a tribute to Sumantra Ghoshal (1948–2004)

In this blog i have tried to acknowledge contributions of some great minds in business and management, today i pay a tribute to Sumantra Ghoshal (1948–2004). he was undoubtedly one of the greatest minds in history of business and management. 

he wrote numerous influential articles on management theory and practice of which perhaps the "Bad Management Theories are Destroying Good Management Practices" is the watershed piece of scholarship in management research. 


the following list was taken from his page on wikipedia and shows some of his publications: 

• Beyond Self-Interest Revisited" by Hector Rocha and Sumantra Ghoshal, Journal of Management Studies, 2006 Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 585–619
• "Bad Management Theories are Destroying Good Management Practices" by Sumantra Ghoshal, Academy of Management Learning and Education, 2005 Vol. 4 Issue 1, pp. 75–91
• "Unleashing Organisational Energy" by Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal, MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2003 Vol. 45, No. 1, pp. 45–51
• "What is a Global Manager" by Christopher A. Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal, Harvard Business Review, 2003 Aug;81(8):101-108, 141
• "Managing Personal Human Capital" by Lynda Gratton and Sumantra Ghoshal, European Management Journal, 2003 vo. 21, No. 1, pp. 1–10
• "Beware the Busy Manager" by Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal, Harvard Business Review, 2002, vol. 80, No. 2, pp. 62–69
• "Strategy as a Guided Evolution" by Bjorn Lovas and Sumantra Ghoshal, Strategic Management Journal, 2000, vol. 21, No. 9, pp. 875–896
• "Management Competence, Firm Growth and Economic Progress" by Sumantra Ghoshal, M Hahn and Peter Moran, Contributions to Political Economy, Vol. 18, pp. 121–150, 1999
• "Markets, Firms, and the Process of Economic Development" by Peter Moran and Sumantra Ghoshal, The Academy of Management Review, 1999, Vol. 24, No. 3, 390-412
• "Social Capital and Value Creation: The Role of Intrafirm Networks" by Wenpin Tsai and Sumantra Ghoshal, The Academy of Management Journal, 1998 Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 464–476
• "Social capital, intellectual capital and the organizational advantage" by Janine Nahapiet and Sumantra Ghoshal, Academy of Management Review, 1998 23(2): 242-266
• "Theories of Economic Organisation: The Case for Realism and Balance" by Peter Moran and Sumantra Ghoshal, The Academy of Management Review, 1996, Vol. 21 No. 1, pp. 58–72
• "Bad For Practice: A Critique of the Transaction Cost Theory" by Sumantra Ghoshal and Peter Moran, The Academy of Management Review, 1996 Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 13–47
• "Building the Entrepreneurial Corporation: New Organisational Processes, New Managerial Tasks" by Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher A. Bartlett, European Management Journal, 1995 Vol. 13 No.2, pp. 139–55
• "Differentiated Fit and Shared Values: Alternatives for Managing Headquarters-Subsidiary Relations" by Nitin Nohria and Sumantra Ghoshal, Strategic Management Journal, 1994, Vol. 15, No. 6, pp. 491–502
• "Interunit Communication in Multinational Corporations" by Sumantra Ghoshal, Harry Korine and Gabriel Szulanski, Management Science, Vol. 40, No. 1, January 1994, pp. 96–110
• "Beyond the M-form: Toward a Managerial Theory of the Firm" by Christopher A. Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal, Strategic Management Journal, 1993 No. 14, Winter, pp. 23–46
• "Matrix Management: Not a Structure, a Frame of Mind" by Christopher A. Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal, Harvard Business Review, 1990 Jul-Aug; 68(4): 138-145
• "Environmental Scanning in Korean Firms: Organisational Isomorphism in Action" by Sumantra Ghoshal, Journal of International Business Studies, 1988 Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 69–86
• "Creation, Adoption, and Diffusion of Innovations by Subsidiaries of Multinational Corporations" by Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher A. Bartlett, Journal of International Business Studies, 1988 Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 365–388

i personally haven't had chance to read all of his scholarly works but by reading few i have learnt a lot about how global economy and corporate world work and how management practices and theory can be bridged effectively. i hope those who are interested in these subject pay enough attention to what sumantra has left for us 

if you haven't read his works i suggest following books to start: 

1. Managing Across Borders: The Transnational Solution
 (Bartlett & Ghoshal 2002), a book he co-authored with Christopher A. Bartlett, has been listed in the Financial Times as one of the 50 most influential management books and has been translated into nine languages.
2. The Strategy Process: Concepts, Contexts, Cases : Global by Henry Mintzberg, Joseph Lampel, James Brian Quinn, and Sumantra Ghoshal, 2002.
3. The Differentiated Network : Organizing Multinational Corporations for Value Creation (The Jossey-Bass Business & Management Series) by Nitin Nohria and Sumantra Ghoshal (Hardcover - Feb 19, 1997)

have you ever asked yourself; what strategy is really?

this is perhaps one of the most perplexing and enduring questions in management and business history.
Ansoff, Mintzberg, Porter and Hambrick are amongst the most renowned scholars who have tried to provide a compelling answer for this question.

given this , in a new series of post i am going to publish, i have planned to give you a brief overview of these thoughts


i begin with Michale Porter, professor porter is recognized as the father of modern strategic management , his article in 1996 HBR ( what is strategy) is also a landmark and watershed piece of scholarship in strategy literature and explained nicely what strategy is form the perspective of industrial organization (IO)

following the industrial organization paradigm , and famous five-forces model in Porterian school of strategy , strategy means positioning


when a firm formulates a strategy it sets a plan (a series of processes, procedures, decisions and actions) in order to position itself differently in the market. 

thus according to porter (1996): strategy is doing things differently or  doing different things 

when it is said that differentiation either in cost structures or in product mix ( innovation) is the essence of strategy it falls into porterian school of strategy. 


firms who follow this mindset are differentiators who see competitiveness and supremacy in being constantly different and gain profit our of their position. 


these firms are able to achieve economies of scale and economies of scope and hence monopolize themselves 

competitive position of  firms in this view is ultimately sustained by their monopoly market power 

can you name some cases in this school? 


in the next post i will explain other schools and compare them 

best strategy article of 2010 ( in my opinion)

the number of articles published each year in top tier academic journals exceeds 200 and the field of strategy and strategic management takes a big portion of this mass body.

in this regard, choosing the best article is almost impassible as each article adds unique value to the current body of knowledge which might be so useful and helpful to someone and less valuable to others.

however i decided to sort and rank the first three articles in my fields of interest whcih is the theoy of strategy and competitiveness in hyper-competitive environment. the decision is made based on two criteria of my own understanding : a) novelty of developed arguments and b) underlying methods

so in order to apply these criteria i went through all articles in top five strategy journals:

1. long range planing
2. strategic management journal
3. academy of management journal
   
4. academy of management review
5. strategic organization
   

the three articles i chose are :

1. from strategic management journal is the " ROLE OF RESOURCE GAP AND VALUE APPROPRIATION: EFFECT OF REPUTATION GAP ON PRICE PREMIUM IN ONLINE AUCTIONS" written by TOMASZ OBLOJ and LAURENCE CAPRON from INSEAD
2. from academy of management journal "EARNINGS PRESSURE AND COMPETITIVE BEHAVIOR: EVIDENCE FROM THE U.S. ELECTRICITY INDUSTRY", written by ZHANG, YU and GIMENO, JAVIER. and the last
   
3. from strategic management journal again; "Managerial decision making and firm performance under a resource-based paradigm ", written by Martin H. Kunc and John D. W. Morecroft

reading these pieces of scholarship is strongly recommended

pillars of strategy science: Part One Henry Mintzberg

professor Henry Mintzberg is undeniably one of the most influential authors in management and strategy

he has written numerous insightful books about organization design, management and manger's tasks and also strategic management

he is perhaps one of the architects of modern business school systems and has always been recognized as a chief thinkers in contemporary management communities


his books include:

1973	The Nature of Managerial Work
1979	The Structuring of Organizations: A Synthesis of the Research
1983	Power In and Around Organizations
1983	Structure in fives: Designing Effective Organizations
1989	Mintzberg on Management: Inside Our Strange World of Organizations
1991	The Strategy Process: (with Joe Lampel, Sumantra Ghoshal and J.B. Quinn)
1994	The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning: Reconceiving the Roles for Planning, Plans, Planners (Mintzberg 1994)
1998	Strategy Safari (with Bruce Ahlstrand and Joe Lampel)
2000	Managing Publicly (with Jacques Bourgault)
2000	Why I Hate Flying
2004	Managers not MBAs (Mintzberg 2004)
2005	Strategy Bites back
2007	Tracking Strategies: Towards a General Theory of Strategy Formation
2009	Managing

furthermore he has written key articles in which he descried variety of topics whcih then formed the platform of modern strategic management, these can include but not limited to the following concepts:

10 schools of strategy

5ps of strategy

deliberate and emergent strategies

strategy in adhcracy

design and planing in strategy process


i am a big fan of him and hope this brief overview help followers know him better and study his works

his website is also interesting and useful


www.mintzberg.org/

BP fiasco and leadership strategy lessons ( Part 1)

BP fiasco and leadership-strategy lessons

the 2010 British petroleum disaster perhaps is the biggest and most-talked-about catastrophic leadership cases in recent history of corporate world.

on the one hand it shows how a giant gets on its knees for a small operational mistake or mismanagement and on the other hand it underscores the importance of corporate citizenship, environmental protective initiatives and critical significance of global management.

BP has had a long history of global expansion and constant profitability but this crisis not only ruined this record but more importantly caused a shaky situation for all stockholders of the company, on one point even the board was confused about the future of BM as a whole globally expanded system.

strategically, the oil spill in gulf of Mexico has brought for BP billions of tangible and intangible problematic costs not only in terms of recovery strategies, operational and maintenance costs and contractual operations but in terms of intangibles including customer and investors support, reputation, industrial and governmental relations and global image .

having said that, BP's CEO must have improvised an intensive scenario planing for dealing with both short and long term consequences of this operational fiasco but he instead belittled the situation and focused on pursuing other strategic objectives .

he was accused of being unresponsive, selfish and paranoid while spending vacation time with family and enjoying life when hundreds of people were working hard to clean his mess

all of this led to a situation where no one could tolerate his state of crisis management and leadership . two points are here to be highlighted:

should have BP kept CEO in act for steering the vessel in this chaotic water while asking him change his style?

should have BP changed its leader on the spot in order to prevent defaming news from spreading all over the world?

however BP chose the third scenario which was waiting and then changing CEO under increasing tension

the point here is that, is this decision helpful nd will BP get back on his feet ?


i continue this discussion and underline main strategic implications of this act

innovation and invention

there has long been a question yet to be truly answered;

how different is innovation from invention?

have a glance at the following stories:

1. i have invented a new engine which consumes 10 liters of oil and produces 2 horse power
2. i have invented a new engine which consumes 0.2 liter of oil and produces 100 horse power
   

both are inventions and i am an inventor but in which case am i an innovator?


yes innovation must creates value and eliminates existing waste or simply it must render positive change in the existing status of something

strategy and innovation

strategy is all about competitive supremacy
innovation is all about value novelty

thus strategy and innovation is all about rendering novel value to gain supremacy in a competitive environment. with this introduction i start blogging and developing the stream of information in this blog.

i am going to update my blog every two weeks or once a month on the regular basis of reading and reviewing top journal article and global leading research works in this filed

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