Business Strategy Review archive

2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003

2009

Volume 20, Issue 3, Autumn 2009

In this Global Leadership Summit 2009 Special Issue we feature articles from leading-edge thinkers from the faculty of London Business School, alongside insights from global business leaders. Here you'll read expanded treatments on questions and subjects widely discussed at the summit: 'Is the global market economy broken?', 'Fixing the financial system' and 'Seizing the upside of the downturn'.

Highlights include:

  • Don Sull on how a downturn can be a great time for a business to jump ahead.
  • Nirmalya Kumar on the new role of Indian businesses as collaborators.
  • Michael Jacobides on breaking through the shock of an economic downturn.
  • Andrew Scott on how business executives and macroeconomists must now deal with market uncertainty.

Volume 20, Issue 2, Summer 2009

The Summer 2009 issue of Business Strategy Review focuses on one of the key issues overlooked in the current crisis: talent. What are the implications of the crisis for people in organisations? How can they be inspired and engaged to achieve exceptional performance?

Highlights include:

  • Douglas Ready on forging the new talent compact
  • Learning to glow with Lynda Gratton
  • Robin Buchanan reinvents compensation
  • Using Web 2.0 to create Management 2.0
  • Freek Vermeulen analyses a management collapse.

Volume 20, Issue 1, Spring 2009

This issue of Business Strategy Review looks at the current strategic landscape through a unique range of lenses. Global business is explored through emerging influences, established leaders and visionary artists designed to provoke thought and debate.

Highlights include:

  • C. K. Prahalad talks about his latest research and what it feels like to be ranked as the world's leading business thinker
  • How redshifting is redefining IT - senior leaders from Sun Microsystems discuss why some companies are boosting their computing power and asks should your company be doing the same?
  • Andrew Likierman discusses successful leadership, how to measure your own personal success and that of others
  • China's productivity challenge -Linda Yueh tackles what's next for China after the 2008 Olympics.

2008

Volume 19, Issue 4, Winter 2008

The latest issue of Business Strategy Review looks at the current strategic landscape through a unique range of lenses. Global business is explored through emerging influences, established leaders and visionary artists designed to provoke thought and debate.

Highlights include:

  • C. K. Prahalad talks about his latest research and what it feels like to be ranked as the world's leading business thinker.
  • How redshifting is redefining IT - senior leaders from Sun Microsystem discuss why some companies are boosting their computing power and asks should your company be doing the same?
  • Andrew Likierman discusses successful leadership, how to measure your own personal success and that of others.
  • China's productivity challenge -Linda Yueh tackles what's next for China after the 2008 Olympics.

BSR Autumn 2008Volume 19, Issue 3, Autumn 2008

The latest issue of Business Strategy Review focuses on strategy, with a special report featuring five classic articles that have become models of how to think in strategy and business.

Highlights include:

  • Jörg Reckhenrich, Jamie Anderson and Costas Markides explore what the strategy of art in the 16th century can teach managers about the art of strategy in modern business
  • Viral Acharya identifies the best path to stability for the financial markets, through untangling the banking mechanisms used increasingly in the last decade
  • Freek Vermeulen points out the warning signs that show when an acquisition may be potentially value destroying
  • Peter Danby proposes stillness and contemplation as a different approach to develop leadership and enhance performance.

Volume 19, issue 2, Summer 2008

This summer the world will focus on Beijing and the Olympic struggles of men and women in fierce athletic competition. Many in business are also determined to move to a faster, higher, stronger level of performance.

The latest issue of Business Strategy Review covers change and innovation in business.
Highlights include:

  • Donald Sull and Stefano Turconi delve into the question of situation awareness and its triumph for fast fashion darling, Zara.
  • Michael Jarrett and Tom Brown pin-point the five factors that separate the change masters from the change challenged.
  • Aneel Karnani suggests that current thinking about reducing poverty is based on an unrealistic view of the poor and inadequate expectations about how governments can best address the problem.
  • Linda Yueh looks at how a growing population of entrepreneurs is stimulating China's economic growth. Can an organization be too technologically agile? Kishore
  • Sengupta and Andrea Masini try and strike a balance in the corporate adaptation to IT.
  • Tim Ambler and Andy Neely provide their insights on the tricky subject of annual reports, and how to react to calls for more transparency.

Volume 19, Issue 1, Spring 2008

This issue is all about going beyond stereotypes.  Stereotypes are seldom this simple or innocent; they can subtly block creative thinking and stifle human potential. As you start to read, we ask only one favour: please leave your misconceptions elsewhere. Highlights include:

  • Elisabeth Kelan looks at gender stereotypes, common beliefs about men and women as mutually exclusive groups and finds that careers can collapse on such limited thinking. Companies can also become stereotyped and this can affect a company's ability to innovate.
  • The UK-based innovation company ?What If! has pursued a unique and imaginative route to growth. Julian Birkinshaw and Des Dearlove look at the broader lessons.
  • Dawn Austwick speaks about her experience working on behalf of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, whose mission is to improve the lives of people throughout the UK. She's a drama graduate, but forget any stereotype you harbour.
  • John Mullins looks at popular beliefs about entrepreneurs and distils the factors critical to success in business and their implications for building successful entrepreneurial teams; discovering it's not all fun and games. Or, maybe it is.

2007

Volume 18, issue 4, Winter 2007

This issue of Business Strategy Review looks at the new ideas that will drive businesses in 2008. Highlights include:

  • Chris Higson, Oliver Rivers and Martin Deboo believe that creative enterprises are, nonetheless, businesses. They explore whether lessons from Hollywood could teach us how to manage better (download PDF 211KB).  
  • Kjell Nordström and Jonas Ridderstråle return to argue that it's a new world for everyone, especially managers. They list what you, as a manager, should focus upon now.
  • David Bach talks about nonmarket strategy - managing relationships with governments, regulators, NGOs, the media and society at large. It's a new horizon for management, and Bach believes your future success hinges on mastering the concept
  • Andrew and Nada Kakabadse consider an interesting question: in an age of empowerment, what of the corporate chairman? They assert that the role of the chairman is growing as a result of change.  
  • A fascinating profile of Fergie Balfour by Anthony Landale. Here's a leader who thinks his most important job is unlocking people's energy. Ready to meet the "new breed of 21st century business leader"?
  • Pablo Triana keeps watch for 'black swans', arguing preparedness for an  "unlikely rare event" may be the best way to make sure tomorrow's horizon is a sunny one.

Volume 18, issue 3, Autumn 2007

Business Strategy Review suggests that the most successful managers are also treasure hunters. It delves into who in business is hunting successfully, engaging in breakthrough thinking, exploring new horizons, and discovering buried treasure. Dig in.  Highlights include:

Volume 18, issue 2, Summer 2007

This issue focuses on the myriad of sources - idea, individuals, and organisations - from which businesses take their inspiration. It includes: 

  • Many CEOs cite historical biographies - from Lord Nelson to Nelson Mandela. Historian Niall Ferguson examines why business leaders have a huge appetite for history. And why they should. (download article PDF 140 KB)
  • Organizational "hot spots", centres of high performance and breakthrough innovation, need a special touch when it comes to management. Lynda Gratton discovers how executives manage hot spots without getting burned
  • Gerry George describes what happens when a company transforms its technological capabilities by entering a "new to the firm" niche, and shows how companies harness technology to create new opportunities essential for growth
  • Nirmalya Kumar tells us why retailing is sexier than it has ever been but private labels are still overlooked
  • Major marketing failures grab a lot of attention. But why such failures occur is often overlooked. N. Craig Smith tells how society often creates marketing nightmares.
  • Srikumar Rao asks: have you really got sight of what you want in life? Or are you working too hard to see the wood for the trees?
  • Nader Tavassoli on the dangers when brand names are 'lost in translation'
  • Bruce Weber outlines how heated competition between companies on the LSE has destroyed traditional loyalties in business
  • Narayan Naik and Mark Tapley highlight the democratisation of hedge funds
  • Randall Peterson on why the trend line for the modern CEO is away from the boss whose chief weapons are fear and control. So where does the trendline lead?
  • The latest research from London Business School's Management Innovation Lab from its executive director, Alan Matcham.

Volume 18, issue 1, Spring 2007

Highlights of this issue include:

  • An interview with Charles Handy - writer, broadcaster, thinker and teacher whose books have sold over one million copies. He has been an oil executive, an economist, a professor at London Business School and the warden of St George's House in Windsor Castle. His latest book is The New Philanthropists, and Gay Haskins expands that topic to look reflectively at Handy's achievements as well as his concern with the need for us all - as individuals - to shape our own lives, set an agenda and make a difference (download article PDF 125KB)
  • After over 40 years of academic research and consultants' advice on whether strategy works, many managers remain sceptical. Gerry Johnson and George Yip suggest a new approach
  • Is Corporate Social Responsibility at a crossroads? CSR has been around long enough not to be considered a fad. Yet, as. N. Craig Smith and Halina Ward find, it is not quite an established reality either
  • Stuart Crainer provides the inside story of the revival of Pitney Bowes, and it's carefully calibrated transformation.

2006

Volume 17, issue 4, Winter 2006

This is a special issue focusing on entrepreneurship. Highlights include: 

Volume 17, issue 3, Autumn 2006

Highlights of this issue include:

Volume 17, issue 2, Summer 2006

Highlights of this issue include:

Volume 17, issue 1, Spring 2006

Highlights of this issue include:

  • 'Inside the innovation lab' - Gary Hamel talks to Des Dearlove on the processes which lie behind the best business ideas (download PDF 133KB)
  • 'Four sources of advantage' by Peter S. Cohan and Barry Unger
  • 'Is your web savvy?' - Nina Koiso-Kanttila reviews the most salient research
  • 'Mobile transitions' - Jamie L. Anderson and Martin E. Jonsson examine transition in the mobile handset industry
  • 'Power-shifting' - Dong Back Seo and Kevin Desouza
  • 'Is insider traiding the high crime that we have been led to believe?' - by Andrew P. Kakabadse, Nada K. Kakabadse and Antje Kaspurz
  • Come fly with William Boeng
  • Special Report:  Business Books.

2005

Volume 16, issue 4, Winter 2005

Highlights of this issue include:

Volume 16, issue 3, Autumn 2005

Highlights of this issue include:

Volume 16, issue 2, Summer 2005

Highlights of this issue include:

  • 'Dynamic partners,' by Donald N Sull (PDF 48KB)
  • 'The ex-factor,' by Helga Drummond
  • 'The secret diary of corporate venturing,' by Julian Birkinshaw
  • 'Merging on the miraculous,' by Richard Carr, Graham Elton, Sam Rovit and Till Vestring
  • 'Welcome home: innovating the forward supply chain,' Kenneth K Boyer and G Tomas M Hult
  • 'Intangible balls,' by Deli Yang and Mahmut Sonmez.

Volume 16, issue 1, Spring 2005

Highlights of this issue include:

  • 'Reinventing the rings' by Michael Payne (PDF 124KB)
  • 'The global retail challenge' by Nirmalya Kumar
  • 'Diamond geezers' by Melvin Prince
  • 'Chef executive officer' by Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove
  • 'The hub of the world' by Donald N Sull, Sumantra Ghoshal and Felipe Monteiro
  • 'Trends: What do they know?' by Kevin C. Desouza and Yukika Awazu.

2004

Volume 15, issue 4, Winter 2004

Highlights of this issue include:

  • 'Ryder Cup lessons in team play' by Tony Cockerill (PDF 364KB)
  • Dean Laura Tyson and Nigel Andrews' research into 'Global Business Capabilities'
  • 'Racing to be second' by Costas Markides and Paul Geroski
  • 'Is social enterprise the new economic engine' by Rebecca Harding
  • 'Ohmae's world' by Kenichi Ohmae
  • 'Inside the Corporate Zoo' by Melvin Prince and Mark A Davies.

Volume 15, issue 3, Autumn 2004

Highlights of this issue include:

  • Paddy Barwise and Sean Meehan with exclusive ideas from their new book Simply Better (PDF 129kb)
  • Sumantra Ghoshal and Heike Bruch on the 'art of doing and getting done'
  • Julian Birkinshaw arguing for radical innovation
  • Donald Sull and Martin Escobari discussing how to create value and seize opportunities in the fast-moving and unpredictable economy of the 21st century
  • Jamie Anderson and Bryn Williams tackling outdated strategies in the mobile phone industry

Volume 15, issue 2, Summer 2004

Featured articles in this issue:

  • Origins and blasphemies - Des Dearlove
  • What is strategy and how do you know if you have one? - Costas Markides
  • Interview: CK Prahalad -
  • Using strategy to change your business model - George Yip
  • Interview: Philip Kotler
  • The 21st Century CIO - Mark Polansky, Tarun Inuganti and Simon Wiggins
  • Interview: Robert A G Monks
  • If Colin Powell had commanded Enron - Oren Harari and Lynn Brewer
  • What makes a leader?  - Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones
  • Interview: Jeff Skoll
  • A message to Garcia - Thomas L Brown
  • Interview: Paul C Reilly
  • Spinning the wheel of strategic innovation - Chris Styles and Jules Goddard
  • Interview: Arie de Geus

Volume 15, issue 1, Spring 2004

Featured articles in this issue:

  • Entrepreneurial gold mines - John Mullins
  • Famous for one minute - Ken Blanchard
  • The changing balance of power in the consulting market - Ansgar Richter and Sandra Niewiem 
  • Learning to display Emotional Intelligence - Serge Sardo
  • Branding labor-intensive services - Leonard L Berry and Sandra S Lampo
  • In the mail: Pitney Bowes´ CEO gets frank - Stuart Crainer
  • Cost-effective service excellence: lessons from Singapore Airlines - Loizos Heracleous, John Wirtz and Robert Johnston
  • Managing partnerships with state-owned joint venture companies: experiences from Vietnam - Ha Thanh Nguyen and Klaus E Meyer
  • Management in times of change: lessons from The Art of War - Juan Antonio Fernandez
  • Victims of power and tradition in a market economy - Olof Holm
  • Best practices for service organisations - Hans Brechbühl
  • How William Crapo Durant made and lost an industry
  • The destruction of Marconi - Julian Birkinshaw

2003

Volume 14, issue 4, Winter 2003

Leading the democratic enterprise - Lynda Gratton

  • Transnational corporations: international citizens or new sovereigns? - Dennis A Rondinelli
  • The seven myths of change management - Michael Jarrett 
  • Value leadership: the principles driving corporate value - Peter S Cohan
  • The radical fringe - An interview with Gary Hamel
  • Seven habits of spectacularly unsuccessful people - Sydney Finkelstein
  • Why trying to reorient a brand can burn your fingers - John W Walsh
  • Windfall economics - Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove
  • Strategically embedding CRM - Fred Langerak and Peter C Verhoef

Volume 14, issue 3, Autumn 2003

Featured articles in this issue:

  • The dark side of leadership - Manfred Kets de Vries on CEOs, narcissism and magnificent obsessions
  • The great pretenders: the magic of luxury goods - Bernard Catry
  • GM and the great automation solution - Sydney Finkelstein
  • Chief operating officer - a road to nowhere? - Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove
  • Star Trek strategy: real strategy at work - Peter J Brews
  • Effective communication of corporate crises through the internet - Albert H Segars 
  • Teaching elephants how to dance and other silly ideas - Costas Markides and Paul Geroski
  • Marketing: the trouble with finance - Tim Ambler

Volume 14, issue 2, Summer 2003

Featured articles in this issue: 

  • Let´s go clubbing - Business by networking
  • Disaster relief - Balanced thinking is the key
  • Knowing me, knowing you - How Siemens shares its knowledge
  • 100 years of management - The thinkers who created the modern age
  • Take your partners - Why sharing equity helps
  • Is the price right? - If not, you may be in trouble
  • Because I´m worth it - How to pay top executives - fairly


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