Federica Brunetta

Innovative Business Models in the Pharmaceutical Industry: A Case on Exploiting Value Networks to Stay Competitive:

The search to find a more efficient and effective way of managing processes, while maintaining the integrity of research and manufacturing activities, has led pharmaceutical firms, and other actors of the renewed pharmaceutical supply chain, to modify their own business models. This article aims to emphasize this dimension, highlighting, via the observation of a network of firms operating at different stages of the pharmaceutical supply chain, how business models have succeeded in complementing each other and in originating a value creation network.

The Interaction of Control Systems and Stakeholder Networks in Shaping the Identities of Self-Managed Teams:

Team identity has received little research attention even though an increasing number of firms are moving to team-based organizations and there is evidence that teams form identities. We explore the extent to which team identity can be institutionalized as a central organizing principle of team-based firms. We argue that managerial and stakeholder interventions shape the self-construction of team identity as well as the team’s commitment to specific work objectives. We also suggest that team identity becomes isomorphic to organizational identity because of pressures related to: (1) the presence of a dense network of managers and stakeholders, which orients teams towards a focus on certain aspects of the higher-order identity; (2) the use of team routines and regular feedback loops, which force alignment with the organizational identity; and (3) the use of coordinating roles aimed at promoting, ratifying and reinforcing the convergence of identity within the team. We analyse multiple cases from a major multinational corporation in the telecommunications industry, which we examine through the lens of a multi-level model of controls involving the micro, meso and macro organizational levels. We expand and refine the model in the process.

Institutional Approach to Strategic Management

The idea of an institution-based view (IBV) as a third perspective in strategic analysis (the first two being the industry-based and resource-based views) has been recently addressed by several strategy scholars. Institutions are both the medium for and the result of social action: they enable and constrain what firms and other agents wish to accomplish “directly determining what arrows a firm has in its quiver as it struggles to formulate and implement strategy and to create a competitive advantage” (Ingram and Silverman [“Introduction: The new institutionalism in strategic management.” Emerald, Bingley, 20, 2002]). This serves to underline that given the influence of institutions on firm behavior, any strategic choice is inherently affected by the formal and informal constraints of a given institutional framework. Our contribution focuses on a review of the role of institutions in strategic analysis drawing from literature on institutionalism and on the recently developed stream of the institution-based view.

Rethinking employability: New managerial competencies in a global labour market

The ongoing consequences of globalization include widespread industry rationalization and heightened competition at regional, national, and international levels. In fact, the business world is becoming more networked and glocal. Such changes do not impact only on how companies and organizations run their own businesses. They also shape the way business schools grant their graduates a long-lasting employability. The paper reports the results of a vast research project on employability conducted by a major Italian business school in 2010-2014. The study involved more than 200 top managers and results were obtained via grounded approach. Surprisingly, the traditional hard skills-related subjects (accounting, marketing, finance) were considered as must-haves (prerequisites), whereas employability (meant as desired employees’ game changers) resulted to be increasingly associated with behavioral, cross-cultural and social soft skills. I processi di globalizzazione stanno comportando la razionalizzazinoe dei modelli di business in molti settori, nonche l’inasprimento della competizione a livello regionale, nazionale e internazionale. L’arena in cui le imprese competono e sempre piu connessa e glocale. Tali cambiamenti non interessano soltanto il mondo delle imprese ma investono anche alle business schools e il modo in cui queste generano employability. L’articolo riporta i risultati di un progetto di ricerca condotto dal 2010 al 2014 in una delle principali business school italiane. Lo studio ha coinvolto piu di 200 figure aziendali di vertice. Sorprendentemente, le tradizionali hard skills relative ai canonici contenuti disciplinari della formazione manageriale (contabilita, marketing, finanza) sono state considerate quasi dei prerequisiti, mentre i fattori critici di successo sono risultati legati a quelle dimensioni comportamentali, cross-culturali e sociali generalmente ricondotte alle soft skills.

The Role of Networks for Innovation in Temporary and Project-Based Organizations

This theoretical contribution discusses the role of networks for innovation in project-based organizations. Network serve as loci for innovation in providing timely access to knowledge and resources that are otherwise unavailable and stimulating internal expertise and learning capabilities‚ especially in industries in which complex knowledge bases expand rapidly. Moreover, networks may serve as the alternative access to resources that are not readily available through market exchanges. The aim of this contribution is to address some of the critical issues related to a better understanding of how diverse network structures impact on innovation. The authors build upon social network arguments, drawing on the idea that “optimal” network structure should be understood according to the context in which the network is embedded, the nature of the actors and the content of the relationships.

Learning and Innovation in Hybrid Organizations: Strategic and Organizational Insights

Reflecting the emergence of new organizational forms and hybrid organizations, this edited collection explores the processes of exchange, collaboration and technological management that have changed organizational structures. By investigating the impact that inter-organizational collaboration can have on the production and implementation of ideas within new firms, this study contributes to the growing field of innovation and responds to the need for a greater understanding of renewed processes. The authors argue that collaborations need to go beyond existing practices to create emerging paths such as bricolage, experimentation, effectuation and learning. Drawing together a diverse body of literature on the internal dynamics that drive organizational change, Learning and Innovation in Hybrid Organizations presents multiple perspectives on combining organizational flexibility with learning and innovation, and provides implications for future practice.

Lesson Learned, Implications, and Summary of the Main Findings

In the closing chapter, editors synthesize elements theorized across the volume and suggest further avenues for research both for theory and empirics based on the proposal arising from the contributors and form their own reading of each chapter.

Strategic and organizational Insights into learning and innovation in hybrids and "new" organizations

The aim of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the concepts of hybrid and new organizations. Its intent is also to make clear the type of contribution the book is intended to bring to the literature on hybrid organizations. The structure of the book and how to navigate it, together with a short summary of contributions, are presented.

Investigating the impact of agile methods on learning and innovation

In a turbulent environment, increased flexibility and efficiency are essential for most firms to survive. Many organizations have responded to the need for greater efficiency and productivity by building more Agile structures and shifting to the implementation of Agile software (SW) methodologies. Although the adoption of Agile methodologies is becoming widespread, robust empirical evidence on their effectiveness is lacking as is evidence of the improvements brought by Agile compared to other methods. This chapter provides empirical evidence on the impact of Agile on organizational product and process innovation and learning. Authors investigate the following research question: How does use of Agile methods impact on product and process related innovation and learning in teams? While the relationship between the investment in knowledge and innovation output has been studied extensively, little work focuses on the role of Agile in growing the organization’s knowledge base through team learning. The data collected include traditional R&D innovation indicators and also in-depth measures of organizational performance and overall team outcomes, which allow us to study not only the extent to which Agile impacts on the firm’s innovation and learning performance but also the dynamic team learning process.

The emergence of new organization designs. Evidences from self-managed team-based organizations

New organization designs emerge continuously in highly dynamic innovation context to improve readiness to change. The adoption of self-managing teams operating cross-functionally on a bulk of products, together with the reduction of vertical layers in the organization, seems to be a common strategy for many organizations aiming to achieve higher level of efficacy and shorter lead times. Authors explore the extent to which new micro-and meso-level organizational forms contribute to the achievement of organizational efficiency, and produce secondary effects on long-term innovation goals.