Preparing Organizations for Greater Turbulence

Published Research

Vigilant organizations excel at seeing looming threats and embryonic opportunities sooner than rivals, which prepares them to act faster when needed. Four drivers distinguish vigilant from vulnerable organizations, which can be used to design a roadmap to improve organizational acuity and preparedness.Read More

Designing Customer-Centric Organization Structures: Toward the Fluid Marketing Organization

Published Research

Today’s marketing organizations face unprecedented turbulence and complexity. To anticipate and adapt to fast changing customer preferences and environments, executives seek to make their internal organizations nimble and agile by constantly developing, integrating, and reconfiguring new capabilities. Read More

Converting Strategic Ambiguity to Competitive Advantage: How Philips Lighting Solved the Challenge of LED Technology Disruption

Published Research

George Day, Geoffrey T. Boisi Professor Emeritus, The Wharton School, Paul J. H. Schoemaker, Q2 Technologies LLC, and Govi Rao, Phase Change Solutions Strategy & Leadership, 2020 The case of Philips Lighting shows how management coped with the ambiguous but real threats and opportunities of a highly disruptive emerging technologyRead More

Determinants of Organizational Vigilance: Leadership, Foresight, and Adaptation in Three Sectors

Published Research

Why are vigilant organizations better at developing foresight than their rivals and acting faster on the insights and alerts? Four attributes were hypothesized to explain the difference between vigilant and vulnerable organizations.Read More

Grow Faster by Changing Your Innovation Narrative

Published Research

Managers have no shortage of advice on how to achieve organic sales growth through innovation. Prescriptions range from emulating the best practices of innovative companies like Amazon, Starbucks, and 3M to adopting popular concepts such as design thinking, lean startup principles, innovation boot camps, and co-creation with customers. Read More

Explaining Organic Growth Performance: Why Dynamic Capabilities Need Strategy Guidance

Published Research

Why are some firms consistently able to grow faster than their rivals in the same industry? We employ dynamic capabilities theory to show that organic growth leaders excel because they have innovation prowess. Read More

Strategies for Success in the New Era of Connected Ecosystems

Our Fall Conference 2015 stressed the need to trade places with consumers in order to identify opportunities in a landscape where digital technologies have changed all the rules.Read More

Five Lessons for Building Innovation Prowess

George Day

According to George Day, top businesses have a lot in common with top athletes. His research examines the qualities that separate “growth leaders” from “growth laggards” — in other words, the qualities that separate average or failing companies from those that achieve Olympic-level success.Read More