Change Your Input Change Your Output
The paper I wanted to share today aims to provide a common language about the research process that helps management scholars spend less time defending the style of research they have chosen and build more effectively on each other’s work.
I felt this series on Clayton Christensen’s work and theories would be incomplete without this episode.
It is a great pleasure to welcome the co-author of that paper and a person who has built on this work considerably, Paul Carlile.
Apoptosis provides a fitting metaphor for what must happen in organisations to survive continuous cycles of change. Rather than letting the entire organisation die, the corporate body’s sectors, departments, and business units must regularly renew, just like a human body. Like any healthy process, the end of one cycle is the beginning of another, and it is better to embrace this law than to resist it. Easier said than done.
Our guest’s award-winning research introduces a new perspective on value creation and competition when industry boundaries break down in the wake of ecosystem disruption. His two books, The Wide Lens and Winning the Right Game, have been heralded as landmark contributions to strategy literature. Clayton Christensen described his work as “Path-breaking”, and Jim Collins has called him “One of our most important strategic thinkers for the 21st century.”
It is a pleasure to welcome Ron Adner.
Find Ron here: https://ronadner.com
Using the rational, analytical investment processes that most well-managed companies have developed, it is nearly impossible to build a logical case for diverting resources from known customer needs in established markets to markets and customers that seem insignificant or do not yet exist.
Clark G. Gilbert on Clayton Christensen, “Dual Transformation” and “From Resource Allocation to Strategy”
As Clayton Christensen reiterated throughout his work, capable managers do not become incapable overnight; they act in what they believe is in the best interests of the organisation they serve. For the executives in Western Union, there was simply no way they could have anticipated that the telephone would ever get good enough to be a competitive threat. As the great innovator Buckminster Fuller said, “There is nothing in the caterpillar that tells you it will be a butterfly.”
Joseph L. Bower is the father of Resource Allocation theory included in his 1970 groundbreaking book, Managing the Resource Allocation Process.
He has been a leader in general management at Harvard Business School for over 5 decades where he is the Donald K. David Professor Emeritus.
He was Clayton Christensen’s doctoral thesis adviser and worked with Clay to develop and stress test his theories.
He is with us today to recognise his friend and revisit that famous 1995 article,
“Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave” that preceded the Innovator’s Dilemma
In a way this episode is a prequel to part one.
It is a great honour to welcome for the hour or Bower: Professor Joseph L. Bower
