Abstract
This section is about global changes—why they are bigger, come more often, and are becoming more difficult to predict. It’s also about what companies have done, and are doing, in order to take advantage of the opportunities and avoid the threats embedded in these ever accelerating changes.
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- 1.
The pioneers are located at the Santa Fe Institute in the United States, as well as in France, the UK, Belgium, and Chile, where qualified research is being carried out related to research that concerns complex adaptive systems.
- 2.
The OECD’s definition of innovation is “the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organizational method in business practices, workplace organization or external relations” (Oslo Manual by the OECD 1997).
- 3.
Rogers (2003).
- 4.
The definition is from Drivkrafter för produktivtet och välstånd. A government report by the Productivity delegation, SOU 1991:82.
- 5.
“When our theories-in-use prove ineffective in maintaining the constancy of our governing variables we may find it necessary to change our theories-in-use. But we try to avoid such change because we wish to keep our theories-in-use constant. Forced to choose between getting what we want and maintaining second order constancy we may choose not to get what we want.” (Argyris 1976).
- 6.
Tushman and O’Reilly (2007).
- 7.
- 8.
Professor Eric Rhenman, a pioneer in systems thinking, first presented this definition.
- 9.
O’Connor (2008), pp. 313–330.
- 10.
Høyrup (2008).
- 11.
Penrose (1959).
- 12.
Leonard-Barton (1992), pp. 111–125.
- 13.
Professor Niall Ferguson at Harvard explains that Sweden’s growth, which has been more favorable than economic trends in southern Europe, is the result of Sweden’s adopting deregulation—of former monopolies, for example—faster and more effectively than other countries have done. DN 130702.
- 14.
Teece et al. (1997), pp. 509–533.
- 15.
Zollo and Winter (2002), pp. 339–351.
- 16.
Brown and Eisenhardt (1997), pp. 1–34.
- 17.
Teece (2007), pp. 1319–1350.
- 18.
Entrepreneurship can be defined as the ability to identify opportunities and create resources to take advantage of these opportunities. Entrepreneurship causes something to change direction. New perspectives are discovered and developed. An entrepreneur creates new business operations and organizes the market in a new way. According to the neoclassical theory of Joseph Schumpeter, an entrepreneur causes creative destruction on the market by disturbing the balance between supply and demand. The result is the appearance of a chaotic market, and the entrepreneur becomes a person who creates demand on a market.
- 19.
Brown and Eisenhardt (1997), pp. 1–34.
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
Ibid.
- 22.
Ibid.
- 23.
Ibid.
- 24.
Ibid.
- 25.
There are examples of companies that have needed to implement a major change within a short time. In such a case, the mission can be expressed as a strategic intention. This strategic intention is meant to serve as a shared focal point for rallying the company’s strength. When Komatsu entered into competition with Caterpillar, a company many times larger, the strategic intention was expressed in the phrase Encircle Caterpillar; Canon’s successful raid against Xerox, the giant in the industry, was focused with the help of the slogan Beat Xerox. When Robert Townsend took the helm of Avis, a company that had experienced 13 consecutive years of loss, the strategic intention was Let’s get back in the black. Profitability returned after 6 months. See further Hamel and Prahalad (1994).
- 26.
In extensive research regarding negative stress at work, is has been found that the same conditions that lead to injuries in many individuals leave others unaffected or even make them stronger. The difference between the two groups is the stronger individual’s sense of coherence in stressful situations. This ability makes the situation comprehensible, meaningful, and manageable. People who lack a sense of coherence and therefore fall victim to negative stress can develop this ability with the help of educational measures. See further Antonovsky (2005).
- 27.
The research in this section is primarily based on management and organization research, as well as on research regarding innovation culture.
- 28.
Høyrup (2008).
- 29.
Tidd and Bessant (2009), p. 135.
- 30.
Dallenbach et al. (2002).
- 31.
Leifer et al. (2000).
- 32.
Hamel (2009).
- 33.
The definition of vision as a vitalizing, attractive, realistic, and credible picture of the future of a business is inspired by Nanus (1992).
- 34.
Birkinshaw (2010), pp. 1–10.
- 35.
Hamel (2009).
- 36.
Tidd and Bessant (2009), p. 135.
- 37.
Bel (2010).
- 38.
Isaksen and Tidd (2006).
- 39.
- 40.
A well-known major phase transition in Sweden was the transition from precision mechanics to electronics in adding machines that affected the Facit company. Electronics could satisfy not only existing needs but also many new customer needs, but Facit had neither mastered this new technology nor understood the needs of its customers. Facit was the expert in precision mechanics, so it had two choices. It could either try to find new markets for precision mechanical products, or it could develop expertise in electronics. The company hired a group of Swedish engineers who in the early 1950s had placed themselves on the global cutting edge for electronic data processing on the Swedish Board for Computing Machinery. They were very much focused on innovation, but the management of Facit wanted them to manufacture more computing machines of the same type as those they had already developed. These engineers were world-class innovators, but the management at Facit wanted to make them production engineers. It simply did not work.
- 41.
Interview July 2013, Geoff Hollingworth, AT&T Foundry.
- 42.
Rosenburg and Steinmueller (1988), pp. 229–234.
- 43.
One such example is the Sears department store company, with 300,000 employees. In the course of 1 year, Sears succeeded in turning around the worst loss in the company’s 111-year history to achieve the most profitable result in the company’s 112-year history without laying off any employees. Another example is Avis, where Robert Townsend in the 1960s turned a series of 13 years of losses into acceptable profitability within 6 months with the help of a “strategic intention”: Let’s get back in the black. No one was allowed to write this intention down. Instead, it was communicated by each supervisor to the employees, along with a question: How can you contribute in your job? In the 1970s, SAAB’s aircraft division lowered its administrative costs in the course of a few months using a similar working model. The group management demanded a cost reduction through layoffs in a Swedish manufacturing company. The head of a unit asked to be allowed to implement an improvement in profitability without any layoffs. He was given the green light by management, and had 20 % more success than his colleagues who had laid off personnel. Many examples show that it is possible to significantly improve profitability within a short time by mobilizing all employees.
- 44.
In a complex system, the whole’s characteristics are greater than the sum of the parts’ characteristics. This is known as emergence. Complex systems are emergent. In other words, they have the ability to develop new characteristics to adapt to changes in their surroundings.
- 45.
Chesbrough (2003).
- 46.
O’Connor (2008), pp. 313–330.
- 47.
Professor Eric Rhenman, a pioneer in the systems approach, introduced the following definition: A system is a collection of components with certain properties and with certain connections among the components, as well as among the characteristics of those components.
- 48.
Gestalt psychology works with the concepts gestalt and background. One classic example is a white goblet against a black background. The goblet is the gestalt, or focus, of the picture. The black area is the background. If one gazes at the picture, another image begins to present itself. The viewer sees two faces in profile against a white background. Now the profiles are the gestalt and the white area is the background. One can see production and innovation in a similar manner. In many companies, the production is the gestalt and the innovations are the background. Some organizations need to change this and to see the innovations as the gestalt and the production as the background that makes the innovations possible.
- 49.
At Gore-Tex, work is done according to four guiding principles: freedom, fairness, commitment, and the waterline, which acts as a restriction of the other three. Risk taking must not be allowed to sink the ship. Gore-Tex does not believe in burning all the bridges. Instead, it carefully considers whether the calculated risks it takes will result in success or will at least teach the company something (Carney and Getz 2009).
- 50.
Schumpeter (1942).
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Steiber, A. (2014). Management Principles for Continuous Innovation. In: The Google Model. Management for Professionals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04208-4_2
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