in Nederland geen duidelijke oplossing aandraagt. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14655/ 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z In de periode 2001-2006 heeft veertien procent van de Nederlandse bedrijven activiteiten geoffshored, en vier procent is van plan dit te doen. Productie van goederen wordt het meest verplaatst, gevolgd door ICT diensten, distributie en logistiek, en administratieve en staffuncties. In driekwart van de gevallen worden activiteiten verplaatst naar West-Europa, Oost-Europa en Azië. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14765/ 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z In this conceptual paper we investigate how corporate venturing influences an organization’s competences. The impact of various types of corporate ventures on the portfolio of strategic options of a firm’s competence modes (Sanchez, 2004a; Sanchez and Heene, 2002) will be assessed by distinguishing two fundamentally different dimensions of corporate venturing, technology and product (Block & MacMillan, 1993). We argue that the level of product and factor market dynamism mediates the effect of corporate venturing on a firm’s competence modes. Corporate ventures that significantly increase the level of product or factor market dynamics will lead to an increased flexibility in all five competence modes. These ventures will have a direct effect on the lower-order competence modes and an indirect, lagged effect on higher-order competence modes through feedback loops. The developed framework and the propositions contribute to managing the ability of a firm to change its coordination-, resource and operating flexibility in order to sustain value creation. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31693/ 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z Understanding the phenomena of corporate longevity and self-renewing organizations has become an important topic in recent management literature. However, the majority of the research contributions focus on internal determinants of longevity and self-renewal. Using a coevolu- tionary framework, the purpose of this chapter is to address the dynamic interaction between organizations and environments in the realm of sustained strategic renewal, i.e. corporate longevity. To this end, we will focus on the competence of long-lived firms to coevolve due to the joint effect of managerial intentionality and environmental selection pressures. Building on coevolutionary framework, we develop a conceptual frame- work that highlights an organization’s coevolutionary competence. Two longitudinal case studies are presented illustrating the arguments. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10716/ 2007-11-19T00:00:00Z Understanding the phenomena of corporate longevity and self-renewing organizations has become an important topic in recent management literature. However, the majority of the research contributions focus on internal determinants of longevity and self-renewal. Using a co-evolutionary framework, the purpose of this paper is to address the dynamic interaction between organizations and environments in the realm of sustained strategic renewal, i.e. corporate longevity. To this end, we will focus on the competence of long-lived firms to coevolve due to the joint effect of managerial intentionality and environmental selection pressures. Building on coevolutionary framework, we develop a conceptual framework that highlights an organization’s coevolutionary competence. Two longitudinal case studies are presented illustrating the arguments. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10713/ 2007-11-02T00:00:00Z Many product innovation studies have described key determinants that should lead to successful incremental product innovation. Despite numerous studies suggesting how incremental product innovation should be successfully undertaken, many firms still struggle with this type of innovation. In this paper, we use an institutional perspective to investigate why established firms in the financial services industry struggle with their complex incremental product innovation efforts. We argue that although the impact of micro institutional forces is often overlooked in innovation studies, these forces matter for innovation success. Our study complements the existing innovation literature and provides an additional explanation why incremental product innovation is highly complex and suffers from several liabilities in established firms. Using qualitative data from the Dutch financial services sector collected over the period 1997-2002, the paper illustrates how micro institutional forces at the business unit level affect complex incremental product innovation and how the interaction of these forces delivers their impact. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14532/ 2007-11-01T00:00:00Z During the last decade, globalisation and liberalisation of financial markets, changing societal expectations and corporate governance scandals have increased the attention for the fiduciary duties of non-executive directors. In this context, recent corporate governance reform initiatives have emphasised the control task and independence of non-executive directors. However, little attention has been paid to their impact on the external and internal service tasks of non-executive directors. Therefore, this paper investigates how the service tasks of non-executive directors have evolved in the Netherlands. Data on corporate governance at the top-100 listed companies in the Netherlands between 1997 and 2005 show that the emphasis on non-executive directors' external service task has shifted to their internal service task, i.e. from non-executive directors acting as boundary spanners to non-executive directors providing advice and counselling to executive directors. This shift in board responsibilities affects non-executive directors' ability to generate network benefits through board relationships and has implications for non-executive directors' functional requirements. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14768/ 2007-11-01T00:00:00Z Several decades of research in the field of international business have advanced various theories and studies on the internationalization of firms. Our assessment of the literature on internationalization shows that the focus has been primarily on path-dependency and learning-based aspects of internationalization, while managerial intentionality and the possibility of managers making deliberate strategic choices towards further internationalization have not been very prominent in the IB literature. We argue that internationalization paths and processes should be approached as a joint outcome of management intentionality and experience-based learning. In other words, managers are assumed to have the ability and the intention to influence the evolutionary paths of the firm. We derive a future research agenda that calls for the pursuit of this promising and emergent research stream. Moreover, we develop a model integrating managerial intentionality, knowledge/experience and other factors (institutional and selection forces) to explain heterogeneous outcomes of internationalization positions, paths and processes. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10622/ 2007-10-30T00:00:00Z Managing through projects has become important for generating new knowledge to cope with technological and market discontinuities. This paper examines how the fit between the creation of technological and market knowledge and important project management characteristics, i.e. project autonomy and completion criteria, influences the success of new business development (NBD) projects. In-depth longitudinal case research on NBD-projects commercialised during the period 1993-2003 in the consumer electronics industry highlights that project management characteristics focusing only on the creation of technological knowledge contributed to the failure of those NBD-projects that required new market knowledge as well. The findings indicate that senior management support and engaging in an alliance with partners possessing complementary market knowledge can offset this misalignment of the organisation of NBD-projects. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14536/ 2007-10-01T00:00:00Z Many product innovation studies have described key determinants that should lead to successful incremental product innovation. Despite numerous studies suggesting how incremental product innovation should be successfully undertaken, many firms still struggle with this type of innovation. In this paper, we use an institutional perspective to investigate why established firms in the financial services industry struggle with their complex incremental product innovation efforts. We argue that although the impact of micro institutional forces is often overlooked in innovation studies, these forces matter for innovation success. Our study complements the existing innovation literature and provides an additional explanation why incremental product innovation is highly complex and suffers from several liabilities in established firms. Using qualitative data from the Dutch financial services sector collected over the period 1997—2002, the paper illustrates how micro institutional forces at the business unit level affect complex incremental product innovation and how the interaction of these forces delivers their impact. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10536/ 2007-09-11T00:00:00Z In this conceptual paper we investigate how corporate venturing influences an organization’s competences. The impact of various types of corporate ventures on the portfolio of strategic options of a firm’s competence modes (Sanchez, 2004a; Sanchez and Heene, 2002) will be assessed by distinguishing two fundamentally different dimensions of corporate venturing, technology and product (Block & MacMillan, 1993). We argue that the level of product and factor market dynamism mediates the effect of corporate venturing on a firm’s competence modes. Corporate ventures that significantly increase the level of product or factor market dynamics will lead to an increased flexibility in all five competence modes. These ventures will have a direct effect on the lower-order competence modes and an indirect, lagged effect on higher-order competence modes through feedback loops. The developed framework and the propositions contribute to managing the ability of a firm to change its coordination-, resource and operating flexibility in order to sustain value creation. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14533/ 2007-09-01T00:00:00Z This paper develops and tests hypotheses on the influence of managers' knowledge inflows on managers' exploration and exploitation activities. Based on a survey among managers of a leading electronics firm, the findings indicate, as expected, that top-down knowledge inflows of managers positively relate to the extent to which these managers conduct exploitation activities, while they do not relate to managers' exploration activities. Furthermore, as expected, bottom-up and horizontal knowledge inflows of managers positively relate to these managers' exploration activities, while they do not relate to managers' exploitation activities. We contribute to current literature on exploration and exploitation by focusing on the manager level of analysis, and by adding the importance of knowledge flow configurations to studies which investigate the impact of organizational factors on exploration and exploitation. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14769/ 2007-09-01T00:00:00Z Recente corporate governance initiatieven, zoals de ‘Sarbanes-Oxley Act’ en corporate governance codes, hebben voornamelijk de onafhankelijkheid en de controle-rol van commissarissen benadrukt. De aandacht voor de implicaties hiervan voor de service-rol van commissarissen is echter beperkt. Deze implicaties staan centraal in dit artikel. De analyse van longitudinale data van de top-100 beursgenoteerde ondernemingen in Nederland toont dat de service-rol inderdaad is veranderd als gevolg van twee corporate governance codes. De nadruk lijkt te zijn verschoven van de externe service-rol naar de interne service-rol, dat wil zeggen van waardecreatie door het commissarissennetwerk naar waardecreatie door het adviseren en begeleiden van bestuursleden door commissarissen. Deze ontwikkeling heeft belangrijke consequenties voor zowel ondernemingen als commissarissen. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10698/ 2007-08-08T00:00:00Z During the last decade, globalization and liberalization of financial markets, changing societal expectations and corporate governance scandals have increased the attention for the fiduciary duties of non-executive directors. In this context, recent corporate governance reform initiatives have emphasized the control task and independence of non-executive directors. However, little attention has been paid to their impact on the external and internal service tasks of non-executive directors. Therefore, this paper investigates how the service tasks of non-executive directors have evolved in the Netherlands. Data on corporate governance at the top-100 listed companies in the Netherlands between 1997 and 2005 show that the emphasis on non-executive directors’ external service task has shifted to their internal service task, i.e. from non-executive directors acting as boundary spanners to non-executive directors providing advice and counseling to executive directors. This shift in board responsibilities affects non-executive directors’ ability to generate network benefits through board relationships and has implications for non-executive directors’ functional requirements. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14534/ 2007-08-01T00:00:00Z Our study builds on extant theory on embeddedness by concentrating on the process of preservation and dissolution of the target firm's embedded ties in acquisitions. We identify four critical areas (communication, idiosyncratic investments, interpersonal relations and personnel turnover) where managerial decisions taken during the acquisition process affect the components of the target firm's embedded ties — trust, joint problem-solving, conflict resolution and exchange of fine-grained information. The preservation or dissolution of an embedded tie depends ultimately on two specific tie contingencies, the balance of power between the target firm and the embedded relation and interpretive processes at the interface between the two. Our findings have implications for the study of the dissolution of market ties by pointing to different roles played by social and institutional forces, power asymmetries and competition in the dynamics of embedded ties. Finally, we encourage theory development in acquisition studies by positing the importance of interpretive processes and, more broadly, relational elements that span the boundaries of the parent—target dyad. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14535/ 2007-08-01T00:00:00Z In this article, the authors discuss the evolution of trust, distrust, and formal coordination and control in interorganizational relationships. They suggest that the degrees to which managers trust and distrust their partners during initial stages of cooperation leave strong imprints on the development of these relationships in later stages of collaboration. This derives from the impact of trust and distrust on (a) formal coordination and control, (b) interorganizational performance, and (c) the interpretations that managers attribute to the behavior of their partners. Collectively, the authors' arguments give rise to a conceptual framework that indicates that there is a high propensity for interorganizational relationships to develop along vicious or virtuous cycles. By integrating and reconciling previous work on the trust-control nexus and by emphasizing the dynamics associated with it, the article contributes to a more comprehensive and refined understanding of the evolution of interorganizational cooperation. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10926/ 2007-04-01T00:00:00Z The mainstream literature on contracts, rules and procedures presumes that formalization is directed at coordination and control, and that its influence on performance is contingent upon firm, transaction and contextual characteristics. In response to recent calls for inquiries into dialectics in interorganizational relationships, and in an effort to provide managerial choice with a more prominent position in research on formalization, a complementary perspective is here being developed. We propose a framework in which formalization is presented as a duality, involving trade-offs between its functions and dysfunctions, and eventuating in dialectic tensions with which managers have to cope. In line with this, we argue that researchers should not only be preoccupied with assessing the ‘rightness’ of governance solutions, but also with the trade-offs and tensions associated with them. Our framework is illustrated by a case study of an alliance between a major European financial services firm and one of the world’s leading retailers. The alliance managers in this particular relationship attempted to reduce or capitalize on the tensions associated with formalization by: (1) adopting a semi-structure, in which outcomes were formalized, but behaviour was not; (2) justifying formalization through referring to factors that were beyond their control, and; (3) alternating their emphasis on different requirements by each of the partner firms. The article shows that a dialectic perspective on formalization in interorganizational relationships offers a promising complement to the mainstream literature. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/11218/ 2007-02-01T00:00:00Z In this paper, exploration and exploitation are conceptualized in terms of a nonlocal-local search continuum in three-dimensional supply, demand, and geographic space. Using cross-sectional data from a wide range of manufacturing industries, we develop and validate an operational measure of the exploration-exploitation concept. In line with theory-based arguments, our analysis suggests that the value of supply-side, demand-side, and spatial exploration and exploitation is contingent on the environment. While boundary-spanning supply-side search is found to be positively associated with innovation in more-dynamic environments typical of the entrepreneurial regime phase of technology evolution, such exploration appears to hurt innovation in less-dynamic environments. In a reverse fashion, while boundary-spanning demand-side search is found to be favorably associated with innovation in less-dynamic environments, it appears to harm innovation in a more-dynamic context. Interestingly, spatial boundary-spanning search seems to contribute to innovation in more- as well as less-dynamic environments. With the caveat that the substantive findings of this study are based on cross-sectional data, we discuss the implications of our work and future research directions. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10924/ 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10929/ 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31043/ 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z In dit artikel onderzoeken we de factoren die het behouden of verbreken beïnvloeden van de partnerrelaties van bedrijven die overgenomen worden. Kennis daarover ontbreekt nog, zowel in het wetenschappelijk onderzoek als in de praktijk. Die kennis is van groot belang voor het inzicht in de factoren die het succes of falen bepalen van fusies en overnames. Op basis van literatuuronderzoek en casestudies identificeren we in dit verband vier kritieke aandachtspunten voor het management: communicatie, alliantiespecifieke investeringen, interpersoonlijke allianties en de reductie van personeel. Deze zijn tijdens het overnameproces van grote invloed op het behouden of verbreken van vier attributen van de partnerrelaties van het overgenomen bedrijf: vertrouwen, samenwerking bij het oplossen van problemen, het oplossen van conflicten en het uitwisselen van gedetailleerde informatie. Het behouden of verbreken van een alliantie wordt uiteindelijk ook mede bepaald door twee specifieke omstandigheden (contingencies) van die relatie: de machtsbalans tussen het overgenomen bedrijf en de partner in kwestie en het interpretatieproces van de gepercipieerde raakvlakken tussen deze twee partijen. Het onderzoek toont aan dat aandacht voor de externe partnerrelaties van het over te nemen bedrijf van doorslaggevend belang kan zijn voor een succesvolle overnamestrategie. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31697/ 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31755/ 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/9724/ 2006-12-11T00:00:00Z This paper develops and tests hypotheses on the influence of a manager’s knowledge inflows on this manager’s exploration and exploitation activities. Based on a survey among managers of a leading electronics firm, the findings indicate, as expected, that top-down knowledge inflows of a manager positively relate to the extent to which this manager conducts exploitation activities, while they do not relate to a manager’s exploration activities. Furthermore, as expected, bottom-up and horizontal knowledge inflows of a manager positively relate to this manager’s exploration activities, while they do not relate to a manager’s exploitation activities. We contribute to current literature on exploration and exploitation by focusing on the manager level of analysis, and by adding the importance of knowledge flow configurations to the literature on the impact of organizational factors upon exploration and exploitation. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/9729/ 2006-12-11T00:00:00Z Our study builds on extant theory on embeddness to concentrate on the process of preservation and dissolution of the target firm’s embedded ties in acquisitions. We identify four critical areas - communication, idiosyncratic investments, inter-personal relations and, personnel turnover – where managerial decisions taken during the acquisition process affect the components of the target firm’s embedded ties – trust, joint problem-solving and exchange of fine-grained information. The preservation or dissolution of an embedded tie depends ultimately on two specific tie-contingencies, the balance of power between the target firm and the embedded relation and interpretive processes at the inter-face between the two. Our findings have implications for the study of the dissolution of market ties as they point to different roles played by social and institutional forces, power asymmetries and competition in the dynamics of embedded ones. Finally, we encourage theory development in acquisition studies by positing the importance of interpretive processes and, more broadly, relational elements that span the boundaries of the parent-target dyad. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14537/ 2006-11-01T00:00:00Z Research into the management of interorganizational relationships has hitherto primarily focused on problems of coordination, control, and to a lesser extent, legitimacy. In this article, we assert that partners cooperating in such relationships are also confronted with ‘problems of understanding’. Such problems arise from differences between partners in terms of culture, experience, structure and industry, and from the uncertainty and ambiguity that participants in interorganizational relationships experience in early stages of collaboration. Building on Karl Weick’s theory of sensemaking, we advance that participants in interorganizational relationships use formalization as a means to make sense of their partners, the interorganizational relationships in which they are engaged and the contexts in which these are embedded so as to diminish problems of understanding. We offer a systematic overview of the mechanisms through which formalization facilitates sensemaking, including: (1) focusing participants’ attention; (2) provoking articulation, deliberation and reflection; (3) instigating and maintaining interaction; and (4) reducing judgement errors and individual biases, and diminishing the incompleteness and inconsistency of cognitive representations. In this way, the article contributes to a better understanding of the relationships between formalization and sensemaking in collaborative relationships, and it carries Karl Weick’s thinking on the relationship between sense-making and organizing forward in the context of interorganizational management. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14772/ 2006-11-01T00:00:00Z Research on exploration and exploitation is burgeoning, yet our understanding of the antecedents and consequences of both activities remains rather unclear. We advance the growing body of literature by focusing on the apparent differences of exploration and exploitation and examining implications for using formal (i.e., centralization and formalization) and informal (i.e., connectedness) coordination mechanisms. This study further examines how environmental aspects (i.e., dynamism and competitiveness) moderate the effectiveness of exploratory and exploitative innovation. Results indicate that centralization negatively affects exploratory innovation, whereas formalization positively influences exploitative innovation. Interestingly, connectedness within units appears to be an important antecedent of both exploratory and exploitative innovation. Furthermore, our findings reveal that pursuing exploratory innovation is more effective in dynamic environments, whereas pursuing exploitative innovation is more beneficial to a unit's financial performance in more competitive environments. Through this richer explanation and empirical assessment, we contribute to a greater clarity and better understanding of how ambidextrous organizations coordinate the development of exploratory and exploitative innovation in organizational units and successfully respond to multiple environmental conditions. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7892/ 2006-08-14T00:00:00Z Research on exploration and exploitation is burgeoning, yet our understanding of the antecedents and consequences of both activities remains rather unclear. We advance the growing body of literature by focusing on the apparent differences of exploration and exploitation and examining implications for using formal (i.e. centralization and formalization) and informal (i.e. connectedness) coordination mechanisms. This study further examines how environmental aspects (i.e. dynamism and competitiveness) moderate the effectiveness of exploratory and exploitative innovation. Results indicate that centralization negatively affects exploratory innovation while formalization positively influences exploitative innovation. Interestingly, connectedness within units appears to be an important antecedent of both exploratory and exploitative innovation. Furthermore, our findings reveal that pursuing exploratory innovation is more effective in dynamic environments whereas pursuing exploitative innovation is more beneficial to a unit’s financial performance in more competitive environments. Through this richer explanation and empirical assessment, we contribute to a greater clarity and better understanding of how ambidextrous organizations coordinate the development of exploratory and exploitative innovation in organizational units and successfully respond to multiple environmental conditions. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7880/ 2006-07-24T00:00:00Z Many product innovation studies have described key determinants that should lead to successful incremental product innovation. Despite numerous studies suggesting how incremental product innovation should be successfully undertaken, many firms still struggle with this type of innovation. In this paper, we use an institutional perspective to investigate why established firms in the financial services industry struggle with their complex incremental product innovation efforts. We argue that although the impact of micro institutional forces is often overlooked in innovation studies, these forces matter for innovation success. Our study complements the existing innovation literature and provides an additional explanation why incremental product innovation is highly complex and suffers from several liabilities in established firms. Using qualitative data from the Dutch financial services sector collected over the period 1997-2002, the paper illustrates how micro institutional forces at the business unit level affect complex incremental product innovation and how the interaction of these forces delivers their impact. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7912/ 2006-07-24T00:00:00Z In this article, we discuss the evolution of trust, distrust, and formal coordination and control in interorganizational relationships. We suggest that the degrees to which managers trust and distrust their partners during initial stages of cooperation leave strong imprints on the development of these relationships in later stages of collaboration. This derives from the impact of trust and distrust on: (1) formal coordination and control; (2) interorganizational performance; and (3) the interpretations that managers attribute to the behavior of their partners. Collectively, our arguments give rise to a conceptual framework, which indicates that there is a high propensity for interorganizational relationships to develop along vicious or virtuous cycles. By integrating and reconciling previous work on the trust-control nexus, and by emphasizing the dynamics associated with it, the article contributes to a more comprehensive and refined understanding of the evolution of interorganizational cooperation. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14771/ 2006-03-01T00:00:00Z The 3rd JIBS Annual Conference on Emerging Research Frontiers in International Business, RSM Erasmus University, Rotterdam, 28–30 September 2005 http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14782/ 2006-02-01T00:00:00Z In dit artikel wordt een aantal kernpunten in de analyse van vertrouwen besproken. De volgende vragen worden aan de orde gesteld. Waar kunnen we vertrouwen in hebben? Wat is de relatie tussen vertrouwen en beheersing? Wat zijn de bronnen van vertrouwen? Wat bedoelen we eigenlijk met ‘vertrouwen’? Is vertrouwen waardevol en zo ja, hoe dan? Het artikel wordt afgesloten met een voorbeeld van het vertrouwen in de politie. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10930/ 2006-01-01T00:00:00Z Strategische vernieuwing in ondernemingen staat hoog op de agenda van managers en onderzoekers. De aandacht voor nonprofit-organisaties in dit verband is echter beperkt. Zo is er weinig bekend over de mate, de oorzaken en de implicaties van strategische vernieuwing. Dit artikel gaat in op dit thema. Met behulp van een enquête en twee casestudies wordt voor het eerst de vernieuwingsdynamiek van Nederlandse nonprofit-organisaties in kaart gebracht. De resultaten laten zien dat strategische vernieuwing door nonprofit-organisaties leidt tot een hoger prestatieniveau. Druk vanuit het management en/ of bestuur en druk vanuit de sociale omgeving blijken belangrijke determinanten voor de mate van strategische vernieuwing http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14774/ 2006-01-01T00:00:00Z Introduction. Interorganizational relationships consist of several stages, such as a search and selection stage, a negotiation stage, and a contracting stage (e.g. Jap and Ganesan, 2000; Reuer, 1999, 2000). Each of these stages corresponds with distinct governance decisions, which collectively enable partners to achieve coordination and control during the life-cycle of their relationships. Hitherto, however, little research has examined the use of multiple mechanisms to structure exchange relationships (Jap and Ganesan, 2000), and studies on sequences of successive governance decisions are still rare in the literature (Long etal., 2002; Narayandas and Rangan, 2004). This has led to a significant gap in our understanding of interorganizational governance. This chapter therefore focuses on the following research question: How are interorganizational relationships governed during different stages of cooperation, and how are the governance decisions In these stages related http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31044/ 2006-01-01T00:00:00Z De auteurs gaan in op de actuele vraag hoe het vermogen tot organisationele kennisintegratie bijdraagt aan zelforganisatie. Op grond van de literatuur ontwikkelen zij een conceptueel raamwerk van kennisintegratie in organisatie-eenheden en formuleren ze een propositie. Het raamwerk onderscheidt drie dimensies van kennisintegratie en laat zien hoe kennisintegratie wordt beïnvloed door ‘workflow interdependencies’ (Thompson, 1967) en coördinatiemechanismen. De propositie wordt geïllustreerd met een casestudie van een strategisch vernieuwingsproces dat gericht was op introductie van zelforganisatie in een kennisintensief organisatieonderdeel van het Shell Research en Technology Centre Amsterdam. De resultaten wijzen erop dat het kennisintegratievermogen een belangrijke bijdrage levert aan zelforganisatie. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7171/ 2005-12-19T00:00:00Z The focus in research upon resources, dynamic capabilities and competences has challenged firms to apply these concepts to improve their competitive position. Management consulting firms may assist clients in these efforts. However, the roles that management consulting firms fulfill in these processes can differ considerably and are under-researched. Therefore, insight in these different roles and the impact of these roles on clients’ competitive positioning in their industries is required. The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework that highlights the importance of distinguishing both roles and the implications for management consulting firms and for their clients. We illustrate the framework by elaborating on the relationship between both roles and the strategic renewal context of client firms. We conclude by pointing out the increasing importance of the competence leverage role of management consulting firms and how this development might contribute to a more hypercompetitive context for their clients. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7176/ 2005-12-19T00:00:00Z Both in theory as in practice insight is limited about how firms in dynamic environments could organize to manage concurrently both the strategic processes of competence building and competence leveraging. To contribute to this issue, a conceptual framework is developed which considers the ability to exchange knowledge across organization units as a prerequisite for firms to achieve both the goals of competence building and leveraging. The framework shows how several important managerial and organizational determinants, associated with cross-unit knowledge exchange, may stimulate competence-building processes and how they may stimulate competence-leveraging processes. The conceptual framework will be illustrated by two case studies in different contexts of Novartis, one of the leading European life-science companies. These two contexts of respectively ‘organization-enabled’ and ‘web-enabled’ knowledge exchange appear to be complementary. The conceptual framework and cases provide insight into (1) possibilities about how firms could organize to deal with the tension between competence building and leveraging processes, and (2) how managing the determinants of horizontal knowledge exchange can contribute to changing a firm’s actual mixture of competence building/leveraging processes into a more desired strategic mixture. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10937/ 2005-12-01T00:00:00Z Dit artikel geeft een overzicht van toezichthoudende commissies (audit-, belonings- en selectie- en benoemings commissies) in beursgenoteerde ondernemingen in Nederland en stelt de centrale vraag in hoeverre ondernemingen onder druk van omgevingsfactoren commissies hebben ingesteld gedurende de laatste tien jaar. Het artikel concludeert dat het gebruik van commissies in belangrijke mate is toegenomen sinds 1996 als gevolg van internationale corporate governance standaar den, de introductie van gedragscodes waaronder de Code Tabaksblat en de toenemende mate waarin ondernemingen afstand nemen van het klassieke Nederlandse bestuursmodel. Aan de hand van literatuur kan hierbij de kanttekening worden geplaatst dat er niet een eenduidige relatie bestaat tussen de marktwaarde en fi nanciële prestaties van ondernemingen en de instelling van toezichthoudende commissies. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14539/ 2005-12-01T00:00:00Z Exploring how organizational antecedents affect potential and realized absorptive capacity, this study identifies differing effects for both components of absorptive capacity. Results indicate that organizational mechanisms associated with coordination capabilities (cross-functional interfaces, participation in decision making, and job rotation) primarily enhance a unit's potential absorptive capacity. Organizational mechanisms associated with socialization capabilities (connectedness and socialization tactics) primarily increase a unit's realized absorptive capacity. Our findings reveal why units may have difficulty managing levels of potential and realized absorptive capacity and vary in their ability to create value from their absorptive capacity. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10932/ 2005-10-01T00:00:00Z Organizational ambidexterity (i.e., the ability to pursue exploratory and exploitative innovation simultaneously) is crucial to firm survival. In this study we explore how multiunit firms might develop ambidextrous organizational units in response to environmental demands. We examine how environmental and organizational antecedents affect a unit’s level of organizational ambidexterity. Our study reveals that multiunit firms develop ambidextrous organizational units to compete in dynamically competitive environments. Moreover, we show that organizational units with decentralized and densely connected social relations are able to act ambidextrously and pursue exploratory and exploitative innovations simultaneously. Our study provides new insights how multiunit firms can cope with contradictorily pressures for exploratory and exploitative innovations. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10938/ 2005-06-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6550/ 2005-05-10T00:00:00Z This study explores how organizational antecedents affect potential and realized absorptive capacity. Our study identifies differential effects for both components of absorptive capacity. Results indicate that organizational mechanisms associated with coordination capabilities (i.e. cross-functional interfaces, participation in decision-making, and job rotation) primarily enhance a unit’s potential absorptive capacity. Organizational mechanisms associated with socialization capabilities (i.e. connectedness and socialization tactics) primarily increase a unit’s realized absorptive capacity. Our findings reveal why units may have difficulties in managing levels of potential and realized absorptive capacity and vary in their ability to create value from their absorptive capacity. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6552/ 2005-05-10T00:00:00Z Fundamental changes in the competitive landscape triggered many firms to leverage and build competencies by focusing on transition processes towards internal network forms of organizing. These forms ameliorate exploration through knowledge creation and transfer. Internal networks are characterized by horizontal knowledge flows that supplement and supplant the vertical knowledge flows that characterize other organization forms like the functional and multi-divisional forms. As these horizontal knowledge flows facilitate knowledge integration, internal networks have an advantage over other organization forms in leveraging and building competencies. One characteristic that makes these horizontal knowledge flows work is the reciprocity ensuing them. Reciprocity relates to the interdependence and coordination modes that characterize internal networks. As reciprocity is influenced by managerial coordination, by the intention to deploy knowledge, and by goal attainment, creating and maintaining reciprocity of knowledge flows can be considered as a managerial competence. In this paper, the attributes of organization form that impact the reciprocity in a firm are explored from structural, managerial and knowledge perspectives. Hypotheses are developed which suggest that specialization and the use of formal meetings restrict reciprocity, whereas job rotation, the number of employees with a coordination function, and teams have a positive effect on the level of reciprocity. These hypotheses are tested by means of a questionnaire administered in a business unit of a multinational financial services firm. Reciprocity of knowledge flows was found to be dependent on the characteristics mentioned above in a predicted way. Since none of the hypotheses needed to be rejected, the evidence suggests that reciprocity is a fundamental feature of internal networks and the horizontal knowledge flows that characterize them. This suggests reciprocity to be an important managerial competence. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6553/ 2005-05-10T00:00:00Z Research evidence confirms that the accumulation of knowledge contributes to the competitive advantage of firms. In the strategy consulting industry, one of the most knowledge-intensive professional services industries, however, established firms that exploited their knowledge accumulation by adding exploitative consulting practices have found their performance has deteriorated. To investigate this phenomenon, this paper will describe how the increasing share of exploitative practices in the strategy consulting industry has attracted both established ICT-related consulting firms and new entrants, and enabled clients to expand their problem-solving abilities. We will argue that these developments in terms of competitiveness and client competencies have reduced the attractiveness of exploitative practices for established strategy consulting firms. To analyse these developments and to provide strategic options for the established strategy consulting firms, a conceptual framework will be proposed. Based on this framework, three strategic option are identified: ‘Follow the herd’, ‘Become ambidextrous’ and ‘Back to the original focus.’ In summarizing our argument, we highlight the pros and cons of these options and the implications for top management. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10933/ 2005-01-01T00:00:00Z Partners in interorganisatorische samenwerkingsverbanden maken gebruik van diverse beheersingsstrategieën om coördinatie en controle mogelijk te maken. In dit artikel staat de opkomst van standaardcontracten centraal en wordt een overzicht gegeven van de voordelen en nadelen van dit type contracten. Voordelen van standaardcontracten zijn dat ze snel kunnen worden geëffectueerd en als legitiem worden ervaren. Daarnaast zijn deze contracten relatief robuust en eenvoudig te interpreteren. Echter, dergelijke contracten zijn veelal nogal algemeen en dragen nauwelijks bij aan de creatie van wederzijds begrip en afstemming van verwachtingen. Er worden drie maatregelen besproken die de negatieve effecten van contractstandaardisatie kunnen wegnemen. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10934/ 2005-01-01T00:00:00Z How do large well-established firms renew themselves in an increasing turbulent environment? Is there a generic pattern of change or is each change journey rather idiosyncratic? We posed five questions about the nature of renewal patterns. First, how do firms combine external versus internal initiatives in a trajectory of strategic renewal? Second, how does the balance of competence building and competence leveraging evolve in a trajectory of strategic renewal? Third, what are the sequences of action in a strategic renewal process? Fourth, do firms differ regarding speed of their renewal processes? Finally, do different strategic renewal trajectories give rise to different or similar outcomes? Using a simple framework and new metrics we described and analyzed the strategic renewal journeys of the five largest financial service firms in the Netherlands during the period 1990–1997. We found equifinality in viable trajectories of strategic renewal. In four out of five firms, they result in similar outcomes due to mimetic behavior. Nonetheless, one firm showed deviant strategic behavior. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10939/ 2005-01-01T00:00:00Z Focuses on the decline in innovation performance and productivity growth in the Netherlands. Factors to consider by leaders in building managerial capabilities; Ways to enhance managerial capabilities and organising principles of innovation within Dutch private and public firms; Agenda for the improvement and diffusion of managerial capabilities and organising principles of innovation in the Dutch economy. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31045/ 2005-01-01T00:00:00Z Innovatie in Nederland is te eenzijdig op technologie gericht. Investeringen in de succesvolle toepassing van kennis zou een hogere prioriteit moeten hebben. Evenals het creëren van nieuwe managementvaardigheden en het ontwikkelen van nieuwe organisatieprincipes. Nederland moet terugkeren in de top-10 van ’s werelds meest innovatieve en productieve landen. De vijf topprioriteiten die de nieuwe Nederlandse Innovatie Agenda beheersen, vormen in feite een pleidooi voor interne veranderingssnelheid, zelforganisatie en hoge exploitatie- en exploratieniveaus. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31065/ 2005-01-01T00:00:00Z There is considerable research evidence to confirm that the accumulation of knowledge contributes to the competitive advantage of firms. However, in strategy consulting, one of the most knowledge‐intensive professional services, established firms that exploited their knowledge accumulation by adding exploitative consulting practices have found their performance has deteriorated. The increasing share of exploitative practices in the strategy consulting industry has attracted both established ICT‐related consulting firms and new entrants. Moreover, it has enabled clients to expand their problem‐solving abilities. These developments, in terms of competitiveness and client competencies, have reduced the attractiveness of exploitative practices for established strategy consulting firms. To analyse this development and to provide strategic options for the established firms, a conceptual framework is proposed. Based on this framework three strategic options are identified: ‘follow the herd’, ‘become ambidextrous’ and ‘back to the original focus’. In summarizing our argument, we highlight the pros and cons of these options and the implications for senior management. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31704/ 2005-01-01T00:00:00Z The “resources, dynamic capabilities and competences perspective” (Sanchez, 2001) has challenged firms to apply these concepts to improve their competitive position.Mana gement consulting firms may assist clients in these efforts.Howe ver, the roles that management consulting firms fulfill in these processes can differ considerably and are under-researched.Ther efore, insight in these different roles and the impact of these roles on clients’ competitive positioning in their industries is required.The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework that highlights the importance of distinguishing both roles and the implications for management consulting firms and for their clients.W e illustrate the framework by elaborating on the relationship between both roles and the strategic renewal context of client firms.W e conclude by pointing out the increasing importance of the competence leverage role of management consulting firms and how this development might contribute to a more hypercompetitive context for their clients. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31707/ 2005-01-01T00:00:00Z Developments in Information Technology (IT) are perceived to be a major driver of interorganizational cooperation, both within and across industry boundaries. These developments have challenged the creation of interorganizational competitive advantages, as conceptualized in the Relational View (e.g. Dyer & Singh, 1998). The relationship between IT and effectuated interorganizational competitive advantage, however, is still unclear. This chapter is a first attempt to shed light on this unexplored area in the literature. We focus our analysis on developing a conceptual framework of the relationship between IT and interorganizational resource complementarity, which is an important determinant of interorganizational competitive advantage. Our framework suggests that cooperating organizations need to develop three distinctive but interrelated capabilities in order to effectuate interorganizational resource complementarity by means of IT. It is proposed that these capabilities give rise to interorganizational competence building, forming a pre-condition for achieving interorganizational competitive advantage. Preliminary support for our framework and proposition is provided by a brief case study of an interorganizational relationship between a large European financial services firm and a major European telecommunication firm. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/1780/ 2004-10-27T00:00:00Z This paper examines the transfer of designs between projects within firm in the context of made-to-order producing companies. This practice is also known as knowledge reuse. Past studies has provided a detailed account of the strategies and processes involved in the reuse of technologies. Nonetheless, a large portion of this research was based on evidence collected in mass-producing companies. This paper attempts to develop a complementary framework to identify the strategies involved in reusing technologies in the made-to-order context. Data were drawn from three aerospace companies based in Israel. Two strategies emerged from the empirical evidence: exploit product success and design for reuse. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10957/ 2004-10-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/1571/ 2004-09-08T00:00:00Z In this paper, we explore the factors that determine the longevity of firms. Five central factors were distilled from the literature: position in the supply chain, the nature of the technology used, structure, culture, and financial policy. We made an extensive case-study of the Dutch storage company Royal Pakhoed and its predecessors from the early seventeenth century to the present. We conclude that all five factors contributed to the longevity of Pakhoed, but to a different degree. Paradoxically, its dependent position in the supply chain enhanced Pakhoed's longevity because it led to a high absorptive capacity. The technology used proved to be surprisingly flexible and versatile. The structure was characterized both by centralized and decentralized features throughout the ages; decentralization enhanced continuity in several cases. The company's culture has been always rather 'open', but it restricted the range of successful diversification beyond storage and warehousing. A conservative financial policy helped one of Pakhoed's main predecessors to survive throughout the nineteenth century, but this factor seems to have been of relatively minor importance after the Second World War. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6456/ 2004-09-01T00:00:00Z Adopting an information-process perspective, this article conceptualizes exploration orientation in terms of scope of information acquisition. In line with this conceptualization, a multidimensional operational measure of exploration orientation is developed and its internal consistency established. The measure appears to have nomological validity in that it behaves as predicted with measures of variables hypothesized to be related to exploration orientation. Consistent with the emerging co-evolution framework, environmental pressures as well as managerial intentions are found to influence an organization's exploration behaviour. Specifically, empirical results indicate that more environmental dynamism, a stronger organization mission, a prospector orientation and larger slack resources are associated with a greater exploration orientation. Implications, shortcomings and future research directions are discussed. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/1350/ 2004-07-08T00:00:00Z Developments in information technology (IT) are perceived to promote interorganizational cooperation within and across industry boundaries. IT-enabled cooperation has challenged the creation of interorganizational competitive advantages, as conceptualized in the Relational View (e.g., Dyer and Singh, 1998). The relationship between IT and the conversion of inter-firm value-creating opportunities into interorganizational competitive advantage is still unclear. In this paper, we have developed a conceptual framework regarding the relationship between IT and interorganizational resource complementarity, which is an important determinant of interorganizational competitive advantage. Our analysis suggests that cooperating organizations need to develop three distinctive but interrelated capabilities in order to effectuate interorganizational resource complementarity with regard to IT. We propose that these capabilities form a pre-condition for achieving interorganizational competitive advantage by means of IT-enabled interorganizational relationships. Preliminary support for our framework and proposition is provided by a case study of an interorganizational relationship between a large European financial services firm and a major European telecommunication firm. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/1347/ 2004-06-29T00:00:00Z How do large well-established firms renew themselves in an increasing turbulent environment? Is there a generic pattern of change or is each change journey rather idiosyncratic? We posed five questions about the nature of renewal patterns. First, how do firms combine external versus internal initiatives in a trajectory of strategic renewal? Second, how does the balance of competence building and competence leveraging evolve in a trajectory of strategic renewal? Third, what are the sequences of action in a strategic renewal process? Fourth, do firms differ regarding speed of their renewal processes? Finally, do different strategic renewal trajectories give rise to different of similar outcomes? Using a simple framework and new metrics we described and analyzed the strategic renewal journeys of the five largest financial service firms in the Netherlands during the period 1990-1997. We found equifinality in viable trajectories of strategic renewal. In four out of five firms, they result in similar outcomes due to mimetic behaviour. Nonetheless, one firm showed deviant strategic behaviour. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10962/ 2004-06-01T00:00:00Z technological innovation have dramatically changed the European telecommunications industry. To cope with these forces, incumbent telecommunication operators had to strategically renew their companies. What can be learned from these incumbents and which managerial challenges are ahead? To address these questions, we investigated trajectories of strategic renewal of Europe’s five largest incumbent operators and the impact on financial performance for the period 1992–2001. Remarkably, we did not find significant differences between the renewal trajectories of these incumbents. These findings suggest herd behaviour, indicating a preference for adopting similar organizational templates due to institutional forces resulting in a common ‘follow the industry’ renewal trajectory. In the years to come, however, we expect such herd behaviour will not be viable anymore. On the contrary, top management should make firm-specific strategic choices. The analysis and findings discussed in this paper provide insights for top management of incumbent firms in other deregulating European industries as well, such as the financial services and energy industries. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31067/ 2004-05-01T00:00:00Z In dit artikel staat de vraag centraal hoe corporate venturing de dynamiek beïnvloedt in de concurrentieomgeving. Hiertoe is een raamwerk ontwikkeld waarin de verschillende typen corporate ventures gerelateerd worden aan de product- en factormarktdynamiek van de onderneming. Het raamwerk laat zien dat ondernemingen twee strategieën kunnen volgen wat betreft corporate venturing. Ten eerste, kiezen voor typen corporate ventures waarbij de huidige marktdynamiek in stand blijft (bestendiging). Ten tweede, kiezen voor typen ventures waarbij de bestaande marktdynamiek sterk toeneemt (verstoring). Het raamwerk verschaft managers inzicht in de gevolgen van corporate venturing voor de concurrentieomgeving. Een vergroting van de marktdynamiek vraagt om een ander, meer flexibel type organisatie. Een beknopte casestudie naar venture strategieën van de Rabobank en de ING illustreert de toegevoegde waarde van het ontwikkelde raamwerk. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10961/ 2004-04-01T00:00:00Z Empirical research reveals that relocations of corporate centres are most times confined to national borders. Until now, cross-border relocations are almost absent in the European Union, while in the United States relocations across State borders appear to be common. To contribute to a managerial understanding of these phenomena, we propose a conceptual framework of the determinants of the corporate centre location. Based on our analysis, we predict the stickiness of corporate centres of European Union-based corporations will diminish due to the European Union integration process and in particular triggered by the expected EU legislation regarding the removal of legal barriers against corporate mobility. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31066/ 2004-03-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/1131/ 2004-01-27T00:00:00Z In this essay, we challenge the present dominant emphasis in the Dutch Innovation Debate on the creation of technological innovations, the focus on a few core technologies, and the allocation of more financial resources. We argue that managerial capabilities and organizing principles for innovation should have a higher priority on the Dutch Innovation Agenda. Managerial capabilities for innovation deal with cognitive elements such as the capacity to absorb knowledge, create entrepreneurial mindsets, and facilitate managerial experimentation and higher-order learning abilities. These capacities can only be developed by distinctive managerial roles that enhance hierarchy, teaming and shared norms. Utilizing these unique managerial capabilities requires novel organizing principles, such as managing internal rates of change, nurturing self-organization and balancing high levels of exploration and exploitation. These managerial capabilities and organizing principles of innovation create new sources of productivity growth and competitive advantage. The dramatic fall back of the Netherlands in the league of innovative and high productivity countries of the World Economic Forum-Report can be mainly attributed to the present lack in the Netherlands of these key managerial and organizational enablers of innovation and productivity growth. We provide various levers for building unique managerial capabilities and novel organizing principles of innovation. Moreover, we describe the necessary roles that different actors have to play in this innovation arena. In particular, we focus on the often neglected but important role of strategic regulations that speed up innovation and productivity growth. They are the least expensive way to boost innovation in organizations in both the Dutch private and public sector. Finally, we discuss the implications for the Dutch Innovation Agenda. It should start with setting a challenging ambition, namely the return of The Netherlands within the WEF- league of the top-ten most innovative and productive countries of the world. Considering the under-utilization of available knowledge stemming from technological innovations, managerial and organizational determinants of innovation should receive first priority. These determinants have a high strategic relevance and should receive more public recognition. We suggest to organize an annual innovation ranking of the most outstanding Dutch firms, to develop an innovation audit that measures firms’ non-technological innovation capacity, and to create an overall innovation policy for fast diffusion of new managerial capabilities and adequate organizing principles throughout the Dutch private and public sector. In conclusion, we add five new items to the Dutch Innovation Agenda: 1. Prioritize administrative innovations Investments in management and organization determinants of absorption of knowledge and its successful application (administrative innovation) should have a higher priority than investments in technological innovations. 2. Build new managerial capabilities and develop novel organizing principles For these administrative innovations to succeed, firms have to build managerial capabilities (broad knowledge-base, absorptive capacity, managerial experimentation, higher-order learning) and various management roles (hierarchy, teaming, shared norms) to increase the assimilation of external knowledge and the utilization for innovation. Moreover, they have to develop novel organizing principles that increase internal rates of change, nurture self-organization and synchronize high levels of exploration and exploitation. 3. Set levers of innovation by creating selection environments that favor innovation and by redefining the roles of key actors Management has to create a proper organizational context to foster entrepreneurship and innovation (internal selection environment). Governmental agencies have to focus on innovation and productivity enabling strategic regulations (external selection environment). Moreover, research institutes, business schools, and consulting firms should not only focus on technological knowledge, but also on managerial and organizational knowledge for innovation. In the end, private small and large firms and public institutions have to recognize that they all must contribute to the national goal of increasing innovation and productivity growth. 4. Create a new challenging national ambition: return of the Netherlands within the top-10 The Netherlands has to return to the top-ten most innovative and productive countries in the world as reflected in international rankings such as the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index. 5. Proliferate an awareness and passion for innovation: Create public awareness and recognition of the societal relevance of outstanding managerial capabilities and organizing principles to innovation and productivity growth: o Initiate a Dutch innovation ranking in terms of management and organization; o Develop proper assessment tools for innovations in management and organization; o Enhance reporting on the progress on managerial and organizational innovation as part of modern corporate governance and as part of outstanding annual reports. These issues may contribute to rethinking the fundamental sources of innovation, productivity growth and sustainable competitive advantage of the Dutch economy. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10958/ 2004-01-01T00:00:00Z De omgeving van de Europese financiële dienstensector is het afgelopen decennium sterk veranderd. Een belangrijke oorzaak is de verschuiving van wet- en regelgeving van het nationale naar het EU-niveau. Institutionele theorieën voorspellen dat grote, gevestigde bedrijven zoals ABN AMRO en Deutsche Bank het strategisch vernieuwingsgedrag van succesvolle concurrenten zullen gaan imiteren. In dit verband rijst de vraag in hoeverre dit imitatiegedrag door de nationale dan wel meer door de Europese context bepaald wordt. Aan de hand van een nieuwe dataset, met zo’n 4100 externe strategische vernieuwingsacties van banken en verzekeraars uit zes Europese landen (Duitsland, Frankrijk, Italië, Nederland, het Verenigd Koninkrijk en Zweden), zal deze vraag worden onderzocht voor de periode 1990-1999. De resultaten suggereren dat van een overheersende invloed van de Europese context op extern strategisch vernieuwingsgedrag nog geen sprake is. De implicaties hiervan voor management en beleid worden kort besproken. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6455/ 2004-01-01T00:00:00Z Although self-regulation has proven to be effective for the development of voluntary corporate-governance codes, the results of this study indicate that leading European companies are not yet too concerned about compliance with these codes. While self-regulation appears to be ineffective to change the disclosure practices of companies, the study concludes that factors relevant for choosing regulatory forms and the impact and risks involved with non-compliance of companies with voluntary codes have determined the Winter Report’s emphasis on self-regulation. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6548/ 2004-01-01T00:00:00Z Liberalisering, privatisering, nieuwe technologieën, nieuwe toetreders en buitenlandse concurrenten dragen bij aan een hoge mate van turbulentie in de energiesector. Strategische vernieuwing is geboden. De vraag is of energiebedrijven allemaal hetzelfde moeten doen (kuddegedrag) of dat ze juist van elkaar moeten afwijken in hun strategische vernieuwingsgedrag? Dit artikel biedt een ‘framework’ waarmee strategische vernieuwing inzichtelijk wordt gemaakt. Zo krijg je een concurrentieanalyse van de Europese energiemarkt die nog erg onevenwichtig blijkt, maar wel de kansen en bedreigingen duidelijk maakt. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6549/ 2004-01-01T00:00:00Z Empirisch onderzoek laat zien dat verplaatsingen van concernhoofdkantoren zich meestal beperken tot de nationale grenzen. In de Verenigde Staten zijn verplaatsingen naar andere staten een normaal verschijnsel. In de Europese Unie echter komen grensoverschrijdende verplaatsingen van hoofdkantoren vrijwel nog niet voor. De vraag rijst in hoeverre dat zo blijft. Voor een analyse van de verplaatsingen van concernhoofdkantoren, introduceren wij een conceptueel raamwerk van de determinanten van de locatie van een concernhoofdkantoor. Gebaseerd op onze analyse voorspellen wij dat de honkvastheid van in de Europese Unie gevestigde concernhoofdkantoren zal verminderen als de plannen van de Europese Commissie met betrekking tot grensoverschrijdende herstructurering en mobiliteit van ondernemingen worden uitgevoerd. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14588/ 2003-12-01T00:00:00Z Special Research Symposium BEYOND ADAPTATION VS. SELECTION RESEARCH: ORGANIZING SELF-RENEWAL IN CO-EVOLVING ENVIRONMENTS Guest Editors Arie Y. Lewin and Henk W. Volberda http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6458/ 2003-12-01T00:00:00Z How do incumbent firms and environments co-evolve and how are firm-level adaptation and selection at industry level interrelated? Can and do large established organizations renew themselves to adapt to their environment? Three single-lens theories, relating to environmental selection, institutional theory, managerial intentionality, and a co-evolutionary perspective are used to investigate strategic renewal of incumbent firms. We derive propositions and distinguish between three dimensions of strategic renewal and develop metrics to investigate our propositions in a multi-level, multi-country, longitudinal study of the European financial services industry. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6459/ 2003-12-01T00:00:00Z The extensive selection–adaptation literature spans diverse theoretical perspectives, but is inconclusive on the role of managerial intentionality in organizational adaptation. Indeed this voluminous literature has more to say about selection and sources and causes of structural inertia than about self-renewing organizations that might counteract such inertia. In this introductory essay, we identify four co-evolutionary generative mechanisms (engines) – naïve selection, managed selection, hierarchical renewal and holistic renewal – which illustrate the extensive range of evolutionary paths that can take place in a population of organizations. In particular, the managed selection engine provides the foundations of the underlying principles of co-evolving self-renewing organizations: managing internal rates of change, optimizing self-organization, and balancing concurrent exploration and exploitation. However, it is altogether clear that empirical co-evolution research represents the next frontier for empirically resolving the adaptation selection debate. The essay concludes with a discussion of requirements for co-evolutionary empirical research and introduces the empirical papers in this Special Research Symposium. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/334/ 2003-05-07T00:00:00Z This chapter focuses on the gap between the speed of proliferation of theoretical and empirical contributions and the speed of accumulation of the acquired scientific knowledge regarding absorptive capacity. To contribute to narrowing this gap, we will in particular review the conceptual developments of the absorptive capacity construct. Based on the seminal contributions of Cohen & Levinthal (1989, 1990) we will provide a brief overview of the various conceptual attributes of this construct, like the definition, antecedents and consequences, and levels of analysis involved. Next, we will assess the refinements, extensions and reconceptualizations of this construct in the literature. Furthermore, from the perspective of viewing models as mediating instruments between theory and empirical phenomena (Morgan and Morrison, 1999), we will analyze efforts to build conceptual models. Finally, we will address the progress made, select key problems and we will formulate future research directions to improve the multilevel and transdisciplinary characteristics of absorptive capacity. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6457/ 2003-04-01T00:00:00Z Despite the fact that they represent a growing element of business strategy, alliances between organisations quite often result in failure. This is partly due to the fact that firms have not built up adequate capabilities to manage alliances. Special management techniques have to be implemented in order to strengthen the organisation’s alliance capability. This article evaluates a number of these techniques with regard to their impact on alliance success, and reports on a quantitative study on alliances and alliance-management techniques of 46 large companies to assess this impact. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6477/ 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6481/ 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z Inzicht in de rollen van organisatieadviseurs bij het ontwikkelen van oplossingen voor de vraagstukken van hun cliënten is van groot belang. Eerder onderzoek legde nadruk op de rol van de organisatieadviseur als makelaar in ‘best practices’. Naast deze zogenoemde ‘exploitatierol’ onderscheidt deze bijdrage de ‘exploratierol’. Op basis van de literatuur is een conceptueel raamwerk ontwikkeld van de twee verschillende adviesrollen, hun eisen aan de organisatieadviseur en hun invloeden op de cliënten en de bedrijfstakken van de cliënten. De exploratierol van organisatieadviseurs draagt bij aan de creatie van nieuwe concurrentievoordelen voor de cliënten en bevordert op deze manier de ongelijkvormigheid van de concurrenten binnen de betreffende bedrijfstak. De exploitatierol van organisatieadviseurs leidt tot de versnelde diffusie van kennis binnen en tussen bedrijfstakken. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6482/ 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6484/ 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z Strategische vernieuwing in ondernemingen staat hoog op de agenda van managers en onderzoekers. De aandacht voor nonprofit-organisaties in dit verband is echter beperkt. Zo is er weinig bekend over de mate, de oorzaken en de implicaties van strategische vernieuwing. Dit artikel gaat in op dit thema. Met behulp van een enquête en twee casestudies wordt voor het eerst de vernieuwingsdynamiek van Nederlandse nonprofit-organisaties in kaart gebracht. De resultaten laten zien dat strategische vernieuwing door nonprofit-organisaties leidt tot een hoger prestatieniveau. Druk vanuit het management en/ of bestuur en druk vanuit de sociale omgeving blijken belangrijke determinanten voor de mate van strategische vernieuwing. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6485/ 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z Om op lange termijn te kunnen overleven, moeten organisaties een balans vinden tussen enerzijds het exploiteren van bestaande competenties en anderzijds het exploreren van nieuwe mogelijkheden. De netwerkorganisatie lijkt een geschikte organisatievorm om deze twee schijnbaar onverenigbare krachten evenwichtig te kunnen managen. Tegelijkertijd blijkt dat een netwerkorganisatie, bij het zoeken naar een duurzaam evenwicht tussen exploitatie en exploratie, geconfronteerd wordt met andere paradoxen die feitelijk net zoveel aandacht behoeven. Zo moet de governance van een netwerk enerzijds gericht zijn op het collectieve belang, maar anderzijds ook ruimte bieden aan de individuele ‘eigen’ belangen van de deelnemende partners. In dit artikel wordt ingegaan op de afwegingen waarmee netwerkorganisaties geconfronteerd kunnen worden in hun streven naar duurzaamheid door een evenwichtige balans tussen exploitatie en exploratie. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6535/ 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6538/ 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6461/ 2002-08-24T00:00:00Z The Internet has been one of the main drivers behind the growth in number of partnerships. Although e-partnerships have received attention in research, this attention has mainly been reserved for the role of the Internet firm in the partnership and for technology partnerships. This article explores the use of e-partnerships by traditional, non-Internet related firms for business development. It describes the goals these firms try to achieve and the organizational form of the e-partnerships they have chosen. A number of European cases illustrate the developments in this field and clarify the changes firms make to their e-partnerships over time. Moreover, since companies are becoming embedded in an increasingly larger number of e-partnerships, the concept of e-partnering ecosystems is explored. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6460/ 2002-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6488/ 2002-01-01T00:00:00Z De Europese financiële sector wordt geconfronteerd met ingrijpende veranderingen in de omgeving die van grote invloed zijn op de concurrentieverhoudingen en de manier waarop financiële dienstverlenende bedrijven hun routines, producten en diensten voortbrengen. Dit blijkt uit onderzoek naar de snelheid waarmee EU-regelgeving en technologische innovaties zich over Groot-Brittannië, Frankrijk, Italië, Nederland en Zweden hebben verspreid gedurende de periode 1990-1999. Groot-Brittannië en Nederland komen daarin naar voren als voorlopers met betrekking tot het implementeren van nieuwe regelgeving en technologieën, terwijl Italië en Frankrijk relatief laat zijn. Uit de bevindingen blijkt verder dat reguleringen en technologieën steeds sneller algemeen verspreid worden, in tegenstelling tot het vroegere proces van verspreiding van land tot land. Het veranderende landschap stelt gevestigde ondernemingen in de financiële dienstverlening daarmee voor belangrijke uitdagingen in de nabije toekomst en maakt strategische vernieuwing een noodzaak voor de gevestigde spelers in de financiële sector. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6489/ 2002-01-01T00:00:00Z Inzicht in hoe het simultaan ontwikkelen van nieuwe kennis (exploratie) en het toepassen van bestaande kennis (exploitatie) binnen ondernemingen met meerdere bedrijfseenheden bevorderd kan worden, is in de praktijk én in de theorie nog beperkt. Om hieraan een bijdrage te leveren, wordt een conceptueel raamwerk ontwikkeld dat belangrijke management- en organisatiedeterminanten van het proces van horizontale kennisuitwisseling tussen bedrijfseenheden in beeld brengt.1 Daarbij wordt onderzocht hoe determinanten als ‘awareness’ van en ‘interest’ in kennisuitwisseling, ‘transfermechanismen’ van kennis, ‘gerelateerde kennis’ en de ‘organisatievorm’, het exploreren en het exploiteren van kennis kunnen beïnvloeden. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/126/ 2001-11-02T00:00:00Z This paper proposes that rival firms not only search for new capabilities within their organization, but also for those that rest in their competitive environment. An integrated analysis of these search processes at both firm and industry levels of analysis shows how their interaction makes industries and firms coevolve over time. To contribute to an enhanced understanding of the concept of coevolution, a dynamic and integrative framework crossing meso and micro levels of analysis is constructed. This framework is applied to a longitudinal study of the music industry with a time-span of 120 years. The first part, a historical study, covers the period 1877 - 1990. The second part, a multiple-case study, covers the period 1990 - 1997. We conclude that search behavior drives coevolution through competitive dynamics among new entrants and incumbent firms and manifests itself in the simultaneous emergence of new business models and new organizational forms. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6469/ 2001-11-01T00:00:00Z This paper proposes that rival firms not only search for new capabilities within their organization, but also for those that rest in their competitive environment. An integrated analysis of these search processes at both firm and industry levels of analysis shows how their interaction makes industries and firms co-evolve over time. To contribute to an enhanced understanding of the concept of co-evolution, a dynamic and integrative framework crossing meso and micro levels of analysis is constructed. This framework is applied to a longitudinal study of the music industry with a time-span of 120 years. The first part, a historical study, covers the period 1877-1990. The second part, a multiple-case study, covers the period 1990-1997. We conclude that search behavior drives co-evolution through competitive dynamics among new entrants and incumbent firms and manifests itself in the simultaneous emergence of new business models and new organizational forms. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6463/ 2001-04-01T00:00:00Z How do large multi-unit firms in a deconstructing world reconcile the conflicting forces of profits for today and flexibility to adapt for tomorrow? Profits for today requires order, control, and stability: adaptation for tomorrow requires flexibility and creativity in the value-added system. Large firms in many industries are confronted with this challenge of exploration and exploitation. In the European financial services industries these conflicting tendencies are increasingly obvious. Existing large financial players seem well placed to exploit the present but ill suited to adapt to the future. Why is this so, and what can be done about it? We consider the mechanisms of selection, adaptation and co-evolution that take place between levels within the firm and between the firm and its environment, and from this identify four ideal kinds of strategic renewal journeys that organisations can adopt as a way of coping with increasing environmental pressures. We label these journeys: emergent, directed, facilitated, and transformational. We show how these ideal types represent different options for top, middle and front-line managers, and we identify how each type differs in its capacity to cope with the changing environment. We illustrate our renewal journeys with examples from Dutch (ING and Rabobank) and British financials (Barclays, Lloyds and Prudential) and other organisations such as GE, IBM, Intel, Novotel and Philips. We suggest that for mobilising renewal in well-established financial institutions—once protected but now exposed to the winds of change—managers have to recognise that many of the current journeys are unsuitable for the future. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6464/ 2001-04-01T00:00:00Z How do large firms conduct their strategic renewal journeys in an increasingly turbulent environment? Are there generic industry patterns, or are these renewal journeys country- or firm-specific? To answer these questions, we examine the relative incidence of external versus internal and explorative versus exploitative renewal actions, and their speed, in leading Dutch and UK financial service companies using longitudinal data. The context, content and process dimensions of strategic renewal are distinguished, and research questions about these attributes are formulated and investigated using new metrics. Findings show that while exploration/exploitation ratios are fairly similar for firms across the entire industry, systematic differences are evident between the external/internal renewal ratios of Dutch and UK firms, and that speed of renewal is largely determined at the firm level. Thus we find that industry-, country- and firm-specific factors all influence journeys of strategic renewal in distinctive and complementary ways. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6466/ 2001-04-01T00:00:00Z The European financial services sector is confronted with major forces that have changed its competitive dynamics and the strategic context. Firstly, we investigate the pace of the diffusion of two forces for strategic renewal (technological innovations and regulatory changes); secondly, we assess similarities in the pace of diffusion across countries; and thirdly, we assess the impact of these developments on the European financial landscape, focusing on five EU countries from 1990 to 1999. Preliminary findings suggest that country-specific patterns of diffusion have decreased substantially, indicating the emergence of industry-generic patterns of diffusion, while the speed of diffusion is increasing within the sector. This will give rise to a hyper-competitive landscape in the beginning of this century. Understanding the emergence of such landscapes creates important managerial challenges for the strategic renewal journeys of both incumbent firms and new entrants, in the financial services sector and in sectors confronted with similar developments. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6468/ 2001-04-01T00:00:00Z The emergence of electronic commerce raises important questions about the building and leveraging of legitimacy for both practitioners and scholars of strategy. New entrants' click-and-mortar or click-and-click business models are challenging the legitimacy of large and mature brick-and-mortar incumbents. The implications of this challenge for the financial services industry—as for many other industries—are only starting to become clear. This article contributes to these initial understandings by developing a conceptual framework that considers which e-strategies ‘bricks’ (incumbent organisations such as ABN AMRO bank and Prudential Banking) and ‘clicks’ (new entrants such as KPN and First-e) adopt to improve their competitiveness. Four relevant organisational types in the emerging online financial services industry are identified, and ties to legitimacy-providing organisations are assessed for their potential both as buffers against environmental turbulence and bridges towards changing stakeholder perspectives. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10981/ 2001-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6467/ 2001-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6470/ 2001-01-01T00:00:00Z In this study we investigated 30 ventures in four large firms. We categorized four projects as characterized by "new economy" principles. These were projects that focused on increasing returns. We compared these four projects to four "traditional economy " initiatives in terms of their trajectories and characteristics. We found that the "new economy" initiatives involved more cooperation across firm boundaries, required flexible organizational forms of venturing, used more pilot projects, and involved top management as a crucial element in their success. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6493/ 2001-01-01T00:00:00Z Door technologische convergentie vervagen de grenzen van bedrijfstakken en ontwikkelen zich complexen van in elkaar overvloeiende bedrijfstakken waarin kennisintegratie van groot belang wordt. Zowel de organisatievorm als de zogenoemde combinative capabilities van een bedrijf moeten geschikt zijn om nieuwe kenniscomponenten te integreren. Deze kenniscomponenten kunnen vervolgens dienen als basis voor de ontwikkeling van nieuwe product-marktcombinaties. Er wordt een conceptueel raamwerk voorgesteld van de invloed die verschillende organisatievormen en combinative capabilities uitoefenen op kennisintegratie. Aan de hand van twee casestudies van Nederlandse uitgevers die deel uitmaken van het opkomende multimediacomplex wordt het conceptueel raamwerk geïllustreerd. Het raamwerk draagt bij aan een beter inzicht in het complexe proces van kennisintegratie in de context van een industrieel complex in ontwikkeling. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/48/ 2000-10-10T00:00:00Z The emergence of electronic commerce complexes raises important questions regarding competence building and leveraging, both for practitioners and strategy scholars. Competences of brick-and-mortar incumbents (large and mature players) are being challenged by new entrants' click-and-mortar or click-and-click business models. The implications of this challenge for the financial services industry - as for many other industries - are only starting to become clear. In this paper we contribute to these initial understandings by developing a conceptual framework that considers which strategies incumbents and new entrants might adopt to improve their competitiveness. We identify four relevant organizational types in the emerging on-line financial services complex. For each of these types we outline how ties to sponsoring organizations can be used as a buffer against environmental turbulence and as a bridge towards changing stakeholder perspectives. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31041/ 2000-04-01T00:00:00Z Hoe herkennen organisaties in hun omgeving nieuwe kennis? Hoe kunnen ze zich deze kennis eigen maken? En wellicht nog belangrijker, hoe kunnen ze deze kennis commercieel toepassen? In dit artikel wordt het kennisabsorberend vermogen van een onderneming aan een nader onderzoek onderworpen. Dit vermogen heeft een belangrijke invloed op de mate waarin nieuwe kennis uit de omgeving wordt opgenomen en gebruikt voor succesvolle innovaties. Cohen en Levinthal (1990) veronderstellen dat eerdere kennis die een onderneming heeft opgedaan in de loop van de tijd, van doorslaggevend belang is voor haar absorberend vermogen. In dit artikel beargumenteren we dat niet alleen de huidige kennisbasis van een onderneming haar kennisabsorberend vermogen bepaalt. Organisatiekenmerken zijn eveneens van belang. We tonen aan dat zowel de gekozen organisatievorm als het repertoire van combinative – verbindende – vaardigheden van een onderneming (systeem-, management- en socialisatievaardigheden) het kennisabsorptievermogen bepalen. We ontwikkelen eerst een raamwerk waarin kennisabsorptie van een onderneming wordt gerelateerd aan de dynamiek van de kennisomgeving. Het raamwerk wordt vervolgens geïllustreerd aan de hand van een case over Het Financieele Dagblad. Door transformatie van haar dominante organisatievorm tezamen met het ontwikkelen van nieuwe verbindende vaardigheden, kon deze voorheen traditionele uitgeverij zich begeven in de turbulente kennisomgeving van de bedrijfstakken die samen het multimediacomplex vormen. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6471/ 2000-01-01T00:00:00Z European firms are confronted with major changes in their business environment because of specific European factors, such as the creation of a single European market, and because of global factors, such as the merging of industries. Firms in Europe therefore need to renew to cope with the changing environment. Renewal is presented as resulting from change processes that take place within organizations. Twenty-four ventures in three large European firms were analyzed to see how such dynamic processes lead to strategic renewal. The findings reveal that renewal trajectories depend on the organizational form, the market, and the strategy. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6495/ 2000-01-01T00:00:00Z Hoe kunnen gevestigde ondernemingen overleven laat staan excelleren in het duizelingwekkende spiegellandschap van de Rode Koningin van steeds feller wordende concurrentie? Hoe bevorderen ze efficiency en prestatieverbetering, terwijl ze steeds sneller moeten leren en reageren? Op grond van deze spanningen tussen exploitatie en exploratie worden in dit artikel een viertal manieren van reorganiseren onderscheiden waardoor multi-unit ondernemingen blijvend succesvol kunnen zijn: de netwerk-, de duale, de oscillerende en de gebalanceerde onderneming. Ten slotte wordt een ruwe schets gegeven van het nieuwe strategie- en organisatielandschap van de 21e eeuw. Deze organisatievormen en hun onderliggende strategie van blijvende vernieuwing kunnen leiden tot nieuwe dynamische bronnen van concurrentievoordeel. Niet het concurrentievoordeel op zich, maar het vermogen continu nieuwe te ontwikkelen en te exploiteren zorgt ervoor dat de onderneming koploper kan blijven in de Rode Koningin wedloop van dynamische concurrentie. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6500/ 2000-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6475/ 1999-10-01T00:00:00Z Many scholars have described organization form as a management tool in the alignment of organization and environment. As the environment of many companies becomes more chaotic, the exploration of organization forms characterized by flexibility and adaptability has been intensifying. When reviewing existing literature on new organization forms, several gaps become apparent. These gaps can be traced back to the artificial separation between the macrolevel and the firm level of analysis and the prevalence of a static notion of form. To contribute to a more encompassing theory of new organization forms, a coevolutionary perspective is suggested. In this perspective, contextual variation of macrolevel management logics is proposed as a key mediator in the coevolution of organization and environment. At the firm level, the contextual variation of management logics is reflected in shared managerial schemas underlying strategic design actions. The resulting coevolutionary model shows how contextual applications of management logics may be a source of variation in new organization forms. On the basis of a literature review, three management logics, representing ideal types, are described: classical management logic, modern management logic, and postindustrial management logic. These logics are related to three levers of design actions which reflect fundamentally different interventions in form. Linking management logics to design levers results in a set of propositions to be tested in future empirical research. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6474/ 1999-09-01T00:00:00Z This paper advances the understanding of absorptive capacity for assimilating new knowledge as a mediating variable of organization adaptation. Many scholars suggest a firm's absorptive capacity plays a key role in the process of coevolution (Lewin et al., this issue). So far, most publications, in following Cohen and Levinthal (1990), have considered the level of prior related knowledge as the determinant of absorptive capacity. We suggest, however, that two specific organizational determinants of absorptive capacity should also be considered: organization forms and combinative capabilities. We will show how these organizational determinants influence the level of absorptive capacity, ceteris paribus the level of prior related knowledge. Subsequently, we will develop a framework in which absorptive capacity is related to both micro- and macrocoevolutionary effects. This framework offers an explanation of how knowledge environments coevolve with the emergence of organization forms and combinative capabilities that are suitable for absorbing knowledge. We will illustrate the framework by discussing two longitudinal case studies of traditional publishing firms moving into the turbulent knowledge environment of an emerging multimedia industrial complex.( http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6472/ 1999-08-01T00:00:00Z In theories of strategic management, organizational flexibility is considered as a strategic asset in situations in which anticipation is impossible and strategic surprise likely. In these situations, the use of traditional planning strategies will be increasingly supplemented and sometimes replaced by flexible configuration strategies. This paper distinguishes four of these strategies to configure the resources of the firm for effective responses to strategic change, namely the rigid, the planned, the flexible, and the chaotic mode. On the basis of this typology, the paper describes a method for diagnosing organizational flexibility and guiding the transition process, the flexibility audit and redesign (FAR) method. This method was applied successfully within an administrative unit of the Dutch Postbank, a production unit of Philips Semiconductors, and an R&D unit of the Dutch National Gas. Nonetheless, the application of the FAR method is very time-consuming for the consultant and very expensive for the organization. Hence, a system is developed that supports consultants in the application of the FAR method and helps them to derive a better solution for the organizational flexibility problem. This tool, called FARSYS, supports the data-gathering (FARSYS I) as well as the decision-making process of the consultant (FARSYS II). http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6473/ 1999-05-01T00:00:00Z Due to technological convergence, complexes of interrelated industries are emerging. This paper presents a conceptual framework of the role different organizational forms and combinative capabilities play in the management of organizational knowledge integration in this context. The focus is on firms previously operating in one of the relatively stable constituting industries. We argue that a firm's organizational form has to be matched with appropriate combinative capabilities in order to integrate component knowledge into architectural knowledge that consequently serves as a platform for generating new product-market combinations. The framework is empirically illustrated using the example of two Dutch publishing firms moving into the multimedia complex, which is currently emerging around information and communication technologies. The empirical analysis shows that the framework offers strong potential for improving the understanding of the complex process of organizational knowledge integration, as the prerequisite for developing new business in an emerging industrial complex. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6476/ 1999-01-01T00:00:00Z Decades of research in strategy and organization science and in branches of economics and decision sciences have not resolved the adaptation selection debate. This debate continues in the face of a concerted research effort and vast growth in the stock of knowledge in this area. A comparison of strategic management and organizational ecology theories highlights the nature and source of the debate. While organizational ecology theories focus on selection, variation, and retention processes for explicating the evolution of populations of organizations, strategic management theories focus on firm-level adaptation as a function of strategy and organization design. Organizational ecology research is disconnected from adaptation at the level of the individual organizational unit and therefore cannot directly contribute to explicating firm level adaptation. Research on the emergence or evolution of new organizations has been attracting more attention. Most research on evolution of organizations involves studies of short-term adaptations under various contingencies, or retrospective case studies and panel studies. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6502/ 1999-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6524/ 1999-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6510/ 1998-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6397/ 1997-01-01T00:00:00Z By considering flexibility as a valuable strategic option in turbulent environments, this article distinguishes four types of effective response to strategic change. From this typology different trajectories of revitalization are derived. On the basis of this typology, the article describes a method for diagnosing organizational flexibility and guiding the transition process, the Flexibility Audit & Redesign (FAR) method. This method was applied successfully within the Dutch Postbank NV, Philips Semiconductors and the Dutch National Gas Corporation. The findings suggest that a viable corporation has to oscillate between ‘planned’ and ‘flexible’ forms. In this process of change, the corporation has to prevent itself from overshooting and becoming extremely rigid or chaotic. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6398/ 1997-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6402/ 1997-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6438/ 1997-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6439/ 1997-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6440/ 1997-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6399/ 1996-08-01T00:00:00Z Hypercompetition has received much attention, by an important question has not been answered: What organizational forms lead to success in hypercompetitive environments? Hypercompetition forces firms to move more quickly and boldly and to experiment in ways that do not conform to traditional administrative theory. Bureaucratic vertical forms I severely hamper the ability to respond to accelerating competition. Flexible forms, in contrast, can respond to a wide variety ot changes in the competitive environment in an appropriate and timely way. The author examines several alternative flexible forms for coping with hypercompetitive environments. Flexibility derives from the repertoire of managerial capabilities (management challenge) and the responsiveness of the organization (organization design challenge). On the basis of theories of control, the author argues that organizational flexibility is inherently paradoxical and requires a constructive friction between change and preservation. The paradox of flexibility is portrayed in a conceptual model that relates competitive environments, certain types of flexibility, and organizational conditions. The author develops a rich typology of organizational forms for coping with hypercompetition, each of which reflects a particular way of addressing change and preservation. Furthermore, he explores different trajectories of organizational development over time, especially those relating to revitalization. The implications of the typology for strategy and organization design research in hypercompetitive environments are profound. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6400/ 1996-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6406/ 1996-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6442/ 1996-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6443/ 1995-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6444/ 1995-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6411/ 1994-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6412/ 1994-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6422/ 1993-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6447/ 1993-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6448/ 1993-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6423/ 1992-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6452/ 1991-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6424/ 1990-01-01T00:00:00Z