Download or read book The Network Challenge Chapter 4 written by Russell E. Palmer and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global networks of firms are rapidly replacing top-down, hierarchical organizations. Such networks, thanks to information technology and global communications systems, can respond to changes in international demand faster and more flexibly than rigid corporate organizations of the past. But by drawing together diverse cultures and individuals, these networks present new challenges to leaders. Traditional styles of leadership are not enough for this emerging environment. The kind of leadership style that leads to efficient execution in these global networks is different from the “do it and do it now” approach that might work in hierarchical organizations. Based on the author’s experience in the leading global accounting firm Touche Ross, serving as dean of the Wharton School, and heading his own corporate investment firm, this chapter discusses leadership in a networked, global environment.
Download or read book The Network Challenge Chapter 15 written by Christoph Zott and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zott and Amit explore the role of business models in creating value through networks. They review earlier, firm-centric views of value creation, including Porter’s value chain, the resource-based view, and the transaction costs approach. They point out that business models go well beyond classic views of network theory (e.g., topography and structure) and include notions of purpose, acceptance, fairness, coherence, and viability. Based on their earlier framework for e-business models, they explore the role of four major interlinked value drivers: efficiency, complementarities, lock-in, and novelty. They argue that the focal firm’s business model acts as both an engine for value-creation and an invaluable construct for understanding the firm’s role in relation to other business model participants in the networks in which it is embedded.
Download or read book The Network Challenge Chapter 7 written by Robert Giegengack and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can we learn about networks from ants, honeybees, and other animals with evolved social structures? The impact of information and communications strategies on network dynamics did not arrive with the emergence of computers, cell phones, and the Internet. This chapter describes communication networks selected from among many that have been studied in communities of nonhuman organisms. It explores the extent to which communication linkages have controlled the development of those networks. In some of those networks, developmental histories are manifest as evolved body plans and gender roles not represented in human communities. Many of those networks are founded on efficient exchange of information via pathways of which humans are almost fully oblivious.
Download or read book The Network Challenge Chapter 6 written by Sonia Kleindorfer and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biology remains the most extensive and complex information network on the planet. This chapter examines the nature of biological networks, including their inherent stability and risks to their resilience. After a general introduction exploring networks and biological systems, this chapter reviews (1) the evolution of biological networks; (2) principles that govern biological networks; and (3) measures of stability, productivity, and efficiency in biological networks. The authors use examples from food (energy) transfer in rainforests and coral reefs, as well as the creation of a biological network through colonization in Darwin’s Finches of the Galapagos Islands. Research shows that while large biological networks are inherently unstable, some are more stable than others.
Download or read book The Network Challenge Chapter 24 written by Kevin Werbach and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 37 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Telecommunications is a networked business, yet it traditionally has resisted a network-based view in its strategies and business models. In this chapter, Kevin Werbach explores this paradox, contrasting the worldview of Monists such as AT&T, who see the infrastructure as inseparable from the network, and Dualists such as Google, who see the network and its applications as distinct from the underlying infrastructure. Not surprisingly, AT&T is a proponent of “tiered access” whereas Google argues for “network neutrality.” Finally, Werbach examines how a more modular future might bridge the gap between those who seek to own and capitalize on the network and those who seek to expand it through more neutral offerings.
Download or read book The Network Challenge Chapter 5 written by Dawn Iacobucci and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This chapter provides an overview of social networks, the basic discipline from which ideas and terminology are drawn when characterizing popular phenomena such as “social networking” Internet sites like Facebook. The authors offer the reader a flavor of the theoretical and empirical research conducted by social network scholars since the 1930s. They explore how researchers have used social networks to generate and test economic, sociological, and organizational theories. They also examine broad insights from this research, as well as management implications in areas such as advertising, brands, loyalty, authenticity, and segmentation. The overriding message is that as power shifts from firms to social networks, companies have less control over their own destinies and need to pay more attention to networks.
Download or read book The Network Challenge written by Paul R. Kleindorfer and published by Prentice Hall Professional. This book was released on 2009-06-11 with total page 589 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New Paperback Edition Networks and the Enterprise: Breakthrough Thinking and Actionable Strategies “This book presents an amazing collection of insights on underlying forces and ways to thrive in our post-Coaseian age—an age in which the centralized firm is changing into an agile and resilient network of participants. A must read for a world where unpredictability reigns supreme.” —John Seely Brown, Independent Co-Chair of the Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation, and Senior Fellow at the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California “I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this research...I have already begun to put the ideas into practice in designing next-generation open innovation networks...the diversity of ideas and perspectives is truly amazing and will be a terrific resource to anyone seeking to move to new business models based on the power of networks for innovation, marketing, and creating and leveraging big ideas. Job well done!” —Larry Huston, Creator of the “Connect and Develop” program for Procter & Gamble, and Managing Director of 4iNNO, a major Open Innovation consulting practice “In our borderless world, every manager needs to understand the strategic implications of networks. For the first time, The Network Challenge brings together thought leaders from many fields—a team of experts as broad as the network challenge itself.” —Kenichi Ohmae, author of more than 100 books, including the seminal work, The Mind of the Strategist, advisor on global strategy to foreign governments and scores of multinational corporations, selected by The Economist as one of five management gurus in the world. Networks define modern business. Networks introduce new risks (as seen by the rapid spread of contagion in global financial markets) and opportunities (as seen in the rapid rise of network-based businesses). While managers typically view business through the lens of a single firm, this book challenges readers to take a broader view of their enterprises and opportunities. This book’s 28 original essays include CK Prahalad on networks as the new locus of competitive advantage Russell E. Palmer on leadership in a networked global environment Dawn Iacobucci and James M. Salter II on the business implications of social networking Franklin Allen and Ana Babus on contagion in financial markets Steven O. Kimbrough on artificial intelligence, evolutionary computation, and networks Satish Nambisan and Mohan Sawhney on tapping the “global brain” for innovation Manuel E. Sosa on coordination networks in product development Christophe Van den Bulte and Stefan Wuyts on customer networks Christoph Zott and Raphael Amit on using business models to drive network-based strategies Yoram (Jerry) Wind, Victor Fung, and William Fung on network orchestration Valery Yakubovich and Ryan Burg on network-based HR strategy Howard Kunreuther on risk management strategies for an interdependent world Paul R. Kleindorfer and Ilias D. Visvikis on integrating financial and physical networks in global logistics Witold J. Henisz on network-based political and social risk management Boaz Ganor on terrorism networks And much more...
Download or read book The Network Challenge Chapter 14 written by Christophe Van den Bulte and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 37 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social networks and word-of-mouth marketing are increasingly important, yet few current practices are based on a deep understanding of how the structure of networks can affect customer behavior and marketing outcomes. This chapter offers some critical observations on current word-of-mouth marketing practices and identifies four key questions that managers need to ask themselves before engaging in campaigns designed to leverage customer networks: Can we be confident that interpersonal influence or social contagion is really important? Why exactly would social contagion occur? Should we target key influentials? Can we identify and target those influentials? The answers to these questions cannot be taken for granted.
Download or read book The Network Challenge Chapter 21 written by Franklin Allen and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern financial systems exhibit a high degree of interdependence, with connections between financial institutions stemming from both the asset and the liability sides of their balance sheets. Networks--broadly understood as a collection of nodes and links between nodes--can be a useful representation of financial systems. By modeling economic interactions, network analysis can better explain certain economic phenomena. In this chapter, Allen and Babus argue that the use of network theories can enrich our understanding of financial systems. They explore several critical issues. First, they address the issue of systemic risk, by studying two questions: how resilient financial networks are to contagion, and how financial institutions form connections when exposed to the risk of contagion. Second, they consider how network theory can be used to explain freezes in the interbank market. Third, they examine how social networks can improve investment decisions and corporate governance, based on recent empirical results. Fourth, they examine the role of networks in distributing primary issues of securities. Finally, they consider the role of networks as a form of mutual monitoring, as in microfinance.
Download or read book The Network Challenge Chapter 8 written by Steven O. Kimbrough and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Artificial intelligence (AI) offers computational methodologies for modeling systems, which can be valuable in understanding networks. In this chapter, the author examines several types of applications of these methods in exploring how the behavior of individual agents leads to outcomes across networks. For example, he considers how one system, based on a Prisoner’s Dilemma that provides a higher payoff for players who don’t cooperate, can result in a surprising outcome in which cooperation dominates after many rounds of play. He also considers agent-based models--including turtles in a pond, showing discrimination effects; and sugar and spice trading, showing interactions through trading. Finally, he explores applications to ant colony optimization and swarming optimization of flocks of birds or schools of fish. He concludes that computational models offer important insights into networks, and the procedures used in modeling have a significant impact. The discussion also demonstrates that “networks matter,” affecting outcomes in sometimes unpredictable ways.
Download or read book The Network Challenge Chapter 10 written by Manuel E. Sosa and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complex products, such as airplanes and automobiles, are designed by networks of design teams working on different components, often across organizations. The challenge in managing these networks is to decompose the project into manageable pieces but then coordinate the entire network to produce the best overall design. In this chapter, Manuel Sosa offers insights on this challenge. He examines the design structure matrix (DSM) as a project management tool for planning complex development efforts and discusses the engineering and managerial implications of considering complex products as networks of interconnected subsystems and components. In particular, he considers the impact of modularity on interactions among subcomponents. Finally, he examines organizational communications, overlaying product interfaces with communications interfaces of development teams to understand where communication links may be missing or unnecessary. The discussion offers insights on any complex design and coordination challenge, where networks of individuals or teams work together to contribute to a larger whole.
Download or read book The Network Challenge Chapter 20 written by Prashant Kale and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an environment of rapid and discontinuous change, managers have turned to alliances to access the resources they need. But research on alliances shows that more than half fail, demonstrating the difficulty of managing these relationships. Based on their extensive research on alliances, the authors explore the relational capabilities needed for building and managing successful alliances. Using the case of Royal Philips, they explore the role of strategy, structure, systems, people, and culture in alliance success. They also discuss the need for ongoing adaptation and renewal of relational capabilities as the business and its environment change.
Download or read book The Network Challenge Chapter 11 written by Jan W. Rivkin and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 45 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Managers often must make decisions that depend on decisions in other parts of the organization. These interactions create a network of interdependent choices and make strategizing difficult. In this chapter, the authors explore the intersection between organizing and strategizing. Motivated by real examples that run contrary to conventional wisdom, the authors examine how firms organize themselves to strategize well. In particular, they examine “premature lock-in”--how a firm’s strategizing efforts can become stuck in a web of conflicting constraints prematurely, before managers have explored a wide enough range of possibilities. A key role of organizing is to free strategizing efforts and encourage broad search. At the same time, organizing must ensure that strategizing efforts stabilize after the firm discovers an effective set of choices. Balancing search and stability, the authors argue, is a central challenge of organizing. They explore this challenge with an agent-based simulation that shows (1) how a change in organizational structure[md]for example, a shift from decentralization to integration[md]may reflect not a reversal of early mistakes but an effective sequence of organizing; and (2) why firms may benefit from unnecessary overlap between departments. They conclude that a period of decentralization and unnecessary overlap can be seen as organizational mechanisms to ensure the broad, early search that a firm needs in order to cope with interactions among strategic decisions.
Download or read book The Network Challenge Chapter 3 written by Alan M. Kantrow and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human knowledge and traditions can persist long after their relevance disappears, particularly in an environment of rapid change. Organizational routines often continue in force long after memory of their purpose has been lost. But memory is rarely lost entirely. It usually lingers, in distributed fragments, in an organization’s social networks and can, when needed, be reassembled. This chapter examines the role of such networks in the process of memory loss and recovery.
Download or read book The Network Challenge Chapter 19 written by Valery Yakubovich and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although any manager would recognize the importance of “networking” in finding, developing, and retaining employees, human resource management traditionally has focused on individuals. In this chapter, the authors point out that core HR processes such as recruitment and hiring, training and development, performance management, and retention all depend on networks. They consider the importance of weak ties in matching employees with jobs and “structural holes” in promoting creativity. They urge managers to make the shift from an atomized view to a network view of human resources--from focusing on the “trees” to understanding the “forest.” They show that networks can boost efficiency and productivity by facilitating information sharing, attracting talent, and strengthening employees’ commitment to the firm. But networks may also pose risks such as “lift-outs,” in which a departing employee takes other workers in his or her network. The authors explore how managers need to understand the impact of networks and how to “manage” them.
Download or read book The Network Challenge Chapter 16 written by George S. Day and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although networks in key business areas such as communications, supply chains, R&D, and sales are designed to improve the flow of information, people, or goods, they can also be used to improve the “peripheral vision” of the organization. In this chapter, the authors examine how networks can be used by organizations to scan, sense, and adapt to new and important signals from the organization’s strategic environment beyond its core focus. The first part of the chapter emphasizes the importance of peripheral vision in helping organizations not being blindsided by threats while seeing new opportunities sooner. The authors examine some key obstacles to using networks to better mine the periphery for early insight. They then explore how extended networks can help the organization be a responsive open system adapting faster to changes in the environment. They examine to what extent network constructs such as centrality, hierarchy, self-healing, distributed intelligence, multihoming, and latency can be used to improve organizational networks for scanning the periphery. The last section explores some of the leadership challenges associated with using networks to detect weak signals sooner.
Download or read book The Network Challenge Chapter 18 written by Eric K. Clemons and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The instant messaging generation, wired and integrated into broad, flat networks almost from birth, will not function as their predecessors did when injected into the social networks that form their professional organizations. IM’ers are creating their own network styles and content, as well as their own informal, back-channel networks, different from those of their more senior coworkers, and more compatible with their personal styles and loyalties. If their adoption of workplace communications norms indeed differs from that of their predecessors, how will these individuals function differently as employees, and how will organizations need to adapt their training, their managerial styles, and their expectations of employees’ motivations, performance, and loyalty to incorporate these new employees? After reviewing the literature on social networks, the authors explore a few prominent and visible trends that affect employers and employees: (1) changing communications technologies and their implication for social organization; (2) changing perception of fact, technique, and reality, and implications for authority and decision styles; and (3) outsourcing, downsizing, and the erosion of organizational loyalty. They then offer qualitative impressions, as well as insights from an online survey (of 80 respondents), and explore implications for managers and organizations.