Karl Moore

In politics, the dogmatic leader is rarely as successful as the pragmatist. So too in the world of business, where a CEO who leads from the centre and respects consensus is the CEO who is an effective leader. Readers of this article will learn from history how to lead from the centre and how to be a leader that unifies and wins lasting respect.

Recent theorizing has proposed that modular product and process architectures are key enablers of strategic flexibility. We formulated an integrative conceptual model encompassing antecedents, contributing factors, and outcomes of modularity. We then tested this model on data from managers in U.S. and U.K. home appliance companies using structural equations modeling. The results indicate a positive relationship between modular product architectures and performance, with product model variety as… Show more

Recent theorizing has proposed that modular product and process architectures are key enablers of strategic flexibility. We formulated an integrative conceptual model encompassing antecedents, contributing factors, and outcomes of modularity. We then tested this model on data from managers in U.S. and U.K. home appliance companies using structural equations modeling. The results indicate a positive relationship between modular product architectures and performance, with product model variety as a mediating variable. The results also highlight linkages between perceptions of market context and the use of modular products architectures, and between complementary organizational capabilities and firm performance Show less

This paper discusses the construct of subsidiary specific advantages (SSAs), which are
central to how a subsidiary captures international mandates. SSAs constitute an extension of
the eclectic paradigm. It suggests centres of excellence (CoE) as a potentially important organizational device.

Service firms that are global players benefit primarily from their ability to manage their proprietary knowledge, assimilating new knowledge from around the world, building new knowledge through the interaction of professional employees, and disseminating knowledge effectively throughout the firm. Centers of excellence represent the best practice of managing knowledge. Formally charged with the responsibility of leveraging and/or making knowledge available throughout the firm, the center of… Show more

Service firms that are global players benefit primarily from their ability to manage their proprietary knowledge, assimilating new knowledge from around the world, building new knowledge through the interaction of professional employees, and disseminating knowledge effectively throughout the firm. Centers of excellence represent the best practice of managing knowledge. Formally charged with the responsibility of leveraging and/or making knowledge available throughout the firm, the center of excellence provides a focal point for knowledge development and dissemination and replaces an old-fashioned reliance on informal, word-of-mouth mechanisms. However, a center also raises substantial organizational and motivational challenges. Show less

For firms involved with the very early stages of emergent radical innovation, technical goals are often held in the mind(s) of only one or a few individuals. The way these individuals mentally imagine or visualize such goals, or “Technology Visions”, provide an important looking glass for understanding a firm’s progression along the path of involvement from a technical discontinuity toward project-level and organizational-level involvement with a given technology. Utilizing a large sample of… Show more

For firms involved with the very early stages of emergent radical innovation, technical goals are often held in the mind(s) of only one or a few individuals. The way these individuals mentally imagine or visualize such goals, or “Technology Visions”, provide an important looking glass for understanding a firm’s progression along the path of involvement from a technical discontinuity toward project-level and organizational-level involvement with a given technology. Utilizing a large sample of firms engaged in radical innovation in North America and the United Kingdom, this empirical study examines the impact of five dimensions of Technology Vision on early success: Benefits Goals, Efficiency Goals, Magnetism, Specificity, and Infrastructure Clarity. Technology Vision is found to have a significant positive impact on technical competitive advantage, early success with customers and ability to attract capital, as measures of early success. Show less