When digital turbulence is the new normal, vigilant organizations prevail by following three navigation principles. …Read More
Navigating Digital Turbulence
George Day
Designing Customer-Centric Organization Structures: Toward the Fluid Marketing Organization
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
How Vigilant Leaders Prepare For A Turbulent Future
When the Covid-19 pandemic struck some organizations were more vigilant and better prepared to absorb the shock and are emerging stronger. This article describes the best practices of these vigilant organizations that enabled them to be more adept at anticipating whatever surprises are coming next.…Read More
Converting Strategic Ambiguity to Competitive Advantage: How Philips Lighting Solved the Challenge of LED Technology Disruption
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 technology…Read More
Changing The Work of Innovation: A Systems Approach
The work of innovation occurs within an organizational environment that can either help or hinder the necessary activities.…Read More
How Vigilant Companies Gain an Edge in Turbulent Times
Our work on vigilant leadership is being extended to the domain of foundations. We have collected data from 97 major foundations operating in the U.S. …Read More
Determinants of Organizational Vigilance: Leadership, Foresight, and Adaptation in Three Sectors
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
See Sooner, Act Faster: How Vigilant Leaders Thrive in an Era of Digital Turbulence
When turbulence is the new normal, an organization’s survival depends on vigilant leadership that can anticipate threats, spot opportunities, and act quickly when the time is right. …Read More
Innovating the Marketing Organization
Marketing is at the interface of the firm and its present and prospective markets, and is the organizational function that absorbs much of the environmental turbulence. …Read More
Why Facebook is a Cautionary Tale for All Leaders
We are exploring the reasons for the infamous “deny, deflect and delay” approach of Facebook leadership, and will argue that some of the damage they incurred might have been avoided had they absorbed four lessons we have drawn from our studies of highly vigilant organizations.…Read More
Grow Faster by Changing Your Innovation Narrative
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
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
George Day Now Faculty Emeritus in Residence
Mack Institute Co-Director George Day has retired from The Wharton School, but remains as involved as ever with the Mack Institute.…Read More
Connecting What’s Needed with What’s Possible
The Mack Institute Fall Conference 2014 examined how rapid advances in technology continuously change the way that organizations innovate.…Read More
Five Lessons for Building Innovation Prowess
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
Taking The Temperature of Corporate Hierarchies
With outsourcing growing and core capabilities contracting, is hierarchy becoming a thing of the past? Faculty from the Mack Institute talk corporate hierarchies today versus in the past.…Read More
Incubating Innovation in Established Firms
Finding the path that will allow established companies to take advantage of their strengths while also giving them the flexibility to innovate is one of the most pressing concerns of many executives. This was the theme of the Mack Institute’s Spring Conference, titled “Incubating Innovation in Established Firms.”…Read More
Returns on Innovation Investment: Stop Asking When, Start Asking How
Managers can help cultivate breakthrough innovation by putting the right organizational habits in place.…Read More
Four Ways That Thinking “Outside-in” Can Grow Your Business
If you’re not thinking about your business as part of an ecosystem, you should. Mack Institute Co-director George Day and Research Director Paul Schoemaker identify four substantial benefits of adopting an outside-in mentality.…Read More