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| Dictionary of strategy and innovation | ||
During my DBA project on “The evolution of innovation strategy” (finalized at CBS, June 2012), I collected a list of definitions of core concepts from the research literature. The list is far from being complete; but it’s a beginning, and I hope it can serve as inspiration for management students (or even scholars). In some cases, you will find personal comments too. Please say, if you have additions or improvements to the list! How to use:
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| List of content (alphabetic): | ||||
Absorptive Capacity Acquisition of knowledge Ambidexterity Ambidextrous organization Appropiability Architectural competence Architectural innovation Architectural vs. component competencies Architecture of revenues Assets: generic; specialized; cospecialized Autonomous vs. induced strategy Background competence Balanced strategic decisions Basic knowledge Beliefs Blind variation Bower-Burgelman process model Breakthrough innovation Business ecosystem Business model Capabilities Centralized vs. decentralized Co-evolutionary lock-in Cognition and cognitive processes Cognitive conflict Cognitive dissonance Cognitive frames Cognitive inertia Cognitive maps Cognitive rules Cognitive strategic groups Cohesion Collective beliefs Collective cognitions Collective encounters Combinative capabilities Compensatory fit Competence enhancing vs. destroying Competence exploitation vs. exploration Complementary assets Component Component knowledge vs. architectural knowledge Concept of strategy Concepts and labels Conservative vs. radical Construct Contingency perspective Core capabilities Core competences Core concept Corporate culture Corporate Innovation Mindset Cosmology episode Crystallization Deep structure Definition and Impetus Differentiating vs. integrating Discontinuous innovation Disruptive innovation Disruptive technologies Dominant cognitive maps Dominant design Dominant logic Dynamic capabilities
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Economies of scale and scope Entrant firms vs. established firms Entrepreneurial action Entrepreneurial management Entrepreneurship/entrepreneurial orientation Environment (market e.) Epistemology Equilibrium Evolutionary fitness vs. Technical fitness Evolutionary theory Evolvability vs. fitness Exploitation vs. exploration
Ferment, era of Formal & informal organization Formalization Framing (of strategy/business) – and phrasing
Green labels Groups
Incremental, substantial and transformational innovation Industry Information filters Information versus knowledge Innovation Innovation domain Innovation management Innovation orientation Innovation performance Innovation space Innovation stream Integrative competence Intended strategies / deliberate strategies / emerging strategies Internal fit Issue areas / Issue domain
Justification of knowledge
Knowledge Knowledge creation, organizational Knowledge domain Knowledge of rationality vs. Knowledge of experience
Labeling Learning Lockout
Market orientation Mental Models Meta-mental model Metaphors Meta-triangulation M-form vs. U-form structures Mindset Modular innovation
New business creation Niche creation
Ontology Operations management Organization Organizational learning Organizational memory
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Paradigm Paradoxes Paradox of success Path dependencies Perception Periphery and peripheral vision Position Phrasing – see framing Primed strategy Problem sensing Processes Product life cycle Punctuated equilibrium Radical innovation vs. incremental Radical vs. disruptive innovation Rationality, technologies of Redundant information (redundancy) Regular innovation Research & Development Resource-based theory Resource dependence Resources Revolutionary innovation Robustness Routines Rule-abiding vs. rule-changing Rules of the game Schemas Self-affirmation Sensemaking Shared cognition and shared strategic cognition Single Loop vs. Double Loop learning Social cognition Stories and fabula Strategic building Strategic capabilities Strategic consensus Strategic context determination Strategic forcing activities Strategic innovation Strategic Logic Strategic orientation Strategic persistence Strategic premises Strategic response capability Strategy Strategy formulation Structural context Success trap (competency trap) Sustaining technologies Tacit knowledge vs. explicit knowledge Technological discontinuities Technological turbulence Technology Technology based innovations vs. market based innovations Technology cycle Technology management Technology paradigms Territory Theories-in-use vs. espoused theories Theory Trajectories Transilience Unlearning Value network Variation-Selection-Retention |
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| Absorptive Capacity | ||
| Cohen & Levinthal 1990 [originators] | [Explicit definition]: Absorptive Capacity: The ability of a firm to recognize the value of new, external information, assimilate it, and apply it to commercial ends. P. 128. A.C. = Acquisition of Knowledge + ability to exploit it (p. 131). A.C. can be inward-looking or outward-looking (p. 133). A.C. has a mediating function (p. 141) [filtering] |
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| White & Bessant, 2004 | The limitations of these schemas [cognitive maps] can be referred to as “absorptive capacity” (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990), which is defined as an individual needing “prior related knowledge to assimilate and use new knowledge.” (p. 5) | |
| Winter, 2004 | Compares Absorptive Capacity with other living organisms’ sensors for peripheral vision (p. 167). | |
| Jansen et al, 2005 | “Firms focusing on acquisition and assimilation of new external knowledge (i.e., potential absorptive capacity)”…”firms focusing on transformation and exploitation (realized absorptive capacity)” (p. 999) “Potential absorptive capacity, which includes knowledge acquisition and assimilation, captures efforts expended in identifying and acquiring new external knowledge and in assimilating knowledge obtained from external sources (Zahra & George, 2002: 189). Realized absorptive capacity, which includes knowledge transformation and exploitation, encompasses deriving new insights and consequences from the combination of existing and newly acquired knowledge, and incorporating transformed knowledge into operations (Zahra & George, 2002: 190).” |
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| Acquisition of knowledge | ||
| Cohen & Levinthal 1990 | Acquisition of knowledge: to put new knowledge into memory. P. 129. | |
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Ambidexterity |
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| O’Reilly & Tushman, 2008 [originators, building on Duncan 1976] | “Ambidexterity, the ability of a firm to simultaneously explore and exploit” (Abstract). “Because the routines, processes, and skills required for exploitation are fundamentally different than those required for exploration, we label these paradoxical capabilities as ambidexterity” (p. 188). “Ambidexterity is about doing both.” (p. 189). | |
| Andriopoulos, C., &M. Lewis, 2009. | “Theories of architectural ambidexterity propose dual structures and strategies, differentiating efforts to focus on either exploitative or exploratory innovation (Gupta et al. 2006). Contextual ambidexterity, in contrast, emphasizes behavioral and social means of integrating exploitation and exploration (Birkinshaw and Gibson 2004).” (p. 696). “Proponents of architectural ambidexterity, for instance, stress using structure and strategy to enable differentiation. Segregated efforts target either exploitation or exploration. Related tactics rely on spatial and/or temporal separation (Puranam et al. 2006). Spatial separation parses work into distinct units, whereas temporal separation utilizes the same unit but at different times for either exploitation or exploration.” “Contextual ambidexterity utilizes more behavioral and social means to integrate exploitation and exploration.” (p. 697). |
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| Ambidextrous organization | ||
| O’Reilly & Tushman, 2004 [originator: Duncan 1976] | “Ambidextrous organizations, where the breakthrough efforts were organized as structurally independent units, each having its own processes, structures, and cultures but integrated into the existing senior management hierarchy.” (p. 76) | |
| O’Reilly & Tushman, 2008 | “In the first use of the term ‘‘organizational ambidexterity,’’ Duncan (1976), building on earlier studies (e.g., Burns& Stalker, 1961; Thompson, 1967), argued that for long-term success firms needed to consider dual structures; different structures to initiate versus execute innovation. In his view, ambidexterity occurs sequentially as organizations switch structures as innovations evolve. Firms adjust their structures by the phase of the innovation process: organic structures are employed to explore followed by mechanistic structures to exploit.” (p. 193). | |
| Andriopoulos, C., &M. Lewis, 2009. | “Organizational ambidexterity signifies a firm’s ability to manage these tensions (Duncan 1976).” (See exploitation-exploration). “Ambidextrous organizations excel at exploiting existing products to enable incremental innovation and at exploring new opportunities to foster more radical innovation” (abstract). | |
| Appropriability | ||
| Teece, 1986 | “A regime of appropriability refers to the environmental factors, excluding firm and market structure, that govern an innovator's ability to capture the profits generated by an innovation.” (p. 287) [appropriate: take possession of; take to oneself; devote to special purposes – Oxford dictionary] | |
| Architectural competence | ||
| Raisch et al, 2009 [building on Henderson and Cockburn, 1994] | Henderson and Cockburn (1994, p. 66) define “architectural competence” as “the ability to access new knowledge from outside the boundaries of the organization and the ability to integrate knowledge flexibly across boundaries within the organization.” | |
| Teece, 2007 [building on Henderson and Cockburn, 1994] | “an enterprise’s ability to integrate knowledge from external sources—their ‘architectural competence’” (p. 19 of paper) [my comment: resembles ‘absorptive capacity’] | |
| Architectural innovation | ||
| Abernathy & Clark, 1985 [Originators] |
[Implicit definition] Innovation of this sort defines the basic configuration of product and process...it lays down the architecture of the industry. (p. 7) Using new concepts in technology to forge new market linkages is the essence of architectural innovation. (p. 10). |
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| Henderson & Clark, 1990 | Explicit definition. – See also Component knowledge vs. architectural knowledge, and see also Modular innovation “We define innovations that change the way in which the components of a product are linked together, while leaving the core concepts (and thus the basic knowledge underlying the components) untouched, as “architectural” innovation.” (p. 10). “…innovation that changes only the relationship between them [the core design concepts]…The essence of an architectural innovation is the reconfiguration of an established system to link together existing components in a new way.” (p. 12). |
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| O’Reilly & Tushman, 2004 | “Companies also have to make architectural innovations, applying technological or process advances to fundamentally change some component or element of their business.” (p. 76). “technological or process advances to fundamentally change a component or element of the business” (p. 77) | |
| O’Reilly & Tushman, 2008 | Innovation occurs in roughly three distinct ways. First is incremental innovation in which an existing product or service is made better, faster or cheaper (Nelson & Winter, 1982).” “A second way innovation occurs is through major or discontinuous changes in which major improvements are made, typically through a competence-destroying advance in technology (e.g., Tushman & Anderson, 1986).”(p. 194). “Finally, innovation also occurs through seemingly minor improvements in which existing technologies or components are integrated to dramatically enhance the performance of existing products or services (Henderson & Clark, 1990).” (p. 195) | |
Architectural vs. component competencies |
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| Atuahene-Gima, 2005 | Component competencies: i.e. knowledge and skills. Architectural competencies: i.e. ability to coordinate an extensive flow of information within the firm to use component competencies. (p. 66) |
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| Architecture of the revenues | ||
| Chesbrough & Rosenbloom, 2002 | “Identification of a market is also required to define the ‘architecture of the revenues’ – how a customer will pay, how much to charge and how the value created will be apportioned between customers, the firm itself and its suppliers” (p. 534). | |
| Assets: generic; specialized; cospecialized | ||
| Teece, 1986 | “Generic assets are general purpose assets which do not need to be tailored to the innovation in question. Specialized assets are those where there is unilateral dependence between the innovation and the complementary asset. Cospecialized assets are those for which there is a bilateral dependence”. (p. 289) | |
| Autonomous vs. induced strategy | ||
| Burgelman 2002 [originator, 1983; 1991] |
[Explicit definition p. 326-327] Induced strategy exploits initiatives that are within the scope of a company’s current strategy and that extend it further in its current product-market environment. Autonomous strategy exploits initiatives that emerge through exploration outside of the scope of the current strategy and that provide the basis for entering into new product-market environments. [NB – my comment: It seems that two differentiators are blended: Inside/outside strategic frame and deliberate/emerging strategies] |
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| Burgelman & Grove, 2007 | Autonomous strategy processes explore new opportunities that are outside the scope of the existing corporate strategy. They are often originated at operational or middle management levels. (p. 970) | |
| Background competence | ||
| Christensen, 2006 | Referring to Granstad et al (1991): competence to coordinate and benefit from technological change (and exchange) in its supply chain | |
| Balanced strategic decisions | ||
| Smith & Tushman, 2005 | [Explicit definition] “we define balanced strategic decisions based on two criteria: (1) their distributive nature, which we define as making balanced trade-offs over time; and (2) their integrative nature, which we define as identifying synergies”. (p. 524) | |
| Basic knowledge | ||
| Lane & Lubatkin, 1998 | Explicit definition Basic knowledge refers to a general understanding of the traditions and techniques upon which a discipline is based. (p. 464) |
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| Beliefs | ||
| Chattopadhyay et al, 1999 | Explicit definition Beliefs are defined here as the understandings about credible relationships between objects, properties, or ideas. Normative beliefs relate to the perceived importance of various business goals. Cause-effect beliefs relate to how strongly a variable is believed to influence another variable. (p. 765) |
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| Blind variation | ||
| Alvarez & Barney, 2007 | [Implicit definition] Blind variation – an action that emerges without any self-conscious planning or foresight (p. 15) | |
| Bower-Burgelman process model | ||
| Burgelman, 1996 | “…the Bower-Burgelman process model (Bower, 1970; Bower and Doz, 1979; Burgelman, 1983b)-a matrix-like framework consisting of levels of management (operational, middle, top) by levels of strategy making (business, corporate)…” (p. 194) [as seen in his figure 1 at p. 197, the strategy making levels (business-corporate) each are subdivided: Business level into the processes of Definition and Impetus; corporate level into Strategic context and Structural context. See separate definitions] | |
| Breakthrough innovation | ||
| Anderson & Tushman, 1990 | [Implicit definition] Breakthrough innovation is not explicitly defined, but it is stated that such can be either building on existing know-how (competence enhancing) or competence destroying. (p. 613). – Cf. Technological discontinuity. – Also, at p. 614 ‘breakthrough innovation’ seems to be used synonymous with technological discontinuity. – P. 620 ‘discontinuous innovation’ is used as synonym (in definition of era of ferment). | |
| Zhou et al, 2005 [referring Wind and Mahajan1997] | Depending on their “newness,” innovations can be incremental (continuous) or breakthrough (discontinuous). Incremental innovations refer to minor changes in technology, simple product improvements, or line extensions that minimally improve the existing performance. In contrast, breakthrough innovations are novel, unique, or state-of-the-art technological advances in a product category that significantly alter the consumption patterns of a market (Wind and Mahajan1997). | |
| Business ecosystem | ||
| Teece, 2007 | “the business ‘ecosystem’—the community of organizations, institutions, and individuals that impact the enterprise and the enterprise’s customers and supplies” (p. 7 of paper) | |
| Business model | ||
| Chesbrough & Rosenbloom, 2002 | “The business model is thus conceived as a focusing device that mediates between technology development and economic value creation.” (p. 532). “In the most basic sense, a business model is the method of doing business by which a company can sustain itself – that is, generate revenue. The business model spells out how a company makes money by specifying where it is positioned in the value chain.” (p. 533 – quote from a course syllabus). “The function of a business model are to:
“Identification of a market is also required to define the ‘architecture of the revenues’ – how a customer will pay, how much to charge and how the value created will be apportioned between customers, the firm itself and its suppliers” (p. 534). |
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| Osterwalder et al, 2005 | “Business models and business process models should clearly be distinguished [Gordijn, Akkermans et al. 2000]. A review of the business model literature shows that the business model concept is generally understood as a view of the firm's logic for creating and commercializing value, while the business process model is more about how a business case is implemented in processes.” (p. 7). “Based on the literature synthesis leading to the nine building blocks we propose the following definition for business models: A business model is a conceptual tool that contains a set of elements and their relationships and allows expressing the business logic of a specific firm. It is a description of the value a company offers to one or several segments of customers and of the architecture of the firm and its network of partners for creating, marketing, and delivering this value and relationship capital, to generate profitable and sustainable revenue streams.” (p. 10) |
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| Teece, 2007 | “The function of a business model is to ‘articulate’ the value proposition, select the appropriate technologies and features, identify targeted market segments, define the structure of the value chain, and estimate the cost structure and profit potential (Chesbrough and Rosenbloom, 2002: 533–534). In short, a business model is a plan for the organizational and financial ‘architecture’ of a business. This model makes assumptions about the behaviour of revenues and costs, and likely customer and competitor behavior.” (p. 11 of paper) | |
| Capabilities | ||
| Mahoney & Pandian, 1992 | Implicit definition “The firm’s capability lies upstream from the end-product – it resides in skills, capacities, and a dynamic resource fit which may find a variety of end uses” (p. 366). Referring to Penrose, 1959: Resources are stocks and capabilities are flows = services. (p. 366) |
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| Afuah & Utterback, 1997 | Competencies + firm-specific assets = capabilities or resources (p. 183). | |
| Zhou et al, 2005 | Capabilities are the glue that brings these assets together and enables a firm to deploy them advantageously, such as the skills underlying the innovativeness and the superior quality of a firm’s offerings. Capabilities differ from assets in that they are difficult to quantify monetarily, and they encompass skills that are embedded deeply in organizational routines and practices (Barney 1991; Day 1994). (p. 44) | |
| Atuathene-Gima, 2005 | A competence or capability refers to knowledge, skills, and related routines that constitute a firm’s ability to create and deliver superior customer value (reference to Day 1994, p. 38) (p. 62) | |
| Centralized vs. decentralized | ||
| Siggelkow & Levinthal, 2003 | “To be precise, we call an organizational structure “decentralized” when decision making has been disaggregated into a number of subunits, or divisions, each making its own decisions. In contrast, an organizational structure is called “centralized” when decisions are made only at the level of the firm as a whole.” (p. 651) | |
| Co-evolutionary lock-in | ||
| Burgelman 2002 [originator] |
[Explicit definition] A positive feedback process that increasingly ties the previous success of a company’s strategy to that of its existing product-market environment, thereby making it difficult to change strategic direction. P. 326 - See also Cultural Lock-in, Success Trap, Paradox of Success. |
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| Cognition and cognitive processes | ||
| Kiesler & Sproull, 1982 | [Implicit definition] …cognitive processes – perceiving, encoding, storing, retrieving, and inferring (p. 552) | |
| Swan, 1997 | [Explicit definitions] The term ‘cognitions’ refers here to both cognitive structures (mentally represented concepts and relationships) and cognitive processes whereby those mentally represented concepts are constructed, manipulated and used in the decision-making process. Both comprise individuals’ belief systems or ‘mental models’. (p. 184) Here, then ‘cognition’ is used to describe individuals’ belief systems or mental models that form common-sense social theories (Rummelhart and Ortony, 1977). In this way complex information is framed and simplified so that problems may be constructed and more easily understood (March and Simon, 1958). Cognitions, then, refer to the belief systems that individuals use to perceive, construct and make sense of their world and to make decisions about what actions to take (Weick, 1979; Weick, 1995; Walsh, 1995). (P. 185) To summarize, cognitions are seen here as the specific belief systems of individuals which draw upon some subset of available knowledge bases in formulating expectations and making decisions about which course of action to take. (P. 186). …the noun ‘cognition/s’ is underpinned by particular methodological assumptions – that cognition can be understood using methodologies that describe and identify its component parts (some cognitive mapping techniques do this). In contrast, if ‘cognitions’ are seen as ways of processing information, incorporating both fluid structures and processes, then a more complex understanding will be developed using methodologies that describe cognitive structures at particular points in time as well as methodologies that reveal the processes through which knowledge is structured and used for decision-making. A limitation with the cognitive mapping methodologies may be their tendency to focus on cognitive structure rather than on process. (p. 184). |
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| Gavetti & Levinthal, 2000 | Cognition is a forward-looking form of intelligence that is premised on an actor’s beliefs about the linkage between the choice of actions and the subsequent impact of those actions on outcomes. Such beliefs derive from the actor’s mental model of the world (Holland et al, 1986). Greater fidelity between the mental model of action-outcome linkages presumably leads to more efficacious choices of action. (p. 113) | |
| Smith & Tushman, 2005 | [Explicit definition] “Cognitive processes are behavioral routines and ways that managers use to think about and respond to information.” (p. 526) | |
| Cognitive conflict | ||
| Ensley & Pearce, 2001 | Explicit definition: “Cognitive conflict is the process of thinking about multiple ideas (Amason and Schweiger, 1994; Jehn, 1995). At group level, cognitive conflict is sharing and developing those ideas through cognitive tug and pull.” (p. 146) “Conflict is a process that teams go through to make decisions, take action, and create cognitive schema. We argue that conflict, as it is defined here, is the process of creating (or detracting from) the overlap in strategic cognitive maps and therefore a key group process in the development of shared strategic cognition.” (p. 146) |
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| Cognitive dissonance | ||
| White & Bessant, 2004 | It’s referred to as a theory of social psychology by Festinger (1957) [Originator]. Harmon-Jones & Mills (1999) are quoted for the definition (p. 7) [explicit]: “Two cognitions are consonant if one follows from the other, and they are dissonant if the obverse (opposite) of one cognition follows from the other. The existence of dissonance, being psychologically uncomfortable, motivates the person to reduce the dissonance…” “Aronson (1999) suggests that the concept of the self is a critical factor in determining whether or not [cognitive] dissonance occurs. So when an important element of the self is threatened, e.g. competency, morality or ability to predict their behaviour, people endeavour to maintain a sense of self that is both consistent and positive. This phenomenon is described as self-affirmation theory.” (p. 7) |
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| Cognitive frames | ||
| Smith & Tushman, 2005 | [Explicit definition] “Cognitive frames are stable constructs that provide a lens to understand a situation. These cognitive frames, in turn, create a context for complex behavioral responses”. (p. 526) “Walsh (1995) defines a cognitive frame as “a mental template that individuals impose on an environment to give it form” (p. 281). These mental templates create a lens through which managers filter knowledge and direct action. More specifically, managerial cognitive frames drive organizational action by directing attention to particular issues…, defining the leader’s understanding of the issues they face…and assigning socioemotional information to particular issues” (p. 526). |
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| Cognitive inertia vs. cognitive adaptability | ||
| Tripsas & Gavetti, 2000 [originators ? – Gavetti 1999?] |
Only implicit definitions “Although prior work in the evolutionary tradition emphasizes the inertial forces associated with the local nature of learning processes, little theoretical attention has been devoted in this tradition to understanding how managerial cognition affects the adaptive intelligence of organizations.” (P. 1147) “Our goal is to explore how the combination of capabilities and cognition helps to explain organizational inertia in the face of radical technological change.” P. 1148. “…in rapidly changing environments top managers often have difficulty adapting their mental models, resulting in poor organizational performance” – p. 1148. “…there might be structural reasons underlying differences in cognitive adaptability across hierarchical levels (Gavetti, 1999)” P. 1159. |
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| White & Bessant, 2004 | [Implicit definition] [reffering to Tripsas & Gavetti] “Due to the psychological discomfort of the presence of this [cognitive] dissonance, the managers will be caused to misread signals coming from the market/industry that they are operating in, and consequently make strategic decisions that can have a detrimental effect on the performance of their organizations.” (p. 2) | |
| Cognitive maps and Cognitive mapping | ||
| Tolman, 1948 [originator] |
In Tolman cognitive maps are mental devices, not artifacts: an example is the map of maze which the lab rat builds in its mind. “In psychology, ‘cognitive map’ was a term that was developed to describe an individual’s internal mental representation of the concepts and the relations among concepts that the individual uses to understand the environment (Tolman, 1948)” – Swan, 1997. | |
| Eden, 1988 | [Implicit definitions] Based on Kelly, 1955, “the Repertoire Grid”. Making sense via a construct system, which has a finite number of constructs, each of which has a pole of affirmation and a negative pole. (p. 2). – “Cognitive mapping in the style of Kelly builds on three key assertions of the theory. Firstly, man makes sense of his world through contrast and similarity, that is meaning in the context of action derives from relativism. Secondly, man seeks to explain his world – why it is as it is, what made it so. And thirdly, man seeks to understand the significance of his world by organizing concepts hierarchically so that some constructs are super-ordinate to others.” (p. 3-4). The map consists of “constructs” (text blocks), which have two parts – the “presented pole” and the contrast. Links are shown with arrows – links out of a construct shows a consequence, links into a construct an explanation. (p. 4-5). |
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| Fiol & Huff, 1992 [Originators with regards to submap types or levels] |
[Explicit definition] Cognitive maps are graphic representations that locate people in relation to their information environments. Maps provide a frame of reference for what is known and believed. They highlight some information and fail to include other information, either because it is deemed less important, or because it is not known. They exhibit the reasoning behind purposeful actions. (p. 267) The graphic representation of a mental map (p. 273). NB [my comment]: Oftentimes, ‘maps’ is used as what I would term ‘models’ – see p. 275, 278 – or are even referred to as if they were the same as mental models (278); “the mental map of an individual”. – Here the map is clearly not understood as the graphical representation, the artifact, but as a piece of mental (psychic) reality. Strip maps: A sequence of clear choice points (ref. Tolman, 1948). For example, directions to a house in the mountains (p. 272). Context maps: Provide a sense of the setting within which decisions are to be made. They provide detail about features of the terrain, and about the way these features might be linked. (p. 273). Three sets of ‘submaps’ of different aspects of cognitive processes [3 levels]:
My thoughts re the 3 levels: It’s like an iceberg, revealing only the causalities on top, and from time to time categorization, but identity and most categorization remain below the surface, sub-conscious. |
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| Bougon, 1992 [originator] | An aggregate cognitive map would consist of assembling the three full cognitive maps of the three participants. – In contrast, the full congregate cognitive map consists of the three participants’ full cognitive maps connected only and exclusively by labels drawn from the social system map (the one that emphasizes the loops). (p. 371) | |
| Barr, Stimpert & Huff, 1992 | [Implicit definition] “Our interest is in the interpretations of our sample firms’ top managers, how these interpret change, and the subsequent impact of these interpretations on organizational responses. The methodology employed to track these questions, cause mapping…” “Cause mapping is a form of content analysis that isolates the key assertions within a document that deal with causality, existence, or categorization, all basic issues for strategic decision making. Assertions can be ‘mapped’ to gain a larger picture of changing managerial beliefs, and both map structure and individual statements can be examined for changes over time.” – P. 20 |
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| Eden, 1992 | [Explicit definition] Cognitive maps can be seen as a picture or visual aid in comprehending the mappers’ understanding of particular, and selective, elements of the thoughts (rather than thinking) of an individual, group or organization. (p. 262). Cognitive maps as an artifact, rather than as the conceptual device developed by Tolman. They are a model of subjective data. (p. 262) The term is misleading, for it implies that the map is a model of cognition, that is, a model of thinking. If articulation and thinking interact, then an elicitation of cognition that depends upon articulation is always out of step with cognition before, during, and after the elicitation process. (p. 261). |
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| Langfield-Smith, 1992 | [Explicit definition] “Cognitive maps provide graphical descriptions of the unique ways in which individuals view a particular domain (field of thought or action)”. – Casual maps are one such form, and these are essentially networks, consisting of elements and directional (cause and effect) relationships between those elements. (p. 350) | |
| Carley & Palmquist, 1992 | “Cognitive mapping is an attempt to represent the cognitive structures in memory.” (p. 605) | |
| Swan, 1997 | [Explicit definitions] In psychology, ‘cognitive map’ was a term that was developed to describe an individual’s internal mental representation of the concepts and the relations among concepts that the individual uses to understand the environment (Tolman, 1948). Cognitive maps are thus seen as internally represented schemas or mental models for particular problem-solving domains that are learned and encoded as a result of an individual’s interaction with their environment. When the individual encounters similar problems again they will then draw upon their stored mental maps in order to understand the problem and initiate a course of action. Cognitive maps are also dynamic in that they can change as new information is processed but they also shape how information is selected for processing and are, therefore, to some extent self-confirming (e.g. Swan 1995; Barlett, 1932). (P. 188) In contrast, cognitive mapping describes a set of techniques that are used to try and identify subjective beliefs and to portray these externally (Fiol and Huff, 1992). (p. 188). The outcome of a mapping technique is usually referred to as a cognitive map although, as will be seen below, this is really a confusion of terms. (p. 189). Weick (1990b) suggests that maps are reflections of the words people use to describe events, and not the events themselves, which he refers to as ‘territory’. – Maps, even crude maps, allow managers to impose some meaning on the territory which then triggers action and allows new meaning to be constructed in the map. Weick appears to be talking about implicit maps. (p. 194). |
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| Marchant, 1999 | [Implicit definition] “A cognitive map is a collection of nodes linked by some arcs”. | |
| White & Bessant, 2004 | [Reviewing others’ definitions] Cognitive maps are understood to be “graphical representations that locate people in relation to their environment” and “provide a frame of reference for what is known and believed” (Fiol and Huff, 1992). Others have proposed them to be “mental representations of business competition” (Hodgkinson, 2002) and “as ways of constructing and utilizing knowledge” (Swan, 1997). What is critical about them concerning the nature of this paper is their role in determining the level of importance (high, low or should be discarded) that is placed on certain types of information. (p. 5). This suggests that cognitive maps can exist within groups, and not just at the level of the individual (Langfield-Smith, 1992). This influence over the organization is achieved through a process that can be referred to as “sensemaking” and “sensegiving” (Kiesler and Sproull, 1982; Watson, 1995). (p. 6) |
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| White & Bessant, 2004 | Cognitive maps: These can be understood through the utilisation of personal construct theory (Kelly, 1963). It states that individuals organize, interpret and draw meaning from the data that they encounter, and this data is developed into “systems of meaning” or schemas about their environment, which consequently determine their actions (Reger et al., 1994). The limitations of these schemas can be referred to as “absorptive capacity” (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990) (p. 5). NB (my comment): Cognitive maps are here seen as mental devices, as in Tolman 1948. |
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| Cohesion | ||
| Ensley & Pearce, 2001 | Explicit definition: “…a state of social relationship among a team defined as ‘the degree to which members of the group are attracted to each other’ (Shaw, 1981, p. 213)” (p. 147) |
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| Cognitive rules | ||
| Burgelman & Grove, 2007 [originators] | Cognitive rules are a part of the ‘rules of the game’ (see) which are industry wide rules. Explicit definition: Cognitive rules are widely shared judgments about the key success factors (a kind of ‘industry recipe’). (p. 966) | |
| Cognitive strategic groups | ||
| Osborne, Stubbart & Ramaprasad, 2001 [originators] | [referring to (Porac et al., 1989)] “Two dimensions, or themes, characterized managers’ mental models and were particularly relevant to the development of cognitive oligopolies. First, industry leaders shared themes about the boundaries of the competitive domain, and second, there was wide (partly implicit) agreement among those leaders concerning the legitimate competitive process inside that domain” – “we call strategic groups clustered on such cognitive dimensions ‘cognitive strategic groups’”. | |
| Collective beliefs | ||
| Langfield-Smith, 1992 | Those beliefs which are a function of the group, encompassing more than those beliefs that are shared by the individuals within the group (p. 349) | |
| Collective cognitions | ||
| Langfield-Smith, 1992 [Originator ?] |
[Explicit definition] “The transitory agreements and group perceptions that develop during collective encounters have been termed collective cognitions.” (p. 362-363). Collective cognitions cannot be elicited using a structured protocol, as they persist in a particular form only during a collective encounter. Nor can they be elicited or directly investigated during the collective encounter or after the event due to their dynamic nature. What can be recorded and investigated are the processes and products of these collective cognitions that are exhibited during the collective encounters (p. 250). |
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| Collective encounters | ||
| Langfield-Smith, 1992 [Originator] |
[Explicit definition] Situations where the members of the group are present, and where there is the opportunity to discuss issues that are of concern to the group (p. 360). Examples of collective encounters could include committee meetings, informal discussion groups and the day-to-day interaction of work groups (Roy, 1960) (p. 361) |
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| Combinative capabilities | ||
| Jansen et al, 2005 | “Henderson and Cockburn (1994: 66–67) argued that in addition to cross-functional boundary-spanning mechanisms, architectural or combinative capabilities include control systems and dominant values that influence the ability to access new external knowledge and to integrate knowledge flexibly.” (p. 1000). “…we discuss three types of combinative capabilities: (1) coordination capabilities, (2) systems capabilities, and (3) socialization capabilities (cf. Van Den Bosch et al., 1999: 556”. (p. 1000). “Coordination capabilities enhance knowledge exchange across disciplinary and hierarchical boundaries” (p. 1000). “Systems capabilities program behaviors in advance of their execution and provide a memory for handling routine situations” (p. 1002). “Socialization capabilities create broad, tacitly understood rules for appropriate action” (p. 1003). |
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| Compensatory fit | ||
| Gulati & Puranam, 2009 | “…under some conditions, the informal organization can compensate for the formal organization by motivating a distinct but valuable form of employee behavior that the formal organization does not emphasize, and vice versa—an effect we label compensatory fit”. (p. 422) | |
| Competence enhancing vs. destroying | ||
| Anderson & Tushman, 1990 [Originators, 1986] |
[Implicit definition] Technological discontinuities can be either building on existing know-how (competence enhancing) or competence destroying. (p. 610) – Cf. breakthrough innovation. See also Technological Discontinuities. |
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| White & Bessant, 2004 | Tushman and Anderson (1986) develop this concept in the identification of competence-enhancing and competence-destroying discontinuities. [Explicit definition]: Competence-enhancing discontinuities are described as significant improvements in terms of price and/or performance of a technology, which builds on a firm’s current knowledge base. Competence-destroying discontinuities requires the mastery of a new technology, which fundamentally alters the competencies required within a product class. (P. 3) | |
| Competence exploitation vs. exploration | ||
| Atuahene-Gima, 2005, (building on March, 1991) | Competence exploitation refers to the tendency of a firm to invest resources to refine and extend its existing product innovation knowledge, skills, and processes. Its aims are greater efficiency and reliability of existing innovation activities. Competence exploration refers to the tendency of a firm to invest resources to acquire entirely new knowledge, skills and processes. Its objective is to attain flexibility and novelty in product innovation through increased variation and experimentation. (p. 62) |
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| O’Reilly & Tushman, 2008 | “Without this ability to hold inconsistent alignments, organizations succumb to either a ‘‘competency trap’’ in which success leads to repetition and exploitation drives out exploration (e.g., Leonard-Barton, 1992), or a ‘‘failure trap’’ in which inexperience leads to failure and a constant shifting in alternatives in which exploration drives out exploitation” (p. 190). | |
| Complementary assets | ||
| Teece, 1986 (originator) | “In almost all cases, the successful commercialization of an innovation requires that the know-how in question be utilized in conjunction with other capabilities or assets. Services such as marketing, competitive manufacturing, and after-sales support are almost always needed. These services are often obtained from complementary assets which are specialized. For example, the commercialization of a new drug is likely to require the dissemination of information over a specialized information channel. In some cases, as when the innovation is systemic, the complementary assets may be other parts of a system. For instance; computer hardware typically requires specialized software, both for the operating system, as well as for applications. Even when an innovation is autonomous, as with plug compatible components, certain complementary capabilities or assets will be needed for successful commercialization. Figure 5 summarizes this schematically”. (p. 288)
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| Tripsas, 1997 | Referring to Teece, 1986, as originator: He uses the label complementary assets to describe such factors as specialized manufacturing capability, access to distribution channels, service networks and complementary technologies. (p. 122) | |
| Component | ||
| Henderson & Clark, 1990 | Explicit definition. – See also Core concept “A component is defined here as a physically distinct portion of the product that embodies a core design concept and performs a well-defined function.” “There are several design concepts one could use to deliver power. The choice of one of them – the decision to use an electric motor, for example, establishes a core concept of the design. The actual component – the electric motor – is then a physical implementation of this design concept” (p. 11). |
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| Component knowledge vs. architectural knowledge | ||
| Henderson & Clark, 1990 | Implicit definition. – See also Architectural innovation “Component knowledge: Knowledge about each of the core design concepts and the way in which they are implemented in a particular component.” (p. 11). “Architectural knowledge: Knowledge about the ways in which the components are integrated and linked together into a coherent whole. The distinction between architectural and component knowledge, or between the components themselves and the links between them…” (p. 11) |
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| Concepts and labels | ||
| Bougon, 1992 | Labels must not be confused with the concepts they are designed to evoke. Concepts are units of meaning. Concepts reside in the mind of participants. People tag private inner concepts with public outer labels for writing or communication purposes. Concepts are private, idiosyncratic and subjective; labels are public, verbatim and objective. (p. 370) | |
| Carley & Palmquist, 1992 | “A concept can be a single word as “friend” or “writing”, or a phrase such as “works well with others”. In this sense, a concept is an ideational kernel – a single idea totally bereft of meaning except as it is connected to other concepts…Concepts are nothing more than symbols which have meanings dependent on their use, i.e., their relationship to other symbols” (p. 607) | |
| Karp, 2005 | “A concept is an umbrella term referring to any set of closely related elements. Concepts range from physical objects as for instance a car to biological forms as for instance a dog. Concepts may also be of a more abstract nature, as for instance society, gravity, business models, values and democracy.” (from Gardner, 2004) (p. 90). | |
| Concept of strategy | ||
| Burgelman, 1988 [originator] | [Implicit definition] Burgelman describes strategy making as a social learning process. Figure 2, p. 84, describes “the reciprocal relationship between organizational strategy and organizational capabilities” as such: New Capabilities --> New Opportunities --> Concept of Strategy --> (back to New Capabilities) Burgelman also writes (p. 79): “The result of internal entrepreneur’s endeavors provide the basis for rearticulating the firm’s concept of strategy”. So, Concept of Strategy seems to match the concept of dominant logic. |
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| Conservative vs. radical innovation | ||
| Abernathy & Clark, 1985 | [Implicit definitions] (p. 6) Conservative innovations enhance the value of the firm’s existing competence; conserve the established competence of the firm, and may actually entrench those skills. Radical innovations reflect Schumpeter’s “creative destruction”. They work through a redefinition of what is required to achieve competitive advantage. In strong form, where disruption is both deep and extensive, such innovation creates new industries.
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| Constructs | ||
| Klimoski & Mohammed, 1994 | Referring to Kaplan, 1964: Constructs are “terms which, though not observational either directly or indirectly, may be applied or even defined on the basis of the observables”. – Indeed, constructs are the building blocks of theory construction. (p. 415) | |
| Contingency perspective | ||
| Christensen, 2002 | “The contingency perspective takes its point of departure in Chandler’s (1962, 1977) theory of strategic and organizational dynamics implying that accumulating organizational tensions or incongruities give rise to organizational changes that seek to re-establish coherence between the strategy and the organizational structure of the firm.” (p. 1318). | |
| Core capabilities | ||
| Leonard-Barton, 1992 [Originator? – but stemming from “core competencies” – Prahalad & Hamel, 1990] |
[Explicit definition] Capabilities are considered core if they differentiate a company strategically (p. 111). Core capabilities = The knowledge set that distinguishes and provides a competitive advantage (p. 113). |
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Core competences (see also integrative competencies) |
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| Teece et al, 1997 | Explicit definition: We define those competences that define a firm’s fundamental business as core. (p. 516) | |
| Core concepts | ||
| Henderson & Clark, 1990 | Implicit definition. – See also Component “There are several design concepts one could use to deliver power. The choice of one of them – the decision to use an electric motor, for example, establishes a core concept of the design.” (p. 11) |
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| Corporate culture | ||
| Teece et al, 1997 | Explicit definition: Corporate culture refers to the values and beliefs that employees hold; culture can be a de facto governance system as it mediates the behavior of individuals… | |
| Corporate Innovation Mindset | ||
| Leifer et al, forthcoming [Originators, inspired by Venkatraman 1989] |
[Explicit definitions] We introduce the concept of “corporate innovation mindset” as an inherent element of a firm’s disposition towards innovation behavior. The construct is defined as encompassing both a market and a technology dimension (p.1, abstract). “how corporate members understand how their firm functions with regard to innovation…this corporate innovation mindset” (p. 3, introduction). We reframe the basic concept of “strategic orientation” as understood by Venkatraman (1989) and introduce a new concept labeled “corporate innovation mindset”. (p. 5). We understand this concept as composed of market and technology aspects. (p. 6). We suggest, generally, corporate mindset to be such a “core” resource as it is developed over a longer period of time, not easily imitated and can be expected to be a rather stable characteristic of firms, and more specifically as it regards innovation. (p. 7). In accordance with assumptions from personality trait research we view the corporate innovation mindset (in terms of aggressiveness, riskiness, proactiveness and analysis) as a long term, difficult-to-alter determinant of firm behavior. Thus, the firm’s “personality” (p. 8). We suggest that these technological and market perspectives, each with the four dimensions of analysis, riskiness, proactiveness and aggressiveness, constitute the corporate innovation mindset of a firm. (p. 11). Comments in v6 of the paper:
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| Cosmology episode | ||
| Weick, 1993 [originator] | “A cosmology episode occurs when people suddenly and deeply feel that the universe is no longer a rational, orderly system. What makes such an episode so shattering is that both the sense of what is occurring and the means to rebuild that sense collapse together.” (p. 633). – “a cosmology episode, an interlude in which the orderliness of the universe is called into question because both understanding and procedures for sensemaking collapse together.” (p. 637) | |
| Crystallization | ||
| Nonaka, 1994 | Finding a concrete “form”, e.g. a product. (p. 25) | |
| Deep structure | ||
| Gersick, 1991 [Originator] |
[Explicit definition] “Deep structure is a network of fundamental, interdependent “choices” of the basic configuration into which a system’s units are organized, and the activities that maintain both this configuration and the system’s resource exchange with the environment. Deep structure in human systems is largely implicit.” (p. 15) Example: Kuhn’s paradigm in science. Deep structure is the set of fundamental “choices” a system has made of (1) the basic parts into which its units will be organized and (2) the basic activity patterns that will maintain its existence. (p. 14) See also “Punctuated Equilibrium”. |
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| Definition and Impetus | ||
| Burgelman, 1996 | “The definition part of the process model maps the managerial activities that made exit from DRAMs a definite thrust at the business level. The impetus part of the process model maps the managerial activities that gave the business-level thrust to exit from DRAMs its force.” (p. 197) | |
| Noda & Bower, 1996 | “Definition is a cognitive process in which technological and market forces, initially ill defined, are communicated to the organization, and strategic initiatives are developed”. “Impetus is a largely sociopolitical process by which these strategic initiatives are continually championed by front-line manager”. (p. 160) | |
| Differentiating vs. integrating | ||
| Smith & Tushman, 2005 | “Whereas differentiating involves recognizing and articulating distinctions, integrating involves shifting levels of analysis to identify potential linkages. Differentiating helps overcoming inertia…. Integrating, in contrast, is associated with sustained attention to possible synergies between the exploitative and exploratory products”. (p. 527) Reference: ”Suedfeld et al (1992) define integrating as the ”development of conceptual connections among differentiated dimensions or perspectives.” Integrating involves shifting levels of analysis from the product level to the organizational level” (p. 529). |
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| Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009 | “Integration efforts stress interdependence between seeming opposites and enable coordination.” – “In contrast, differentiation focuses efforts on either exploitative or exploratory qualities of the paradox.” (p. 702) | |
| Discontinuous innovation | ||
| Schumpeter, 1942, p.84 (referred by Anderson & Tushman, 1990) [Originator] |
[Implicit definition] [Quote from Anderson & Tushman, 1990, p. 606]: “At rare and irregular intervals in every industry, innovations appear that “command a decisive cost or quality advantage and that strike not at the margins of the profits and the outputs of the existing firms, but at their foundations and their very lives” (Schumpeter, 1942, 84). Such innovations depart dramatically from the norm of continuous incremental innovation that characterizes product classes, and they may be termed technological discontinuities”. – See also Radical Innovation |
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| Anderson & Tushman, 1990 | [Implicit definition] At p. 620 ‘discontinuous innovation’ is used as synonym for technological discontinuity (in definition of era of ferment). = Breakthrough innovation (p. 613). | |
| O’Reilly & Tushman, 2004 | “…businesses need to come up with discontinuous innovations – radical advances like digital photography that profoundly alter the basis for competition in an industry, often rendering old products or ways of working obsolete” (p. 76). “radical advances that may profoundly alter the basis for competition in an industry” (p. 77) | |
| White & Bessant, 2005 | [Implicit definition] Technologies evolve within paradigms, and along trajectories (Dosi, 1982). … However, a type of evolution that is referred to as discontinuous or disruptive, periodically punctuates these periods of continuous evolution. P. 1 | |
| Disruptive innovation | ||
| Abernathy & Clark, 1985 [Originators?] |
[Implicit definition] Radical innovations reflect Schumpeter’s “creative destruction”. They work through a redefinition of what is required to achieve competitive advantage. In strong form, where disruption is both deep and extensive, such innovation creates new industries (p. 6). Innovation that disrupts and renders established technical and production competence obsolete, yet is applied to existing markets and customers, is labeled “Revolutionary” (p. 12). |
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| Christensen & Raynor 2003 | Disruptive innovation: Entering the market with a new business model, opposite to sustaining innovation: Staying on track of the existing business model. My comment: Christensen has regretted the original 1997-term “disruptive technologies”, since technologies are not the core of it. |
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| Zhou et al, 2005 | Tech-based innovations that fundamentally change the technological trajectory and improve customer benefits are called “radical innovations” (e.g., color versus black-and-white television, diesel versus steam locomotive, jets versus turbojets) (Benner and Tushman 2003; Chandy and Tellis 1998; Tushman and Anderson 1986). Market-based innovations that improve performance through subsequent development to a level superior to existing products and that eventually overtake existing products in mainstream markets are called “disruptive innovations” (Christensen 1997). The introduction of PCs serves as an example. (p. 43) |
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| Disruptive technologies | ||
| Christensen & Bower, 1996 | Hereafter in this paper, technologies as this, which disrupt an established trajectory of performance improvement, or redefine what performance means, are called disruptive technologies (p. 202). – NB: They use the terms ‘disruptive technologies’, ‘disruptive innovations’ and ‘disruptive architectures’ interchangeably, see p. 203. – See also their def. of ‘innovation’ p. 198. |
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| Dominant cognitive maps | ||
| White & Bessant, 2004 [Originator] |
[No explicit definition]. “…the dominant, or collective, cognitive maps of its upper echelons, can be in a state of consonance or dissonance with the actual value of this technology” p. 9-10. In their model (figure 2, p. 10) the dominant cognitive maps are depicted as a result of the influence of sense-making on many individual cognitive maps. NB, my comment: Here, cognitive maps are understood as mental entities, not artifacts. |
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| Dominant design | ||
| Anderson & Tushman, 1990 [Originator: Abernathy, 1978?] |
[Explicit definition for empirical research] A single configuration or a narrow range of configurations that accounted for over 50% of new product sales or new process installations and maintained a 50-percent market share for at least four years. (p. 620). | |
| Henderson & Clark, 1990 | Explicit definition. “A dominant design is characterized both by a set of core design concepts that correspond to the major functions performed by the product…and that are embodied in components, and by a product architecture that defines the ways in which these components are integrated…A dominant design incorporates a range of basic choices about the design that are not revisited in every subsequent design.” (p. 14) |
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| Suarez & Utterback, 1995 | “A dominant design is a specific path, along an industry's design hierarchy, which establishes dominance among competing design paths” (p. 416) | |
| Klepper, 1996 | “…and a defacto product standard, dubbed a dominant design, emerges.“ (p. 562) | |
| Afuah & Utterback, 1997 | “A dominant design is one whose major components and underlying core concepts do not vary substantially from one product model to the other, and the design commands a high percentage of the market share.” (p. 185) | |
| White & Bessant, 2004 | “Anderson and Tushman (1990) describe dominant designs as being the consequence of periods of ferment followed by order, and Utterback (1996) as the design that firms wishing to innovate, must adhere to e.g. the VHS standard for videocassette recorders” (p. 3). | |
| Dominant logic | ||
| Prahalad & Bettis, 1986 [Originators] |
[Explicit definition] “A dominant general management logic is defined as the way inwhich managers conceptualize the business and make critical resource allocation decisions” (p. 490). [Explicit definition 2] “Dominant logic, as we have defined it here,is a mind set or a world view or conceptualization of the business and the administrative tools to accomplish goals and make decisions in that business. It is stored as a shared cognitive map (or set of schemas) among the dominant coalition”. (P. 491) |
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| Lane & Lubatkin, 1998 | Referring Prahalad & Bettis: “While many things can influence a firm’s commercial objectives, and the objectives themselves vary over time, there tends to be a common thread running through them, a ‘dominant logic’.” (p. 466) On the nature of dominant logic in biotech and pharmaceutical companies: “The projects and problems that these firms prefer can be defined in terms of the types of therapeutic and diagnostic products they develop, and the medical conditions or diseases those products address.” (p. 468) |
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| Chesbrough & Rosenbloom, 2002 | Dominant logic: “A set of heuristic rules, norms and beliefs that managers create to guide their actions. This logic usefully focuses managers’ attention, as they seek new opportunities for the firm. … the dominant logic also implicitly filters out ideas and behaviors that do not comport with the dominant logic. This selection mechanism works to maintain focus and internal coherence among the firm’s activities.” (p. 531) | |
| Prahalad, 2004 | [Explicit definition] “The dominant logic of the company is, in essence, the DNA of the organization. It reflects how managers are socialized. It manifests itself often, in an implicit theory of competition and value creation. It is embedded in standard operating procedures, shaping not only how the members of the organization act but also how they think. Because it is the source of the company’s past success, it becomes the lens through which managers see all emerging opportunities. This makes it hard for incumbent companies to embrace a broader logic for competition and value creation”. (p. 172). | |
| Thomas, 2005 | [Explicit definition] An organization’s Top Management Team international dominant logic is its orientation and shared cognitive map towards managing its international portfolio of operations. (p. 54) [Explicit definition 2] The international dominant logic is the dominant coalition’s (TMT) mindset toward and administration of its international business; it is stored as a shared cognitive map amongst TMT members. It focuses on management’s orientation towards managing its international portfolio of operations. (P. 55) [Explicit definition 3] The TMT’s international dominant logic is the cognitive map by which it manages its portfolio of internationally diversified operations. (p. 56). |
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| Dynamic capabilities | ||
| Teece, Pisano & Shuen, 1997 [originators] | Explicit definition: We define dynamic capabilities as the firm’s ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competences to address rapidly changing environments. (p. 516). The term ‘dynamic’ refers to the capacity to renew competences…The term ‘capabilities’ emphasizes the key role of strategic management in appropriately adapting, integrating and reconfiguring internal and external organizational skills, resources, and functional competences to match the requirements of a changing environment. (p. 515) |
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| Teece, 2007 | “For analytical purposes, dynamic capabilities can be disaggregated into the capacity (1) to sense and shape opportunities and threats, (2) to seize opportunities, and (3) to maintain competitiveness through enhancing, combining, protecting, and, when necessary, reconfiguring the business enterprise’s intangible and tangible assets.” (p. 1 of paper) | |
| Tripsas, 1997 | Quoting Teece, Pisano and Shuen 1997 as originators: ‘dynamic capability…the capacity of a firm to renew, augment, and adapt its core competencies over time’. | |
| Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000 | “Dynamic capabilities are the antecedent organizational and strategic routines by which managers alter their resource base—acquire and shed resources, integrate them together, and recombine them—to generate new value-creating strategies (Grant, 1996; Pisano, 1994).” – “Similar to Teece and colleagues (1997), we define dynamic capabilities as: The firm’s processes that use resources—specifically the processes to integrate, reconfigure, gain and release resources—to match and even create market change. Dynamic capabilities thus are the organizational and strategic routines by which firms achieve new resource configurations as markets emerge, collide, split, evolve, and die.” (p. 1107) |
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| O’Reilly & Tushman, 2008 | “dynamic capabilities, the ability of a firm to reconfigure assets and existing capabilities” (Abstract). “The ability of senior managers to seize opportunities through the orchestration and integration of both new and existing assets to overcome inertia and path dependencies is at the core of dynamic capabilities.” (p. 187). “there is consensus among strategy scholars that dynamic capabilities are reflected in the organization’s ability, manifest in the decisions of senior management, to maintain ecological fitness and, when necessary, to reconfigure existing assets and develop the new skills needed to address emerging threats and opportunities” (p. 189). “With regard to ambidexterity, a dynamic capability can be seen as a set of actions (or routines) taken by senior management that permit the enterprise to identify opportunities and threats and reconfigure assets (people, organizational architectures, and resources) to adapt to these.” (p. 196-97). |
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| Economies of scale and scope | ||
| Chandler, 1990 [originator] | Economies of scale: Higher output volume means lower costs per unit. Economies of scope: Making a variety of products based on the same raw material and semi-finished materials and intermediary production processes. (P. 132) | |
| Chandler, 1992 | Economies of scale: The cost advantages reflecting both the capacity of a facility and the intensity to which it is used. Economies of scope: Producing more products in a single establishment using similar raw and semi-finished materials and much of the same processing equipment, thereby reducing the cost of each individual product. (P. 265) | |
Entrant firms vs. established firms |
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| Christensen & Bower, 1996 | …established firms were defined as firms that had previously manufactured drives which employed an older, established technology, whereas entrant firms were those whose initial product upon entry into the industry employed the new component or architectural technology (p. 204). | |
| Entrepreneurial action | ||
| Alvarez & Barney, 2007 | Quoting Shane, 2003 [explicit definition]: Entrepreneurial action is defined as any activity entrepreneurs might take to form and exploit opportunities (p. 12). | |
| Entrepreneurial management | ||
| Teece, 2007 | “Entrepreneurial management has little to do with analyzing and optimizing. It is more about sensing and seizing—figuring out the next big opportunity and how to address it. We have come to associate the entrepreneur with the individual who starts a new business providing a new or improved product or service. Such action is clearly entrepreneurial, but the entrepreneurial management function embedded in dynamic capabilities is not confined to startup activities and to individual actors. It is a new hybrid: entrepreneurial managerial capitalism.” (p. 28 of paper) |
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| Entrepreneurship/entrepreneurial orientation | ||
| Leifer et al, forthcoming [Originators: Covin and Slevin, 1988; Lumpkin and Dess, 1996] | [Explicit definition] Entrepreneurship orientation is understood as a corporate posture toward entrepreneurial behavior, e.g. the pursuit of new market opportunities | |
| Zhou et al, 2005 | Entrepreneurial orientation reflects a firm’s propensity to engage in “the pursuit of new market opportunities and the renewal of existing areas of operation” (Hult and Ketchen 2001, p. 901). It promotes values such as being highly proactive toward market opportunities, tolerant of risk, and receptive to innovations (Lumpkin and Dess 1996; Matsuno, Mentzer, and Özsomer 2002). Accordingly, the ability to initiate change, take risks, and innovate distinguishes entrepreneurial firms (Naman and Slevin 1993). (p. 46) |
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| Teece, 2007 | “Entrepreneurship is about sensing and understanding opportunities, getting things started, and finding new and better ways of putting things together.” (p. 28 of paper). | |
| Bessant & Mahler, 2009 | “This is essentially what entrepreneurs do – noticing unserved markets, under used technologies, etc. and creating new combinations to meet those needs and exploit those opportunities. They introduce a new frame which takes into account more of the external variety and matches more of its complexity.” (P.4 of paper) | |
| Environment (market e.) | ||
| Teece et al, 1997 | Explicit definition: The market environment is all factors that influence market outcomes (prices, quantities, profits) including the beliefs of the customers and of rivals, the number of potential technologies employed, and the costs or speed with which a rival can enter the industry. | |
| Epistemology | ||
| Gioia & Pitre, 1990 | The nature of knowledge about organizational phenomena. | |
| Equilibrium | ||
| Meyer, Gaba & Colwell (2005) | “The concept of equilibrium diffused from Newtonian physics to neoclassical economics and then to organization theory—with some definitional reformation along the way:
Equilibrium is the bedrock on which modern economic theory rests” (p. 458) |
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| Evolutionary fitness vs. Technical fitness | ||
| Teece, 2007 (from Helfat et al, 2007) | ”Technical fitness is defined by how effectively a capability performs its function, regardless of how well the capability enables a firm to make a living. Evolutionary or external fitness refers to how well the capability enables a firm to make a living. Evolutionary fitness references the selection environment.” (p. 3 of paper) [my comment: Technical fitness = HOW, doing things the right way; evolutionary fitness = WHAT, doing the right things] | |
| Evolutionary theory | ||
| Christensen, 2002 | “According to evolutionary theory firm behavior is strongly influenced by the routines, capabilities and organizational structures of its previous history (Nelson andWinter, 1982; Teece et al., 1994). In the evolutionary literature, the notion of paths or trajectories have primarily related to patterns of technology-specific change (‘technological trajectories’, cf. Dosi, 1982), to firm-specific or sector-specific patterns of technological changes (the so-called Pavitt-taxonomy, cf. Pavitt, 1984), or to path-dependent dynamics of learning and organizational change (Teece et al., 1994; Lehrer, 2000).” (p. 1319) | |
| O’Reilly, Harreld and Tushman, 2009 | “At its heart, evolution refers to change or transformation over time. … The three underpinnings of evolutionary theory are variation (organisms of a species differ on traits), selection (these differences sometimes make a difference in the organisms ability to survive), and retention (traits can be passed from one generation to another). Over time, as environments change the variation in traits can make organisms more or less fit such that the former are more likely to survive.” (p. 6) “Natural selection refers to the process where, over succeeding generations, favorable traits (or traits that are useful for survival and reproduction) that are heritable become more common and unfavorable traits become less prevalent.” (p. 6) |
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| Evolvability vs. fitness | ||
| Burgelman & Grove 2007 [reference to Kauffman, 1993] | Explicit definitions: ‘Evolvability’ is the ability to adapt to a changing environment and/or to seek out new viable environments. Cf. ‘fitness’ which is the adaption to the current environment. | |
| Exploitation vs. exploration | ||
| March, 1991 [originator] | Adaptive processes include both exploration of new possibilities and exploitation of old certainties. “Exploration includes things captured by terms such as search, variation, risk taking, experimentation, play, flexibility, discovery, innovation. Exploitation includes such things as refinement, choice, production, efficiency, selection, implementation, execution.” (p. 71). | |
| March, 2006 | exploitation—the refinement and implementation of what is known exploration—the pursuit of what might come to be known (p. 205) |
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| O’Reilly & Tushman, 2008 | “exploitation (competing in mature markets and technologies, typically through competence-enhancing change) and exploration (competing in new technologies or markets, often with competence-destroying change)” (p. 197) | |
| Andriopoulos, C., & M. Lewis, 2009. | “As Atuahene-Gima (2005) explain, exploitation hones and extends current knowledge, seeking greater efficiency and improvements to enable incremental innovation. Exploration, on the other hand, entails the development of new knowledge, experimenting to foster the variation and novelty needed for more radical innovation.” (p. 696). “As Wadhaw and Kotha (2006) explain, exploitation demands efficiency and convergent thinking to harness current capabilities and continuously improve product offerings. Exploration, in contrast, entails search, variation, and experimentation efforts to generate novel recombinations of knowledge.” (p. 697). |
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| Ferment, era of | ||
| Anderson & Tushman, 1990 [Originators] |
[Explicit definition for empirical research] Part of the technology cycle: The era of ferment was defined as the period from the year a discontinuous innovation was first introduced to the year a single design first achieved a 50-percent market share (p. 620). |
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| Formal and informal organization | ||
| Gulati & Puranam, 2009 | “While the formal organization—the normative social system designed by managers—can be changed relatively rapidly, the informal organization—the emergent pattern of social interactions within organizations” (p. 422) | |
| Formalization | ||
| Jansen et al, 2005 | “Formalization is the degree to which rules, procedures, instructions, and communications are formalized or written down (Khandwalla, 1977).” (p. 1002) | |
| Framing (of strategy/business) – and phrasing | ||
| Bettis & Hitt, 1995 | “…the managerial mindset must change from a focus on a vertical to a horizontal organizational structure. In fact, Mitroff, Mason, and Pearson (1994) argue that a radical reconception of organization structure is required. They refer to this change in the managerial mindset as a framebreak.” (p. 14) | |
| Noda & Bower, 1996 | “The findings reveal that overall strategic direction for an enterprise, which reflects top managers' crude strategic intentions, has noticeable impact on the business development at operating levels of a complex firm. This preliminary phrasing of strategic direction, together with the structural context, strongly influences the way managers at responsible operating or business units perceive new business opportunities, and shapes the premises of the concrete and detailed strategic analysis for new businesses.” (From Conclusion, p. 188) | |
| Bessant & Mahler, 2009 | “Since it is impossible for any organization to take into account all the variety in its environment a simplifying frame is used - a way in which the organization makes sense of its world in order to operate in it. But it is possible to reframe and take new elements into account – essentially moving into the right hand side of figure 1.” (p. 4 of paper). [Figure 1: Incremental-radical innovation vs. Established frame – New frame]. “These first two zones represent familiar territory in search behaviour. They take place within a way of seeing the world which shapes perceptions of what is relevant and important – the ‘box’ that organizations occasionally talk about wanting to get out of. But this frame is not the only way of looking at the world – and zone 3 is associated with reframing. It involves searching a space where alternative architectures are generated, exploring different permutations and combinations of elements in the environment.” (p. 5 of paper). “Sometimes innovation involves different combinations of elements in a new frame – an alternative architecture.” (p. 9 of paper) |
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| Green labels | ||
| Bougon, 1992 [Originator] | Foremost among these labels are those corresponding to specific actions that initiate the chain of events designed by the strategy team…the ‘greening’ phase of the strategy process (Eden, 1989). Those ‘green’ labels constitute the link between the strategy and the social system responsible for its implementation. (p. 376) | |
| Groups | ||
| Klimoski & Mohammed, 1994 | Groups are collections of individuals whose tenure together and division of responsibilities can vary considerably. (p. 404) | |
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Incremental, substantial and transformational innovation See also Radical vs. Incremental innovation – see also Breakthrough innovation |
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| Foster & Kaplan 2001 | Degree of newness vs. how much wealth it generates Transformational innovation - Quoting Schumpeter: “Historic and irreversible change in the way of doing things”. |
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| O’Reilly & Tushman, 2004 | “To flourish over the long run, most companies need to maintain a variety of innovation efforts. They must constantly pursue incremental innovations, small improvements in their existing products and operations that let them operate more efficiently and deliver ever greater value to customers” (p. 76). “small improvements in existing products and operations” (p. 77) | |
| White & Bessant, 2004 | Incremental innovation: relatively minor changes to existing designs that exploit the potential of the established design, and often reinforce the dominance of established firms (ref. Henderson & Clark, 1990) – p. 3 | |
| O’Reilly & Tushman, 2008 | “Innovation occurs in roughly three distinct ways. First is incremental innovation in which an existing product or service is made better, faster or cheaper (Nelson & Winter, 1982).” “A second way innovation occurs is through major or discontinuous changes in which major improvements are made, typically through a competence-destroying advance in technology (e.g., Tushman & Anderson, 1986).”(p. 194). “Finally, innovation also occurs through seemingly minor improvements in which existing technologies or components are integrated to dramatically enhance the performance of existing products or services (Henderson & Clark, 1990).” (p. 195) | |
| Industry | ||
| Bettis & Hitt, 1995 | “An industry is usually described as being composed of firms producing products that are close substitutes. Organizations (firms or subunits such as a division) are considered to be in an industry (or not in an industry), and the boundaries of this specific industry do not change over time.”(p. 13) | |
| Information versus knowledge | ||
| Nonaka, 1994 (p. 15) | Information: Flow of messages. Knowledge: Justified true belief – Created and organized by the flow of information, anchored on the commitment and beliefs of its holder. |
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| Information filters | ||
| Henderson & Clark, 1990 | Implicit definition The organization develops filters that allow it to identify immediately what is the most crucial in its information stream. (p. 15) |
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| Innovation | ||
| Teece, 1986 | “An innovation consists of certain technical knowledge about how to do things better than the existing state of the art.” (p. 288) | |
| Nonaka, 1994 | A process in which the organization creates and defines problems and then actively develops new knowledge to solve them (p. 14) | |
| Christensen & Bower, 1996 | The term ‘innovation’ herein refers to a change in technology. | |
| Foster & Kaplan, 2001 | Innovation is invention which has produced economic value (p. 124) | |
| Zhou et al, 2005 | Innovation is the generation and/or acceptance of ideas, processes, products, or services that the relevant adopting unit perceives as new (Garcia and Calantone 2002). It can be new to either the firm or the firm’s customers. (p. 43) | |
| Innovation management | ||
| Christensen, 2002 | “Management of innovation signifies the management and organization of the individual innovation processes with the objective to produce product or process innovations.” (p. 1318) | |
| Innovation domain | ||
| Tollin & Martesen, 2007 [Originators] | [Explicit definition] A closely related dimension to the ‘issue domain’ is the ‘innovation domain’. This dimension contains ‘product innovation’ but also a number of other innovation processes that are perceived as being related to product innovation, from the point of view of top manager in marketing, research and development etc. Thus, the ‘innovation domain’ contains product innovation and innovation of: the strategic logic of the firm, management processes (organisation design, control and incentives), assets and of operations (Tollin and Mikkola, 2006). Another aspect, or variable, of the ‘innovation domain’ dimension deals with degree of novelty of the innovations; i.e. ranging from component to system level innovation; and from incremental to radical (Tidd et al. 2005: 12). – (p. 9) | |
| Innovation orientation | ||
| Tollin & Martesen, 2007 | [Explicit definition] the innovation orientation concept expresses this idealistic and overall innovation model, or mindset, for product innovation. This interpretation is building on Siguaw et al’s (2006). They state the following: ”Innovation orientation means making innovation the focus of the whole organization. As a result, innovative activities should occur across all functional areas and within all types of tasks” (p. 6) | |
| Innovation performance | ||
| Atuahene-Gima, 2005 | (Innovation) Performance refers to the number of new product innovations introduced by the firm, percentage of sales of new product innovations, and the relative frequency of introducing innovations compared with competitors. (p. 65) | |
| Innovation space | ||
| Smith & Tushman, 2005 | [Implicit definition] “Figure 1 depicts this innovation space” (p. 523, fig. 1 at p. 524). The horizontal axis is Technology from incremental to disruption, the vertical axis is Markets, from current to emerging”. “At the origin of this space is the firm’s exploitative product – incremental improvement to the firm’s current product that is targeted to the existing customer. Exploration occurs in the space outside of this origin.” |
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| Innovation stream | ||
| Smith & Tushman, 2005 | [Explicit definition] “An innovation stream refers to the portfolio of products simultaneously managed by an organization or strategic business unit (Tusman and Smith 2002)” (p. 523) | |
| Integrative competence (see also architectural competence/innovation, combinative capabilities and core competencies) | ||
| Christensen, 2006 | Christensen distinguishes technical from integrative competency:
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| Intended strategies / deliberate strategies / emerging strategies | ||
| Mintzberg 1994 [Originator] |
Intended strategies are plans formulated ahead of time (some of which are never realized). Deliberate strategies, which are intended strategies realized in use of formal control systems. Emerging strategies, which are formed (not formulated) “en route”, as adoption to the real world. |
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| Interfunctional coordination | ||
| Atuahene-Gima, 2005 | This construct refers to the degree to which the functional units in the firm interact, communicate, and coordinate with one another to collect and use market information (p. 64) | |
| Internal fit | ||
| Gulati & Puranam, 2009 | “Internal fit refers to a pattern of reinforcing interactions between organizational elements such that one element enhances the impact on organizational performance of another element”. (p. 422) | |
| Issue areas / issue domain | ||
| Tollinn & Mikkola, 2006 [Originators] |
[Explicit definition] “‘Issues areas’ contains the main considerations, or fields of decisions and activities, in a process model on innovation”. Top managers have their focus (their field of attention, consideration and action) on one particular issue or more. (p. 5). |
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| Tollin & Martesen, 2007 | [Explicit definition] In our model, the ‘issue domain’ expresses the strategic frame, or scope, of top managers. Thus, it contains fields of consideration and action of a strategic importance from a top manager’s point of view. The following aspects, or variables, are proposed to represent such issues: the strategic logic of the firm, management processes (organisation design, control and incentives), asset and operation management issues related to R&D, operation, marketing etc. (Tollin and Mikkola, 2006). (p. 8) | |
| Justification of knowledge | ||
| Nonaka, 1994 | Determination of quality – final convergence and screening (p. 26) | |
| Knowledge | ||
| Nonaka, 1994 | Justified true belief – Created and organized by the flow of information, anchored on the commitment and beliefs of its holder. (p. 15) | |
| Knowledge creation, organizational | ||
| Nonaka, 1994 | A process that “organizationally” amplifies the knowledge created by individuals, and crystallizes it as a part of the knowledge network of an organization. The individual knowledge is transformed and legitimized. First step is via informal communities. (p. 17).
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| Knowledge domain | ||
| Tollin & Martesen, 2007 [Originators] | [Explicit definition] The ‘knowledge domain’ dimension is made up of the following two aspects, or sub dimensions: ‘fields of knowledge’ and ‘categories of knowledge’. The sub dimension ‘fields of knowledge’ denotes to a value chain or a business model view on knowledge for product innovation. The second sub-dimension, ‘categories of knowledge’: the distinction originally made by Polanyi (1966) between tacit and explicit knowledge is expressed in variables. |
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| Knowledge of rationality vs. Knowledge of experience | ||
| Nonaka, 1994 (p. 22) | Knowledge of experience: Embodiment of knowledge through a deep personal commitment into bodily experience.
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| Labeling | ||
| Weick et al, 2005 (referring to Chia, 2000) | “Labeling works through a strategy of “differentiation and simple-location, identification and classification, regularizing and routinization [to translate] the intractable or obdurate into a form that is more amenable to functional deployment” (Chia 2000, p. 517).” (p. 411) | |
| Learning | ||
| Argyris, 1976 | Explicit definition “Learning is here defined as the detection and correction of errors, and error as any feature of knowledge or of knowing that makes action ineffective. Error is a mismatch: a condition of learning, and matching a second condition of learning. The detection and correction of error produces learning and the lack of either or both inhibits learning” (p. 365). |
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| Teece et al, 1997 | Explicit definition (?): Learning is a process by which repetition and experimentation enable tasks to be performed better and quicker. It also enables new production opportunities to be identified. (p. 520) | |
| Lockout | ||
| Cohen & Levinthal 1990 [Originators, 1989] |
[Implicit definition] Condition in which a firm can no longer assimilate and exploit new information from a (quickly moving) field after having stopped investing in it - path dependency. P. 136 | |
| Market orientation | ||
| Atuahene-Gima, 2005 | In the Figure 1, p. 63, Market Orientation is depictured as Customer Orientation and Competitor Orientation. – These two are mentioned in the text as the components of Market orientation. | |
| Zhou et al, 2005 | The primary focus of a market orientation is to create “superior customer value, which is based on knowledge derived from customer and competitor analysis” (Slater and Narver 1995, p. 68). (p. 45) | |
| Mental Models | ||
| Kenneth Craik, 1943 [Originator] |
Quoted from P.N. Johnson-Laird, 1983: [Implicit definition] “By a model we thus mean any physical or chemical system which has a similar relation-structure to that of the processes it imitates. By ‘relation-structure’ I do not mean some obscure non-physical entity which attends the model, but the fact that it is a physical working model which works the same way as the processes it parallels, in the aspects under consideration at any moment…” “If the organism carries a “small-scale model” of external reality and of its own possible actions within its head, it is able to try out various alternatives, conclude which is the best of them, react to future situations before they arise, utilize the knowledge of the past events in dealing with the present and future, and in every way to react in a much fuller, safer, and more competent manner to the emergencies which face it.” |
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| P.N. Johnson-Laird, 1983 | Quote in Carley & Palmquist, 1992: “human beings understand the world by constructing working models in their minds”. | |
| Barr, Stimpert & Huff, 1992 | [Explicit definition] “To make sense of the world, managers rely on simplified representations or mental models (Kiesler & Sproull, 1982). Defined by O’Keefe and Nadel (1978) as ‘an aggregate of interrelated information’, mental models consist of concepts and relationships an individual uses to understand various situations or environments (Weick and Bougon, 1986). They serve as ‘maps’ allowing individuals to perceive environments on a larger scale, beyond the range of immediate perception (Weick and Bougon, 1986; Huff, 1990).” P. 16. “…mental models allow individuals and organizations to make sense of their environment and act within it”. (p. 16) NB: The words ‘mental models’ and ‘mental maps’ are used interchangeably (p. 16). Cognitive maps, in case cause mapping, is seen as a method for tracking top managers’ mental maps. (P. 20, see also ‘Cognitive maps’). My conclusion: Mental maps are subjective, mental entities, whereas causal mapping (a special form of cognitive maps) is a tool, an artifact, to ‘track’ mental maps. |
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| Levinthal & March, 1993 | Mental models are seen as equal to Kuhn’s paradigms (p. 99) | |
| Calori, Johnson & Sarnin, 1994 | [anti definition] As noted by Walsh and Fahey (1986) there is no agreed terminology to denote the key construct of this theory of managerial cognition: mental maps, frames of reference, mindsets, cognitive base, beliefs, schemata, cognitive structures, cognitive maps are all mutually substitutable labels. (p. 439) | |
| Klimoski & Mohammed, 1994 | Referring to Holyoak (1984, p. 193): a mental model is a “psychological representation of the environment and its expected behavior”. Referring to Rouse & Morris (1986): the role of mental models is to provide a conceptual framework for describing, explaining, and predicting future system states. Referring to Johnson-Laird, 1983: They allow individuals to understand phenomena, make inferences, and experience events by proxy. “Our use of mental models refers to a general class of cognitive constructs that have been invoked to explain how knowledge and information are represented in the mind”. (p. 405) |
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| Senge, 1994 | [Referring to Shell Oil]. “The term “mental model” is not expressly defined, but in essence, it is equivalent to the concept of paradigm – an integrative set of ideas and practices that shape the ways people view and interact with the world.” (p. 16). | |
| Nonaka, 1994 | Human beings form working models of the world by creating and manipulating analogies in their mind (ref. Johnson-Laird, 1983). – (p. 16) | |
| Swan, 1997 | [Explicit definition] The term ‘cognitions’ refers here to both cognitive structures (mentally represented concepts and relationships) and cognitive processes whereby those mentally represented concepts are constructed, manipulated and used in the decision-making process. Both comprise individuals’ belief systems or ‘mental models’. (p. 184). Here, then ‘cognition’ is used to describe individuals’ belief systems or mental models that form common-sense social theories (Rummelhart and Ortony, 1977). In this way complex information is framed and simplified so that problems may be constructed and more easily understood (March and Simon, 1958). Cognitions, then, refer to the belief systems that individuals use to perceive, construct and make sense of their world and to make decisions about what actions to take (Weick, 1979; Weick, 1995; Walsh, 1995). (P. 185). |
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| Gavetti & Levinthal, 2000 | Cognition is a forward-looking form of intelligence that is premised on an actor’s beliefs about the linkage between the choice of actions and the subsequent impact of those actions on outcomes. Such beliefs derive from the actor’s mental model of the world (Holland et al, 1986). Greater fidelity between the mental model of action-outcome linkages presumably leads to more efficacious choices of action. (p. 113) | |
| Foster & Kaplan, 2001 | [Implicit definition] “Mental models are the core concepts of the corporation, the beliefs and assumptions, the cause-and-effect relationships, the guidelines for interpreting language and signals, the stories repeated within the corporate walls.” – P. 18. |
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| Chermack, 2003 | Implicit definitions “Originally introduced by Forrester (1961) mental models are the lenses through which we see the world. Mental models incorporate our biases, values, learning, experiences, and beliefs about how the world works”. “Doyle and Ford (1999) revised their definition of mental models of a dynamic system as “a relatively enduring and accessible, but limited, internal conceptual representation of an external system (historical, existing, or projected) whose structure is analogous to the perceived structure of that system” (p. 414)”. (p. 410) |
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| Karp, 2005 | Explicit definition: “Senge et al (1999)interpret mental models as deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action. In a business context, a mental model may be: a picture of future customer needs; an understanding of a business model; a set of relationships showing some causality or consequence in the market place; a diagram of critical interdependencies in the value chain; or a mental motion picture of a chain of events in a strategic plan.” (p. 89). | |
| Tollin & Mikkola, 2006 | [Explicit definition] “In the paper, a mental model for product innovation represents a manager’s ideas, beliefs, and propositions about what knowledge that has a value for Product Innovation and what innovation processes that has to be initiated and nurtured to realize Product Innovation as a continual overall business strategy.” (p. 2). – see also Strategic Logic and Issue areas. In figure 2, p. 5, there seem to be a catalogue of different categories of (or templates for) mental models: Consumer Brand Model, Corporate Identity Model, Operations Management Model etc. |
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| Tollin & Martesen, 2007 | [Implicit definition] A recurrent theme in definitions of the mental model concept is that: “mental models affect experience (active) and are affected by experience (passive)”, (Chermack, 2003, p. 410). Another one is, that when analysing mental models one has to recognize that mental models are a product of a subjective interpretative process, and that they consist of some more or less fuzzy and dynamic assumptions, generalizations, and images (Chermack, 2003; Dougherty et al., 2000; Karp, 2005; among others). [Explicit definition] Our measurement model of the mental model conceptis based on the idea that top managers carry with them a set of beliefs and values regarding knowledge for continuously realizing product innovation, alongside with cognitions about important strategic issues, and about appropriate administrative structures, tools and processes to realize product innovation (Bettis and Prahalad, 1995; Bettis and Wong; Prahald and Bettis, 1986; Prahalad, 2004; Senge, 1990; Weick, 1977, 1979, 1995). |
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| Meta-mental model | ||
| Klimoski & Mohammed, 1994 | Individuals tend to use the most specific level of abstraction that is available and adequate for effective categorization (interpretation) = the basic level (Rosch, 1978). Categories that are more concrete are then referred to as subordinate. Those at a higher level of abstraction would then be termed superordinate. The concept of hierarchy also allows for the notion of a “Meta-mental model” concept (analogous to meta-cognition) to explain how team members “go” from one level of abstraction (lower level category) to another (higher level category). (p. 419) | |
| Metaphors | ||
| Klimoski & Mohammed, 1994 | Referring to Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: Metaphors are statements in which some less clearly understood object or event (A) is compared to a more clearly expressed object or event (B). – (p. 415) | |
| Nonaka, 1994 | [Implicit definition] “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, p. 5).” – (p. 20) Two contradicting concepts incorporated in one word. (p. 21)
Metaphors: Intuition, images, free association and discontinuity. (p. 21).
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| Meta-triangulation | ||
| Gioia & Pitre, 1990 | [Implicit definition] “The notion of a metaparadigm view is roughly analogous to the notion of triangulation to achieve confidence in observations in more traditional approaches to theory building. The multiple-perspectives view implies a kind of meta-triangulationnot across methods within a single theory or paradigm, as is currently in vogue, but across theories and paradigms.” (P. 596) |
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| Mindset | ||
| Thomas, 2005 | [Explicit definition] “(Mindset is understood here to be quite similar to the dominant logic; it is a cognitive orientation or attitude developed over time based on personal experiences or biases).” - P. 56 | |
| Tollin & Martesen, 2007 | [Implicit definition] the innovation orientation concept expresses this idealistic and overall innovation model, or mindset, for product innovation. This interpretation is in accordance with Siguaw et al’s (2006). They state the following: ”Innovation orientation means making innovation the focus of the whole organization. As a result, innovative activities should occur across all functional areas and within all types of tasks” (p. 6) | |
| M-form vs. U-form structures | ||
| Chandler, 1992 | U-form: The centralized, functionally departmentalized structure. M-form: Multidivisional structure with corporate headquarters and a number of product or geographical operating divisions. (P. 271) | |
| Modular innovation | ||
| Henderson & Clark, 1990 | Implicit definition.- See also Architectural innovation “Figure 1 shows two further types of innovation: innovation that changes only the core design concepts of a technology and…. The former is modular innovation, such as the replacement of analog with digital telephones.” (p. 12) |
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| New business creation | ||
| Leifer et al, 2007 | [Explicit definitions] Relating the value chain perspective to new products or services in an established organizational setting has been termed new business creation or corporate entrepreneurship… ensuring long term corporate growth through the development of new streams of revenue – new business creation (p. 1). | |
| Niche creation | ||
| Abernathy & Clark, 1985 | [Implicit definitions] p. 10 Opening new market opportunities through the use of existing technology is central to the kind of innovation we have labeled “niche creation”...these changes build on established technical competence, and improve its applicability in the emerging market segments. |
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| Ontology | ||
| Gioia & Pitre, 1990 | The nature of organizational phenomena (see also epistemology). | |
| Operations management | ||
| Teece, 2007 | “The operational/technical competences possessed might include basic ones such as order entry (to communicate what needs to be made/supplied), billings (to collect from customers), purchasing (to decide what inputs to buy and to then pay suppliers), financial controls (to restrict behavior and prevent theft), inventory controls (to minimize inventory costs) financial reporting (to access capital), marketing (to identify customers), and sales (to obtain orders). Management of these functions is commonly considered operations management.” (p. 27 of paper) | |
| Organization | ||
| Weick, 1993 (referring to Westley, 1990) | Westley's (1990: 339) definition of an organization as "a series of interlocking routines, habituated action patterns that bring the same people together around the same activities in the same time and places" (p. 632) | |
| Weick et al, 2005 (referring Tsoukas and Chia, 2002) | “Organization is an attempt to order the intrinsic flux of human action, to channel it toward certain ends, to give it a particular shape, through generalizing and institutionalizing particular meanings and rules” (Tsoukas and Chia 2002, p. 570). | |
| Organizational learning | ||
| Argyris & Scön, 1978 [Originators ?] |
[Explicit partly definition] “Organizational learning involves the detection and correction of error.” (p. 2) – See also “Single Loop…” |
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| Senge, 1994 | [quoting Shell Oil] “the process though which management teams change their mental models of the company, its markets, and its competitors” (p. 16). “They must bring their assumptions – their mental models – into the open, where they can be challenged and revised. That is how they define organizational learning.” (p. 17). “All things considered, my working definition of organizational learning involves an organization that is continually enhancing its capacity to shape its future, to produce the outcomes its members truly desire.” (p. 17). |
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| Zhou et al, 2005 | Organizational learning represents the development of new knowledge or insights that facilitate performance-enhancing organizational changes… Organizational learning as a process includes information acquisition, information dissemination, shared interpretation, and organizational memory (Sinkula 1994; Slater and Narver 1995). (p. 46) | |
| Organizational memory | ||
| White & Bessant, 2004 | [Explicit definition] “A number of authors have proposed the construct of organisational memory (Lukas and Bell, 2000; Olivera, 2000; Wexler, 2002). This can be defined as information that is recalled from an organizations history, influences current decisions, and is embedded in systems and artifacts (Walsh and Ungson, 1991)” (Proposition 6). “Organizational memory has a limiting and enabling role within the organization. It can ensure that the organization does not repeat errors, and can be a source of learning. However, under certain conditions, the collective impact of the memory of the organization, in tandem with the external information received, can be a cause of corporate inertia and misunderstanding.” (Proposition 6) |
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| Bettis & Prahalad, 1995 | The ability of the organization to learn. (p. 8) | |
| Zhou et al, 2005 | Organizational memory, or the ability to store and access prior lessons, enables a firm to maintain a steady pace of long-term learning (Sinkula 1994). (p. 46) | |
| Paradigm | ||
| Kuhn, 1962 [Originator] |
[Explicit definition] “In this essay, ‘normal science’ means research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice. Today such achievements are recounted, though seldom in their original form, by science textbooks, elementary and advanced. These textbooks expound the body of accepted theory…Their achievement was sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity. Simultaneously, it was sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners to solve. Achievements that share these two characteristics I shall henceforth refer to as ‘paradigms’, a term that closely relates to ‘normal science’. By choosing it, I mean to suggest that some examples of actual scientific practice – examples which include law, theory, application, and instrumentation together – provide models from which spring particular coherent traditions of scientific research.” (p. 10) [Implicit definitions, or characteristics] “…paradigms provide scientists not only with a map but also with some of the directions essential for map-making”. (p. 108) ”[Scientists] are little better than laymen at characterizing the established bases of their field, its legitimate problems and methods” (p. 47) |
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| Gioia & Pitre, 1990 | [Explicit definition] “A paradigm is a general perspective or way of thinking that reflects fundamental beliefs and assumptions about the nature of organizations.” | |
| Lewis & Grimes, 1999 | Paradigms: Assumptions, practices and agreements among a scholarly community. (p. 672) Multiparadigm: Disparate paradigmatic perspectives. Metaparadigm: A more holistic view that transcends paradigm distinctions to reveal disparity and complementarity. Multiparadigm reviews involves recognition of divides and bridges in existing theory, e.g. characterizing paradigm X and Y. Multiparadigm research involves using paradigm lenses (X and Y) empirically to collect and analyze data and cultivate their diverse representations of organizational phenomena. Metaparadigm theory building: Striving to juxtapose and link conflicting paradigm insights (X and Y) within a novel understanding (Z). – All p. 673. Metatriangulation (from Gioia & Pitre, 1990): A process of building theory from multiple paradigms. Method for metatriangulation:
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| Paradoxes | ||
| Andriopoulos, C. & M. Lewis, 2009. | “paradoxes—not as either/or dilemmas or trade-offs, but as synergistic and interwoven polarities” (p. 701) “A paradox is an idea involving two opposing thoughts or propositions which, however contradictory, are equally necessary to convey a more imposing, illuminating, life-related or provocative insight into truth than either fact can muster in its own right … What the mind seemingly cannot think, it must think. (Slaatte 1968, p. 4) |
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| The Paradox of success | ||
| Audia, Locke & Smith, 2000 [Originators] |
[Explicit definition] “The research identifies an intriguing pattern that we call the paradox of success. The paradox lies in the fact that the very success that organizations strive to achieve plants the seeds of their possible future decline. Once organizations achieve success, their natural tendency is to continue to exploit the strategies that worked in the past. … Such success-persistence-success cycles, however, become self-destructive when radical external changes impose the need to use new strategies.” - P. 849. – See also Success Trap. | |
| Path dependencies | ||
| Teece et al, 1997 | Explicit definition: By paths we refer to strategic alternatives available to the firm, and the presence or absence of increasing returns and attendant path dependencies. (p. 518). Path dependencies. Where a firm can go is a function of its current position and the paths ahead. Its current position is often shaped by the path it has traveled. (p. 522) Thus a firm’s investments and its repertoire of routines (its ‘history’) constrain its future behavior. (p. 523) |
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| Perceived market opportunity | ||
| Atuahene-Gima, 2005 | This construct refers to the tendency of managers to interpret a market situation as having positive rather than negative implications for the firm, as representing a potential gain rather than a loss, as being controllable rather than uncontrollable. Opportunities and threats are the mental schemata that commonly underlie managers’ interpretations of the market environment. (p. 64) | |
| Perception | ||
| Kiesler & Sproull, 1982 | [Explicit definition] According to social perception theories, perception is a process in which the perceiver constructs reality by performing cognitive operations on cues derived from the environment. (p. 552) …the steps that follow perception: encoding, representation and organization of encoded material, memory, and retrieval. (p. 556). |
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| Periphery and peripheral vision | ||
| Foster & Kaplan, 2001 | [Implicit definitions] “It is at the periphery [of industries] that new companies are forming to exploit unmet customer needs and capitalize on new capabilities, new technologies, and new ways of doing business. The periphery is a vital part of Schumpeter’s “gales of creative destruction.”” (p. 216). “To understand the periphery one has to understand the unmet needs waiting for fulfilment, as well as the capabilities that may be used to fulfil them.” (p. 217). “Focusing on the evolution of the periphery helps ensure that the focus of innovative activity within the corporation will be on substantial and transformational change, since these are the dominant types of change found on the periphery”. (p. 219). |
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| Winter, 2004 | [Implicit definitions] “Since evolution develops these specialised sensors, how do we explain the existence of peripheral vision in humans at all? It suggests that the evolved sensors might be useful for something other than the driving evolutionary ‘purpose’. Instead of just responding to existing threats and opportunities seen by narrow-band vision, peripheral vision may help identify new threats and opportunities.” (P. 165) “They [business organizations] rely heavily on specialised ‘tunnel vision’ that makes it difficult to shift from peripheral to focal vision or rapidly deploy resources to pick up and define new stimuli.” P. 167 Peripheral vision matters to companies for being able to identify new customers, threats and opportunities, and being able to deal with rivals or adversaries who speak another language (p. 167). Absorptive Capacity is seen as a sensor for peripheral vision (p. 167): “The problem of identifying threats and opportunities in emerging technologies. They are invisible if the organisation lacks peripheral vision and deployable ‘absorptive capacity’ as a sensor.” |
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| Position | ||
| Teece et al, 1997 | Explicit definition: By position we refer to its [a firm’s] current specific endowments of technology, intellectual property, complementary assets, customer base, and its external relations with suppliers and complementors. (p. 518) | |
| Primed strategy | ||
| Audia, Locke & Smith, 2000 | [Explicit definition, referring to Early & Perry, 1987 as originators] “A strategy is primed when the person who is choosing a strategy is given information that includes a certain mental set.” (p. 841). | |
| Problem sensing | ||
| Kiesler & Sproull, 1982 | [Implicit definition] …the cognitive processes of noticing and constructing meaning about environmental change so that organizations can take action (p. 548) | |
Processes / process |
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| Burgelman, 1996 | “Process is defined as the pattern of activities of differentially positioned managers that, together, produce outcomes such as strategic business exit.” (p. 194) | |
| Teece et al, 1997 | Explicit definition: By managerial and organizational processes, we refer to the way things are done in the firm, or what might be referred to as its routines, or patterns of current practice and learning. (p. 518). – See also Routines. Organizational processes have three roles: coordination/integration (a static concept); learning (a dynamic concept); and reconfiguration (a transformational concept). (p. 518). |
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| Product life cycle | ||
| Klepper, 1996 | “When industries are new, there is a lot of entry, firms offer many different versions of the industry's product, the rate of product innovation is high, and market shares change rapidly. Despite continued market growth, subsequently entry slows, exit overtakes entry and there is a shakeout in the number of producers, the rate of product innovation and the diversity of competing versions of the product decline, increasing effort is devoted to improving the production process, and market shares stabilize….“this evolutionary pattern has come to be known as the product life cycle (PLC).” (p. 562) | |
| Punctuated equilibrium | ||
| Gersick, 1991 | [Explicit definition with reference to originators] “Natural historians Niles Eldredge and Stephen Gould (1972) postulate a very different view of evolution as punctuated equilibrium. They propose that lineages exist in essentially static form (equilibrium) over most of their histories, and new species arise abruptly, through sudden, revolutionary “punctuations” of rapid change…”. (p. 11). Equilibrium: Long periods of stability. Revolution: Compact periods of qualitative, metamorphic change. (p. 12). Example: Kuhn’s distinction of normal science and scientific revolution. (p. 11) “Graduate paradigms imply that systems can “accept” virtually any change, any time, as long as it is small enough; big changes result from the insensible accumulation of small ones. In contrast, punctuated equilibrium suggests that, for most of systems’ histories, there are limits beyond which “change is actively prevented, rather than always potential but merely suppressed because no adaptive advantage would accrue” (Gould, 1989: 124).” P. 12 Punctuated equilibriums are not smooth trajectories towards pre-set ends; rather unpredictable changes. (p. 12) “Systems evolve through the alternation of periods of equilibrium, in which persistent underlying structures permit only incremental change, and periods of revolution, in which these underlying structures are fundamentally altered.” (p. 13) (See “Deep structure”). “Within equilibrium periods, the system’s basic organization and activity patterns stay the same; the equilibrium period consists of maintaining and carrying out these choices.” (p. 16) “Revolutions are relatively brief periods when a system’s deep structure comes apart, leaving it in disarray until the period ends, with the “choices” around which a new deep structure forms. Revolutionary outcomes, based on interactions of systems’ historical resources with current events, are not predictable; they may or they may not leave a system better off. Revolutions vary in magnitude.” (p. 20) |
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| Rationality, technologies of | ||
| March, 2006 | The technologies of rationality involve three components: first, abstractions, models of situations that identify sets of variables, their causal structures, and sets of action alternatives; second, collections of data capturing histories of the organization and the world in which it acts; third, decision rules that consider alternatives in terms of their expected consequences and select the alternative that has the best expected consequences from the point of view of the organization’s values, desires, and time perspectives. (p. 203) | |
| Radical vs. disruptive innovation | ||
| Zhou et al, 2005 | Tech-based innovations that fundamentally change the technological trajectory and improve customer benefits are called “radical innovations” (e.g., color versus black-and-white television, diesel versus steam locomotive, jets versus turbojets) (Benner and Tushman 2003; Chandy and Tellis 1998; Tushman and Anderson 1986). Market-based innovations that improve performance through subsequent development to a level superior to existing products and that eventually overtake existing products in mainstream markets are called “disruptive innovations” (Christensen 1997). The introduction of PCs serves as an example. (p. 43) |
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| Radical Innovation vs. incremental innovation | ||
| Abernathy & Clark, 1985 | [Implicit definitions] (p. 6) Conservative innovations enhance the value of the firm’s existing competence; conserve the established competence of the firm, and may actually entrench those skills. Radical innovations reflect Schumpeter’s “creative destruction”. They work through a redefinition of what is required to achieve competitive advantage. In strong form, where disruption is both deep and extensive, such innovation creates new industries. See also Conservative vs. Radical Innovation. |
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| Henderson & Clark, 1990 | “Incremental innovation introduces relatively minor changes to the existing product, exploits the potential of the established design, and often reinforces the dominance of established firms.” (p. 9). – “Incremental innovation refines and extends an established design. Improvement occurs in individual components, but the underlying core design concepts, and the links between them, remain the same.” (p. 11) “Radical innovation, in contrast, is based on a different set of engineering and scientific principles and often opens up whole new markets and potential applications” (p. 9). – “Radical innovation establishes a new dominant design and hence, a new set of core design concepts embodied in components that are linked together in a new architecture” (p. 11). |
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| Henderson & Clark, 1990 | [Quote from White & Bessant, 2004] “Henderson and Clark (1990) described incremental innovation as; relatively minor changes to existing designs that exploit the potential of the established design, and often reinforce the dominance of established firms. By contrast, radical innovation is based on a different set of engineering ideas, opening up whole new markets, and they can create great difficulties for established firms” (p. 3) |
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| Anderson & Tushman, 1990 | [Implicit definition] “At rare and irregular intervals in every industry, innovations appear that “command a decisive cost or quality advantage and that strike not at the margins of the profits and the outputs of the existing firms, but at their foundations and their very lives” (Schumpeter, 1942, 84). Such innovations depart dramatically from the norm of continuous incremental innovation that characterizes product classes, and they may be termed technological discontinuities”. - p. 606 |
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| R. Leifer et al, 2000 | [Explicit definition for empirical research] “A radical innovation project is one with the potential to produce one or more of the following:
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| Zhou et al, 2005 (referring Wind and Mahajan1997) | Depending on their “newness,” innovations can be incremental (continuous) or breakthrough (discontinuous). Incremental innovations refer to minor changes in technology, simple product improvements, or line extensions that minimally improve the existing performance. In contrast, breakthrough innovations are novel, unique, or state-of-the-art technological advances in a product category that significantly alter the consumption patterns of a market (Wind and Mahajan1997). | |
| Atuahene-Gima, 2005 | Incremental innovationsare product innovations and line extensions that are usually aimed at satisfying the needs of existing customers. They involve small changes in technology and little deviation from the current product-market experiences of the firm. Radical innovationsinvolve fundamental changes in technology for the firm, typically address the needs of emerging customers, are new to the firm and/or industry, and offer substantial new benefits to customers. [Reference to Chandy & Tellis 1998]. (p. 65). |
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| Redundant information (redundancy) | ||
| Nonaka, 1994 | More info than required by the individual (p. 28) | |
| Regular innovation | ||
| Abernathy & Clark, 1985 [Originators] |
[Explicit definition] “Regular innovation involves change that builds on established technical and production competence and that is applied to existing markets and customers”. (p. 12) |
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| Research & Development | ||
| JF Christensen, 2002 | “…management of R&D is here analytically differentiated into R&D strategy, that is, the explicit or implicit longer term direction of R&D investments, and the R&D structure, that is, the organizational mode of managing R&D. Management of R&D is divided into two sub-functional categories, management of innovation and management of technology.” | |
| Bessant & Maher, 2009 (from Frascati) | “Taking the original Frascati manual definition, R&D is "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge .... and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications’.” (p. 2 of paper) | |
Resource-based theory |
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| Alvarez & Barney, 2007 [Originator: Barney, 1986] |
[Implicit definition] This theory examines the conditions under which heterogeneously distributed and costly to copy resources and capabilities can be sources of sustained competitive advantage for firms. | |
Resources |
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| Barney, 1991 | “all assets, capabilities, organizational processes, firm attributes, information, knowledge etc. controlled by a firm that enable the firm to conceive of and implement strategies that improve its efficiency and effectiveness” (p. 101) | |
| Teece et al, 1997 | Explicit definition: Resources are firm specific assets that are difficult if not impossible to imitate. | |
| Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000 | “Resources are at the heart of the resource-based view (RBV). They are those specific physical (e.g., specialized equipment, geographic location), human (e.g., expertise in chemistry), and organizational (e.g., superior sales force) assets that can be used to implement value-creating strategies (Barney, 1986; Wernerfelt, 1984, 1995). They include the local abilities or ‘competencies’ that are fundamental to the competitive advantage” (p. 1106-1107). | |
| Revolutionary innovation | ||
| Abernathy & Clark, 1985 [Originators?] |
[Explicit definition] Innovation that disrupts and renders established technical and production competence obsolete, yet is applied to existing markets and customers, is labeled “Revolutionary”. (P. 12) |
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| Robustness | ||
| Bettis & Hitt, 1995 | “The positive y-intercept of the graph reflects the fact that no response may be necessary. As shown in the figure, we define this intercept as the robustness of the initial position. By robustness, we mean the potential for success under varying future circumstances or scenarios.” (p. 16) | |
| Routines | ||
| Teece et al, 1997 | Explicit definitions: When firm-specific assets are assembled in integrated clusters spanning individuals and groups so that they enable distinctive activities to be performed, these activities constitute organizational routines and processes. (p. 516). By managerial and organizational processes, we refer to the way things are done in the firm, or what might be referred to as its routines, or patterns of current practice and learning. (p. 518). – See also Processes. Thus a firm’s investments and its repertoire of routines (its ‘history’) constrain its future behavior. (p. 523) |
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| Jansen et al, 2005 | “Units pursue routinization to develop sequences of tasks that require relatively little attention (Galunic & Rodan, 1998) and to ensure that inputs are transformed into outputs (Perrow, 1967).” (p. 1002) | |
| Rules-abiding vs. rule-changing | ||
| Burgelman & Grove, 2007 | Explicit definitions.
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| Rules of the game | ||
| Burgelman & Grove, 2007 | They describe two dimensions of strategic actions: Rule-changing vs. rule-abiding. The “rules of the game” are described as a) normative; b) technological; c) economic; d) cognitive – the latter very familiar to ‘dominant logic’, except that the cognitive rules are at the industry level. – Also see ‘cognitive rules’ (p. 965) | |
| Schemas | ||
| Kiesler & Sproull, 1982 | [Implicit definition] In information-processing models, knowledge of prior behavior and expectations about behavior are organized in abstract structures called schemas, scripts, or stereotypes…These knowledge structures are the constructs against which new information is tested for relevance (p. 557) | |
| Tyler & Gnyawali, 2002 | [Explicit definitions] “A schema is defined as a knowledge framework that selects and actively modifies experience in order to arrive at a coherent, unified, expectation-confirmation and knowledge consistent representation of experience in an individual’s mind” (reference to Alba & Hasher, 1983). (p. 261) “A managerial schema is a structured, domain-specific pack of knowledge that allows a manager to interpret, encode, store, and retrieve information appropriate to various decisions.” (reference to Lord & Foti, 1986). (p. 261) |
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| Self-affirmation | ||
| White & Bessant, 2004 | [Implicit definition referring to Aronson, as originator] “Aronson (1959) suggests that the concept of the self is a critical factor in determining whether or not [cognitive] dissonance occurs. So when an important element of the self is threatened, e.g. competency, morality or ability to predict their behaviour, people endeavour to maintain a sense of self that is both consistent and positive. This phenomenon is described as self-affirmation theory.” (p. 7) |
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| Sensemaking and sensegiving | ||
| Weick et al, 2005 (originator) | “Sensemaking involves turning circumstances into a situation that is comprehended explicitly in words and that serves as a springboard into action.” – “Sensemaking involves the ongoing retrospective development of plausible images that rationalize what people are doing.” – “Sensemaking is about the interplay of action and interpretation rather than the influence of evaluation on choice.” (all p. 409). “This noticing and bracketing is an incipient state of sensemaking. In this context sensemaking means basically “inventing a new meaning (interpretation) for something that has already occurred during the organizing process, but does not yet have a name (italics in original), has never been recognized as a separate autonomous process, object, event” (Magala 1997, p. 324).” “Explicit efforts at sensemaking tend to occur when the current state of the world is perceived to be different from the expected state of the world, or when there is no obvious way to engage the world.” (p. 409). “Organizational sensemaking is first and foremost about the question: How does something come to be an event for organizational members? Second, sensemaking is about the question: What does an event mean?” (p. 410) Sensegiving: “a sensemaking variant undertaken to create meanings for a target audience” (p. 416) |
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| Shared cognition and shared strategic cognition | |||||||||||
| Klimoski & Mohammed, 1994 | “Shared cognitions”: the construct refer to what team members know about what their other team members know and share in common (p. 432). | ||||||||||
| Ensley & Pearce, 2001 | Explicit definitions: “Shared cognition in top management teams (TMTs) is the extent to which those mental models about strategy are shared.” (p. 145). “…we define shared strategic cognition as the extent to which strategic mental models held in the hearts and minds of the TMT members overlap or agree.” (p. 146) Implicit definition: “Shared cognition, or thinking at the group level…” (p. 145) |
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| Single Loop vs. Double Loop learning, and Second Order or “Deutero” learning | |||||||||||
| Argyris, 1976 | Implicit definitions “One might say that participants in organizations are encouraged to learn to perform as long as the learning does not question the fundamental design, goals, and activities of their organization. This learning might be called single-loop learning. In double-loop learning, a participant would be able to ask questions about changing fundamental aspects of the organization”. (p. 367) |
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| Argyris & Schön, 1978 [Originators, except Deutero learning] |
[Explicit definitions of single and double loop]: “…first we must define a few concepts. Organizational learning involves the detection and correction of error. When the error detected and corrected permits the organization to carry on its present policies or achieve its present objectives, then that error-detection-and-correction process is single-loop learning. Single-loop learning is like a thermostat that learns when it is too hot or too cold and turns the heat on or off. The thermostat can perform this task because it can receive information (the temperature of the room) and take corrective action. Double-loop learning occurs when error is detected and corrected in ways that involve the modification of an organization’s underlying norms, policies, and objectives.” (p. 2-3). “Single-loop learning is sufficient where the error correction can proceed by changing organizational strategies and assumptions within a constant framework of norms for performance. It is concerned primarily with effectiveness…within the range specified by existing norms.” (p. 20-21). “We call this sort of learning double-loop. There is in this sort of episode a double feedback loop with [which?] connects the detection of error not only to strategies and assumptions for effective performance but to the very norms which define effective performance.” (p. 22) “We will give the name “double loop learning” to those sorts of organizational inquiry which resolve incompatible organizational norms by setting new priorities and weightings of norms, or by restructuring the norms themselves together with associated strategies and assumptions.” (p. 24) [Partly explicit definitions of second order learning]: “In our earlier example, to take one instance, managers of the industrial firm might conclude that their organization needs to learn how to restructure itself, at regular intervals, so as to exploit the new technologies generated by research and development. That is, the organization needs to learn how to carry out single- and double-loop learning. This sort of learning to learn Gregory Bateson has called deutero-learning (that is, second-order learning).” P. 26. “When an organization engages in deuteron-learning, its members learn… about previous contexts for learning. They reflect on and inquire into previous contexts for learning…they invent strategies for learning, they produce these strategies, and they evaluate and generalize what they have produced. The results become encoded in individual images and maps and are reflected in organizational learning practice.” (p. 27). “In these examples, however, deutero-learning concentrates on single-loop learning; emphasis is on learning for effectiveness rather than learning to resolve conflicting norms for performance. But the concept of deutero-learning is also relevant to double-loop learning. How, indeed, can organizations become better at double-loop learning?” (p. 28) “The quest for organizational learning capacity must take the form of deutero-learning;” (p. 29). My conclusion:
See this figure of the learning objectives (© Arne Stjernholm Madsen 2007-04-29):
- see also Bessant, 2003, below. |
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| Barr, Stimpert & Huff, 1992 | [Explicit definitions, referring to Argyris and others] “The literature also points to a two-tiered conceptualization of indivual and organizational learning (Argyris, 1976; Fiol and Lyles, 1985). Low level or single loop learning is reflected in behavior rather than changes in understanding. … Higher level or double loop learning, on the other hand, involves a restructuring of the individual’s mental models and results in significant changes in understanding. The higher level learning involves …new concepts and associations.” (p. 17). NB: Argyris’ theory seems to be misunderstood or rudely simplified. “The process of strategic renewal at C&NW was more complex than the two-tiered models of learning usually found in the management literature. The evidence from 25 years shows that neither the level nor the stages of learning were necessarily discrete for this company.” (p. 32). |
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| Bessant, 2003 | Bessant links the theories on organizational learning with ‘do different’ innovation and requests a ‘second order’ learning capability: “The problem with ‘do different’ innovation is that is poses very different challenges...What is needed is a ‘second order’ learning capability – variously called ‘double loop’, ‘generative learning’ or meta-learning – which gives the organization capability to challenge fundamentally the assumptions on which it has been built and operates (Argyris and Scön 1970; Hedberg 1981; Senge 1990a; b; Dodgson 1991; Bessant and Buckingham 1993). Resetting the parameters occasionally may be essential to ensuring new growth possibilities through ‘do different’ innovation”. (p. 192) NB: Here, the concepts of single-double loop and first-second order are mixed up. |
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| Strategic building | |||||||||||
| Burgelman, 1988 | Implict defintion: Strategic building implies recognition of the wider implications of an ICV project’s success [ICV: Internal Corporate Venture], an understanding of the key to that success, and the ability to widen the scope of the venture activity. (p. 80) | ||||||||||
| Social cognition | |||||||||||
| Klimoski & Mohammed, 1994 | Quoting Larson & Christensen, 1993: Social cognition is “social processes that relate to the acquisition, storage, transmission, manipulation, and use of information for the purpose of creating a group-level intellectual product”. (p. 407) | ||||||||||
| Stories and fabula | |||||||||||
| Pentland, 1999 | “In narrative theory these underlying narrative structures are stories (Chatman, 1978; Rimmon-Kenan, 1983) or fabula (Bal, 1985). They reflect the deep structure of a narrative, and they are used to explain and interpret the surface structure, which is the text or the discourse (Rimmon-Kenan, 1983).” – “stories are abstract conceptual models used in explanations of observed data.” (p. 711). “the fabula (Bal, 1985) which refers to a specific set of events, actors, and their relation-ships (e.g., who does what, in what sequence, and so on).” (p. 720) |
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| Strategic capabilities | |||||||||||
| Teece et al, 1997 | Explicit definition: To be strategic, a capability must be honed to a user need (so that there is a source of revenues), unique (so that the products/services produced can be priced without too much regard to competition) and difficult to replicate (so profits will not be competed away). | ||||||||||
| Strategic consensus | |||||||||||
| Ensley & Pearce, 2001 | Explicit definitions: “Strategic consensus has traditionally been defined as understanding and agreeing on strategy (Floyd and Wooldridge, 1992; Wooldridge and Floyd, 1989). Wooldridge and Floyd called true consensus a ‘collective heart and mind regarding fundamental organizational priorities’ (1989: 142)”. (p. 146). |
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| Strategic context determination | |||||||||||
| Noda & Bower, 1996 [originator: Burgelman 1983] | “Strategic context determination is conceived primarily as a political process through which middle managers delineate in concrete terms the content of new fields of business development for the corporation and attempt to convince top managers that the current concept of corporate strategy needs to be changed so as to accommodate successful new business development (Burgelman, 1983a, 1983b). (p. 160) | ||||||||||
| Burgelman & Grove, 2007 [originator: Burgelman 1983] | A process to convince top management to integrate some autonomous initiatives in the induced strategy process. | ||||||||||
| Strategic forcing activities | |||||||||||
| Burgelman, 1988 [reference to Biggadike, 1979] | Explict definition: Market penetration with the new product, process, or system to achieve a beachhead in the market and to show the kind of growth performance that secures further internal support for the development of the business. (p. 79) | ||||||||||
| Strategic innovation | |||||||||||
| White & Bessant, 2004 | [Explicit definition reference] “Markides (1998) defines this as strategic innovation where “a fundamental re-conceptualisation of what the business is all about that, in turn, leads to a dramatically different way of playing the game in an existing business.” And Hamel (2000) suggests the idea of business concept innovation that can be defined as “the capacity to reconceive existing business models in ways that create new value for customers, rude surprises for competitors, and new wealth for competitors.” (p. 3) | ||||||||||
| Strategic Logic | |||||||||||
| Tollin & Mikkola, 2006 [originators?] |
“Strategic Logic is a part of top managers’ mental models. It corresponds with the term ‘business model innovation’… both constructs encompass “the operative rationale of an organization for achieving its goals through value creation and distribution” (Sanchez and Heene, 2005, p. 59). Like the other three areas for innovation it appears relevant to assume that the scope of ‘strategic logic innovation’ from a top management perspective may vary considerably over time and between companies and industries, considering the number of dimensions included in the innovation areas.” P. 8 - See also Dominant Logic. |
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| Strategic orientation | |||||||||||
| Zhou et al, 2005 | Strategic orientation reflects the firm’s philosophy of how to conduct business through a deeply rooted set of values and beliefs that guides the firm’s attempt to achieve superior performance (Gatignon and Xuereb 1997). These values and beliefs define the resources to be used, transcend individual capabilities, and unify the resources and capabilities into a cohesive whole (Day 1994). (p. 44-45) | ||||||||||
| Strategic persistence | |||||||||||
| Audia, Locke & Smith, 2000 [originators?] |
A tendency for firms to stick with strategies that have worked in the past (p. 837). [Explicit definition]: “We defined strategic persistence as the extent to which a firm’s strategic profile remained stable over time and measured it by examining the stability of financial and operational ratios that express the strategic position of a company on specific issues. For example, R&D expenditure divided by total revenues is a classic indicator of a company’s R&D intensity.” (p. 842). |
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| Strategic premises | ||
| Noda & Bower, 1996 | “The message, in effect, was 'don't get excited and invest too much.' In contrast, BMI managers heard that 'cellular is small, but complementary to the core telecommunications business to which we are committed.' This message at least did not preclude BMI managers from developing an innovative approach to cellular and investing in the new business. These primitive assertions, what we might call 'strategic premises', then serve as aspiration levels (Cyert and March, 1963; Levitt and March, 1988) for local search by entrepreneurs at lower levels of the organization” (p. 189). | |
| Strategic response capability | ||
| Bettis & Hitt, 1995 | “…the generalized ability to respond fast when change or surprise occurs. We refer to this as strategic response capability. If firms cannot forecast then they must have the capability to respond quickly.” (p. 15) “At the conceptual level strategic response capability must incorporate the abilities to rapidly: (1) sense change in the environment; (2) conceptualize a response to that change; and (3) reconfigure resources to execute the response.” (p. 16) |
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| Strategy | ||
| Chandler, 1992 | Implicit definition “The major role of the new corporate headquarters became, and remained, that of maintaining the long-term health (usually defined as continued profitability) and growth of their firms. To implement this role the executives at the new headquarters carried out two closely related functions. One was entrepreneurial or value-creating, that is to determine strategies to maintain and then utilize for the long-term the firm’s organizational skills, facilities and capital and to allocate resources – capital and product-specific technical and managerial skills – to pursue these strategies. The second was more administrative or loss-preventive. It was to monitor the performance of the operating divisions; to check on the use of the resources allocated…The administrative tasks of monitoring were, of course, intimately related to the entrepreneurial task of strategic planning and resource allocation”. [my emphasis] (p. 271-272) |
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| Mahoney & Pandian, 1992 | Implicit definition Strategy can be viewed as a ‘continuing search for rent’, where rent is defined as return in excess of a resource owner’s opportunity costs. (p. 250). |
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| Noda & Bower, 1996 (quoting Mintzberg and McHugh, 1985) | “…strategy is 'a pattern in a stream of decisions and actions' (Mintzberg and McHugh, 1985: 161) that are distributed across multiple levels of an organization” (p. 159) | |
| Chesbrough & Rosenbloom, 2002 | From Ansoff, “Strategy came to be seen as a conscious plan to align the firm with opportunities and threats posed by its environment”. Corporate strategy is a superset of business strategy, introduced by Andrews, 1987. Business strategy: product-market choices made by division or product line management in a diversified company. (p. 530) | |
| Strategy formulation | ||
| Mahoney & Pandian, 1992 | Implicit definition The constant search for ways in which the firm’s unique resources can be redeployed in changing circumstances (p. 369). |
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| Structural context | ||
| Burgelman, 1996 | “…the structural context part of the [Bower-Burgelman] process model maps the selective forces associated with the rules governing resource allocation and strategic debate, and the managerial activities involved in attempts to change the rules.” (p. 197)” | |
| Noda & Bower, 1996 | “…structural context (i.e., various organizational and administrative mechanisms such as organizational architecture, information and measurement systems, and reward and punishing systems) (p. 160) | |
| Sustaining technologies | ||
| Christensen & Bower, 1996 [originators?] | …technology changes that have such a sustaining impact on an established trajectory of performance improvement are called sustaining technologies. (p. 202) | |
Success trap (competency trap) |
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| Levinthal & March, 1993 (p. 106) [Originators 1981 ?] |
[Implicit definition] “…past exploitation in a given domain makes future exploitation in the same domain even more efficient. As a result, organizations discover the short-term virtue of local refinement and the folly of exploration (Levinthal and March, 1981)… This competency trap is a standard, potentially self-destructive product of learning.” P. 106 - See also Paradox of Success and Strategic Persistence. |
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| Tacit knowledge vs. explicit knowledge | ||
| Nonaka, 1994 (p. 16) [Originator: Polanyi, 1966] |
[Explicit definitions, referring to Polanyi, 1966] “Explicit” or codified knowledge refers to knowledge that is transmittable in formal, systematic language. On the other hand, “tacit” knowledge has a personal quality, which makes it hard to formalize and communicate. Tacit knowledge is deeply rooted in action, commitment and involvement”. (P. 16) Tacit knowledge involves both cognitive and technical elements. (P. 16)
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| Technological discontinuities | ||
| Anderson & Tushman, 1990 [Originators? Or back to Schumpeter?] |
[Explicit definition] “At rare and irregular intervals in every industry, innovations appear that “command a decisive cost or quality advantage and that strike not at the margins of the profits and the outputs of the existing firms, but at their foundations and their very lives” (Schumpeter, 1942, 84). Such innovations depart dramatically from the norm of continuous incremental innovation that characterizes product classes, and they may be termed technological discontinuities”. - P. 606 – See also Radical Innovation and Discontinuous Innovation. “Technological discontinuities (innovations that dramatically advance an industry’s price vs. performance frontier)” (p. 604). [Definition for empirical research]: “A technological discontinuity is identified when an innovation (a) pushes forward the performance frontier along the parameters of interest by a significant amount and (b) does so by changing the product or process designs, as opposed to merely enlarging the scale of existing designs.” (p. 620). Technological discontinuities can be either building on existing know-how (competence enhancing) or competence destroying. (p. 610) – Cf. breakthrough innovation. |
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| White & Bessant, 2004 | [Explicit definition reference] “Foster (1986) defines them as being when one competitor is reaching the limits of what can be achieved with a technology, while another, and often less experienced, is exploring alternatives.” (p. 1) |
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| Technological turbulence | ||
| Zhou et al, 2005 | Technological turbulence refers to the rate of technological advances within an industry. (p. 47) | |
| Technology | ||
| Christensen & Bower, 1996 | [Explicit definition] The term ‘technology’ as used in this paper, means the processes by which an organization transforms labor, capital, materials, and information into products or services. (p. 198) | |
| Swan, 1997 | [Explicit definition] Technology is seen here as knowledge which is embodied in technical (e.g. hardware, software and physical layout) and organizational (e.g. strategies, routines and structures) knowledge bases (Berniker, 1987; Calrk and Staunton, 1989). (p. 185) | |
| Technology based innovations vs. market based innovations | ||
| Zhou et al, 2005 | Technology-based innovation adopts new and advanced technologies and improves customer benefits relative to existing products for customers in existing markets. Market-based innovation departs from serving existing, mainstream markets. Market-based innovations involve new and different technologies and create a set of fringe, and usually new, customer values for emerging markets (Benner and Tushman 2003; Christensen and Bower 1996). (p. 43) | |
| Technology cycle | ||
| Anderson & Tushman, 1990 [Originators? Or back to Schumpeter?] |
[Implicit definition] “This cyclical model of technological change” (p. 604). See figure 1, p. 606: Technological discontinuity 1 > Era of ferment > Dominant design > Era of incremental change > Technological discontinuity 2. – See the respective sub concepts for their definitions. |
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| White & Bessant, 2004. | [Implicit definition] “In summary, technology progress appears to follow a pattern characterised by an initial period of chaos, out of which new dominants-designs or paradigms emerge. Firms competing within this paradigm innovate, incrementally or radically in nature, along a given trajectory. This innovation is constrained by the dominant design. As time progresses, a new paradigm emerges that is founded upon a new technological architectural knowledge base, which causes a period of chaos. Out of this chaos new firms, serving new customers, often emerge along with the new dominant design.” (p. 3) |
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| Technology management | ||
| Christensen, 2002 | “Management of technology signifies the management and organization of the company’s technology base (the portfolio of existing and prospective technological capabilities underlying product and process innovations).” (p. 1318) | |
| Technology paradigms | ||
| White & Bessant, 2004 [referring to Dosi, 1982] |
[Explicit definition reference] “Dosi (1982) identifies technological paradigms and trajectories. Paradigms are defined as a model and pattern of solution of selected technological problems, based on selected principles derived from natural sciences, and on selected material technologies.Trajectories are where companies innovate within the scope of a paradigm whose nature forms a boundary.” (p. 3) – See also Trajectories. |
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| Territory | ||
| Swan, 1997 | Weick (1990b) suggests that maps are reflections of the words people use to describe events, and not the events themselves, which he refers to as ‘territory’. (p. 194) | |
| Theory | ||
| Whetten, 1989 | [Implicit definition] “I do not distinguish between a model and a theory” (p. 491). “…the essential elements of a simple theory: description and explanation” (p. 491). “Relationships, not lists, are the domain of theory” (p. 492-3). Explicit definitions of the core elements of a theory:
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| Gioia & Pitre, 1990 | [Explicit definition] “We broadly define theoryas any coherent description or explanation of observed or experienced phenomena… Theory building refers to the process or cycle by which such representations are generated, tested and refined.” P. 587 |
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| Pentland, 1999 | “…a theory - an explanation of what is causing the observed outcomes.” “I adopt what DiMaggio (1995) calls the "theory as narrative" view: an explanation is a story that describes the process, or sequence of events, that connects cause and effect”(p. 711). | |
| Karp, 2005 | “Theories are relatively formal explanations or models of how things function in the world. A theory takes the form ‘Event A unfolds as a result of causes B and C’. “ (from Gardner, 2004) (p. 90). | |
| Theories-in-use vs. espoused theories of action | ||
| Argyris, 1976 [originator] |
Implicit definition Espoused theories of action are those that people report as basis for actions. Theories-in-use are the theories of action inferred from how people actually behave (p. 367). |
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| Trajectories | ||
| Pavitt, 1984 | “the notion of “technological trajectories,” namely, directions of technical development that are cumulative and self-generating, without repeated reference to the economic environment external to the firm.” (p. 355) | |
| Pavitt, 1998 | “'technological trajectories' and 'routines' were introduced by Nelson and Winter (1977, 1982) to reflect the cumulative and path-dependent nature of technical change, the often tacit nature of the knowledge underlying it, and the trial-and-error behaviour of business practitioners trying to cope with a complex and ever-changing world” (p. 434) | |
| Christensen, 2002 | “Here we shall use the notion of corporate organizational trajectories to signify path-dependent development patterns in the overall strategy-structure constellation. Especially we shall argue that companies with a long history of institutional continuity are subject to long periods of relative inertia in terms of organizational and strategic development.” (p. 1319) | |
| White & Bessant, 2004 | [Explicit definition reference] “Dosi (1982) identifies technological paradigms and trajectories. Paradigms are defined as a model and pattern of solution of selected technological problems, based on selected principles derived from natural sciences, and on selected material technologies.Trajectories are where companies innovate within the scope of a paradigm whose nature forms a boundary.” (p. 3) – See also Technology paradigms. |
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| Transilience | ||
| Aberthy & Clarck, 1985 [originators] | Explicit definitions “The capacity of an innovation to influence the established systems of production and marketing.” (Summary). “Its capacity to influence the firm’s existing resources, skills and knowledge” (p. 5). NB: = “the range of effects an innovation might have” p. 6 ? |
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| Unlearning | ||
| Prahalad & Bettis, 1986 | The process by which firms eliminate old logics and behaviors and make room for new ones. (P. 498). | |
| Value network | ||
| Tripsas, 1997 | Referring to Rosenbloom and Christensen 1994 as originators, who ‘introduce the term value network…the system of producers and markets serving the ultimate user of the products or services to which a given innovation contributes’. (p. 122) | |
| Variation-Selection-Retention | ||
| Noda & Bower, 1996 | “…the variation-selection-retention framework of cultural evolutionary theory (Campbell, 1969; Aldrich, 1979; Weick, 1979). Strategic initiatives are identified and examined in the definition process, within the corporate context (variation), are selected out in the impetus process by corporate context as 'internal selection environment' (selection), and lead to the reinforcement or modification of corporate context (retention).” (p. 160) | |
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| Arne Stjernholm Madsen Skolegade 9, 1.th, DK-2500 Valby, Copenhagen, Denmark Tel +45 30 45 43 93 arne@strategic-innovation.dk |
