Yuliya Snihur

Has the time come for metronomics in low-income and middle-income countries?

In 2008, 72% of cancer deaths occurred in low-income and middle-income countries, where, although there is a lower incidence of cancer than in high-income countries, survival rates are also low. Many patients are sent home to die, and an even larger number of patients do not have access to treatment facilities. New constraint-adapted therapeutic strategies are therefore urgently needed. Metronomic chemotherapy--the chronic administration of chemotherapy at low, minimally toxic doses on a frequent schedule of administration, with no prolonged drug-free breaks--has recently emerged as a potential strategy to control advanced or refractory cancer and represents an alternative for patients with cancer living in developing countries. This low-cost, well-tolerated, and easy to access strategy is an attractive therapeutic option in resource-limited countries. Moreover, combined with drug repositioning, additional anticancer effects can be achieved, ultimately resulting in improved cancer control while maintaining minimum cost of treatment. In this Personal View, we will briefly review the rationale behind the combination of metronomic chemotherapy and drug repositioning-an approach we term metronomics. We assess the clinical experience obtained with this kind of anticancer treatment and describe potential new developments in countries with limited resources. We also highlight the need for adapted clinical study endpoints and innovative models of collaboration between for-profit and non-profit organisations, to address the growing problem of cancer in resource-limited countries.

Developing optimal distinctiveness: organizational identity processes in new ventures engaged in business model innovation

Abstract There is increasing interest in the actions entrepreneurs undertake to shape the organizational identity of new ventures. While studies emphasize the need to focus on the distinctiveness of organizational identity to acquire resources for new ventures, less is known about specific identity-shaping actions or their consequences in the context of new ventures engaged in innovation. Based on a study of four new ventures involved in business model innovation, we theorize about the types of action innovating new ventures undertake to build their organizational identities and the consequences of these actions in terms of identity evaluation by external audiences. Four identity-building actions are identified and discussed: storytelling, use of analogies, procuring social evaluations and establishing alliances. This paper’s main contribution is to show how innovating ventures attempt to reach optimal distinctiveness by developing unique organizational identities embedded in existing market categories, with insights for the literatures on organizational identity and entrepreneurship.

Responding to business model innovation: organizational unlearning and firm failure

This paper aims to examine Borders response to business model innovation (BMI) by Amazon in the bookselling industry. The case illuminates potential causes for protracted periods of organizational unlearning, explaining why organizational unlearning, although beneficial in many documented cases, can also be insufficient to prevent failure.,Archival data are used to study Borders’s historical evolution from 1995 to its 2011 bankruptcy. Theoretical inferences are drawn from this case to shed light on the process of organizational unlearning.,Borders failed because its top managers were unable to adjust its traditionalist superstore identity to respond in an adequate manner to the changes in their environment. Instead, the company went through protracted phases of weathering the storm, denial and unlearning, resulting in bankruptcy. This extreme case of failure explains why sometimes, organizational unlearning might be insufficient, resulting in organizational demise rather than renewal.,A longitudinal study of an extreme case allows the author to build links between the research on organizational unlearning and the scholarship on organizational identity.,Organizations may survive longer if their top managers engage in the process of organizational identity change in response to BMI in their industry. The article proposes a few actions that organizations might usefully take to react to BMI before it is too late.,Better understanding of failure may enable preventive behavior.,This article explains how organizational identity prevents learning the right things and augments the dangers organizations face during unlearning.

The Performative Power of Words: How Business Model Innovators Use Framing for Strategic Advantage

Despite increasing interest in business model innovation, there is only limited scholarship that examines how business model innovators present and explain their innovations to various stakeholders. As business model innovation often involves the creation of a new ecosystem, understanding how innovators can gain support of future ecosystem members is important. Based on a longitudinal case study of Salesforce, a pioneer in cloud computing, we show how the innovator’s skillful framing to different audiences fosters the emergence of an ecosystem around the new business model. Our findings suggest that effective framing constitutes an important strategic process that enables business model innovators to shape new ecosystems due to the performative power of words.

An Ecosystem-Level Process Model of Business Model Disruption: The Disruptor's Gambit: Business model disruption: The disruptor’s gambit

Based on a longitudinal case study, this paper presents an ecosystem‐level process model of the interlocking key activities of the business model disruptor, other ecosystem participants (customers, partners, media, analysts), and the incumbent. Together these constitute a strategic process of ecosystem evolution from incumbent‐centred to disruptor‐centred. We identify the phenomenon of a ‘disruptors gambit’, where the disruptor reveals its intentions early on through effective framing, followed by rapid adaptation of its business model to satisfy ecosystem needs. These processes generate a virtuous framing‐adaptation cycle, where feed‐forward and feedback enable rapid response to customers and partners, while engaging them as force multipliers during new ecosystem creation. Our findings suggest that framing constitutes a dynamic strategic process enabling disruptors to reduce uncertainty, dislodge powerful incumbents, and shape new ecosystems through business model innovation.

The Disruptor's Gambit: How Business Model Disruptors Use Framing for Strategic Advantage

Despite increasing interest in disruption, there is only limited scholarship that considers the strategic use of framing associated with disruptive business model innovation in the competitive inte...

Metronomics: Potential Social Impact and New Business Models to Improve Availability of Cancer Treatments

Over the last 15 years, metronomic chemotherapy (MC) alone or combined with drug repositioning (DR) has gradually gained interest from cancer researchers and clinicians. Metronomics, the combination of MC and DR, can provide inexpensive, easy to administer and non-toxic treatments for cancer patients, while introducing innovative mechanisms of anti-tumour action.