The Network Challenge (Chapter 4)

The Network Challenge (Chapter 4)
Author: Russell E. Palmer
Publisher: Pearson Education
Total Pages: 37
Release: 2009-05-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 013701533X

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.

The Network Challenge (Chapter 9)

The Network Challenge (Chapter 9)
Author: Satish Nambisan
Publisher: Pearson Education
Total Pages: 42
Release: 2009-05-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0137015380

Most companies realize the need to “look outside” for innovation. However, few have a clear understanding about how they can make such a shift toward network-centric innovation--an innovation strategy that is centered on external networks and communities. Managers need more than anecdotal success stories about externally focused innovation, and they need more specific guidance than the “one size fits all” prescriptions of open innovation. The authors argue that every firm needs to find its own roadmap for tapping the “Global Brain”--the creative potential of the world outside its four walls. There are many different approaches and opportunities for network-centric innovation, based on the nature of the innovation space and the nature of network governance. In this chapter, the authors present a framework for structuring the landscape of network-centric innovation. They describe four models of network-centric innovation--Orchestra, Creative Bazaar, Jam Central, and MOD Station--and outline how companies can select, prepare for, and pursue the approach that best fits their particular business and innovation context.

The Network Challenge (Chapter 14)

The Network Challenge (Chapter 14)
Author: Christophe Van den Bulte
Publisher: Pearson Education
Total Pages: 38
Release: 2009-05-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0137015097

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.

The Network Challenge (Chapter 11)

The Network Challenge (Chapter 11)
Author: Jan W. Rivkin
Publisher: Pearson Education
Total Pages: 47
Release: 2009-05-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0137015054

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.

The Network Challenge (Chapter 5)

The Network Challenge (Chapter 5)
Author: Dawn Iacobucci
Publisher: Pearson Education
Total Pages: 41
Release: 2009-05-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0137015348

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.

The Network Challenge (Chapter 19)

The Network Challenge (Chapter 19)
Author: Valery Yakubovich
Publisher: Pearson Education
Total Pages: 43
Release: 2009-05-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0137015496

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.

The Network Challenge

The Network Challenge
Author: Paul R. Kleindorfer
Publisher: Prentice Hall Professional
Total Pages: 589
Release: 2009-06-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0137029322

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...

The Network Challenge (Chapter 22)

The Network Challenge (Chapter 22)
Author: Howard Kunreuther
Publisher: Pearson Education
Total Pages: 37
Release: 2009-05-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0137015526

Networks increase interdependencies, which creates challenges for managing risks. This is especially apparent in areas such as security and enterprise risk management, where the actions of a single player in an interconnected network can wreak havoc on everyone in the network. The network, in this case, is only as strong as its weakest link. There are related problems in encouraging investments for prevention and protection, because the expected payoffs from such measures by one player are affected by the actions of other players in the network. This chapter examines the challenges of interdependent security (IDS) and strategies for addressing these, including coordination with broader networks such as industry organizations and government.

The Network Challenge (Chapter 21)

The Network Challenge (Chapter 21)
Author: Franklin Allen
Publisher: Pearson Education
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2009-05-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0137015518

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.

The Network Challenge (Chapter 24)

The Network Challenge (Chapter 24)
Author: Kevin Werbach
Publisher: Pearson Education
Total Pages: 39
Release: 2009-05-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0137015542

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.