Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Ma Thinking and Innovation in Global High Tech Companies: The Lessons of Business Model Innovation in Apple and Cisco Systems

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Ma Theory and the Creative Management of Innovation

Abstract

This chapter examines Ma thinking and innovation in global high tech companies Apple and Cisco Systems by observing and analyzing the process of the dynamic formation of informal organizations free of the constraints of formal organizations, and the emergence of innovation through dynamic and recursive practice activities between formal and informal organizations from the perspective of Ma thinking. This chapter also identifies how new business model innovations originate in this dynamic recursion between formal and informal organizations based on the five types of Ma thinking as they engender five architect capabilities in practitioners.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Brown (2005, p. 1230) stated, “Chance encounters, accidental occurrences and sheer good fortune loom large in business life. Everyone is familiar with the fortuitous stories mentioned … as well as with others such as those of Velcro, Corn Flakes, Band Aids, Post-it Notes and Nike’s waffle sole, to say nothing of Teflon, Kevlar, dynamite, artificial dyes, polyurethane and penicillin.”

  2. 2.

    Refer to Brown and Duguid (2001), Dougherty (1992), Spender (1990) and Grinyer and McKiernan (1994) regarding knowledge boundaries, thought-worlds and mental models, respectively.

References

  • Baker, T., & Nelson, R. (2005). Creating Something Out of Nothing: Resource Construction Through Entrepreneurial Bricolage. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50, 329–366.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barabasi, A. (2002). Linked: The New Science of Networks. Cambridge: Perseus Books Group.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bechky, B. A. (2003). Sharing Meaning Across Occupational Communities: The Transformation of Understanding on a Production Floor. Organization Science, 14(3), 312–330.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, S. (2005). Science, Serendipity and the Contemporary Marketing Condition. European Journal of Marketing, 39(11/12), 1229–1234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, S. J., & Duguid, P. (2001). Knowledge and Organization: A Social-Practice Perspective. Organization Science, 12(6), 198–213.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bruch, H., & Ghoshal, S. (2004). A Bias for Action: How Effective Managers Harness Their Willpower, Achieve Results, and Stop Wasting Time. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burrows, P. (2004). The Seed of Apple’s Innovation. businessweek.com (12 October). Retrieved March 24, 2010, from http://www.businessweek.com/print/bwdaily/dnflash/oct2004/nf20041012_4018_db083.htm?chan=gl

  • Cunha, M. P., Clegg, S., & Mendonca, S. (2010). On Serendipity and Organizing. European Management Journal, 28, 319–330.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Day, G. S., & Schoemaker, P. (2004). Peripheral Vision: Sensing and Acting on Weak Signals. Long Range Planning, 37, 117–121.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Day, G. S., & Schoemaker, P. (2008). Are You a Vigilant Leader? MIT Sloan Management Review, Spring, 49, 43–51.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dougherty, D. (1992). Interpretive Barriers to Successful Product Innovation in Large Firms. Organization Science, 3(2), 179–202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fleming, L. (2002). Finding the Organizational Sources of Technological Breakthroughs: The Story of Hewlett-Packard’s Thermal Ink-Jet. Industrial and Corporate Change, 11(5), 1059–1084.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grinyer, P., & McKiernan, P. (1994). Triggering Major and Sustained Changes in Stagnating Companies. In H. Daems & H. Thomas (Eds.), Strategic Groups, Strategic Moves and Performance (pp. 173–195). New York: Pergamon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hagel, J., III, & Brown, J. S. (2005). Productive Friction. Harvard Business Review, 83(2), 139–145.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger, M. (1996). Being and Time: A Translation of Sein und Zeit. SUNY Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Husserl, E. (1970). The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy. Northwestern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • In Quotes: Apple’s Steve Jobs: Interview with Business Week. (1998). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-us-canada-15195448

  • Isaacson, W. (2011). Steve Jobs. New York City: Simon & Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johansson, F. (2004). The Medici Effect. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kanter, R. M. (2001). Evolve! Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kodama, M. (2001). Creating New Business Through Strategic Community Management. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 11(6), 1062–1084.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kodama, M. (2005). Knowledge Creation Through Networked Strategic Communities: Case Studies on New Product Development in Japanese Companies. Long Range Planning, 38(1), 27–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kodama, M. (2007a). The Strategic Community-Based Firm. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kodama, M. (2007b). Knowledge Innovation – Strategic Management as Practice. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kodama, M. (2007c). Project-Based Organization in the Knowledge-Based Society. London: Imperial College Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kodama, M. (2009). Boundaries Innovation and Knowledge Integration in the Japanese Firm. Long Range Planning, 42(4), 463–494.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kodama, M. (2011). Knowledge Integration Dynamics – Developing Strategic Innovation Capability. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lashinsky, A. (2012). Inside Apple: How America’s Most Admired—and Secretive—Company Really Works. London: Hachette.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leonard-Barton, D. (1995). Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lin, L., & Kulatilaka, N. (2006). Network Effects and Technology Licensing with Fixed Fee, Royalty, and Hybrid Contracts. Journal of Management Information Systems, 23(2), 91–118.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Motter, A. E. (2004). Cascade Control and Defense in Complex Networks. Physical Review Letters, 93(9). doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.098701.

  • Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (1995). The Knowledge-Creating Company. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Owen-Smith, J., & Powell, W. (2004). Knowledge Networks as Channels and Conduits: The Effects of Spillovers in the Boston Biotechnology Community. Organization Science, 15(1), 5–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Popescu, L. M., & Faussone-Pellegrini, M.-S. (2010). Telocytes—A Case of Serendipity: The Winding Way from Interstitial Cells of Cajal (ICC), via Interstitial Cajal-Like Cells (ICLC) to Telocytes. Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, 14(4), 729–740.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, R. M. (1989). Serendipity: Accidental Discoveries in Science. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spender, C. (1990). Industry Recipes: An Enquiry into the Nature and Sources of Managerial Judgment. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

  • Watts, J. (2003). Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wenger, E. (1998). Community of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Commerce, Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan

    Mitsuru Kodama, Takehiko Yasuda & Katsuhiko Hirasawa

Authors
  1. Mitsuru Kodama
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Takehiko Yasuda
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Katsuhiko Hirasawa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Tokyo, Japan

    Mitsuru Kodama

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Kodama, M., Yasuda, T., Hirasawa, K. (2017). Ma Thinking and Innovation in Global High Tech Companies: The Lessons of Business Model Innovation in Apple and Cisco Systems. In: Kodama, M. (eds) Ma Theory and the Creative Management of Innovation. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59194-4_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59194-4_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-59354-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-59194-4

  • eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation