Long Range Planning: The Crafts of Strategy - 41/3 June 08

This Special Issue by Richard Whittington and Ludovic Cailluet (Guest Editors) will include the following articles:

William Ocasio and John Joseph
Rise and Fall, or Transformation? The Evolution of Strategic Planning at the General Electric Company, 1940-2006

Joaquim Vilà and J. Ignacio Canales
Can Strategic Planning Make Strategy More Relevant and Build Commitment Over Time? The Case of RACC


Martin Giraudeau
The Drafts of Strategy: Opening Up Plans and Their Uses

Loizos Heracleous and Claus Jacobs
Crafting Strategy: The Role of Embodied Metaphors


Mattias Nordqvist and Leif Melin
Strategic Planning Champions: Social Craftspersons, Artful Interpreters and Known Strangers

Brian King
Strategizing at Leading Venture Capital Firms: Of Planning, Opportunism and Deliberate Emergence

This issue is currently in press. Scheduled date for publication is June 2008.

Appel à contribution Entreprises et Histoire

Appel à contribution
Numéro thématique de la revue Entreprises et Histoire
sur le thème
« Les lieux de la concurrence »
sous la direction de Sébastien Liarte avec la collaboration de Ludovic Cailluet
Les chercheurs et universitaires, historiens, gestionnaires, juristes, économistes et plus largement ceux appartenant à toutes les disciplines des sciences humaines et sociales sont invités à proposer des articles complets en français ou en anglais (40 000 signes maximum) sur ce thème.
Présentation du thème
La dynamique concurrentielle implique une rencontre plus ou moins régulière des organisations concurrentes sur des couples produits/marchés. Si le couple produit/marché est un lieu traditionnel de la concurrence, il n’est pas le seul. En effet, la concurrence entre organisations peut se dérouler sur d’autres lieux, plus ou moins reliés à une dimension spatiale. Les thèmes suivants, en tant que lieu de la concurrence, pourront donc être abordés :
- L’espace géographique (critères de choix, géomarketing, etc.)
- L’espace commercial (centres commerciaux, géomerchandising, etc.)
- L’international
- Les marchés de ressources (matières premières, financières, humaines, etc.)
- Les Field Configuring Events et autres lieux spécifiques (salons, foires, etc.)
- Les réseaux
- Les moyens de diffusion de l’information et de la connaissance (Internet, média traditionnels,
revues scientifiques, etc.)
- Les lieux du pouvoir (instances européennes, Organisation Mondiale du Commerce, etc.)
De plus, ces lieux peuvent évoluer et changer en fonction des époques, des secteurs d’activités et des caractéristiques des entreprises. Leur rôle et leur place dans l’activité économique peuvent également être plus ou moins importants selon leur niveau d’institutionnalisation. Les recherches s’intéressant à ces sujets entrent également dans le thème de cet appel à contribution.
La liste des thèmes n’est pas exhaustive. Toutes les soumissions en rapport avec le thème général sont bien évidemment considérées. Néanmoins, les contributions intégrant une dimension historique seront privilégiées.
Dates à retenir
- 6 juin 2008 : date limite de soumission des articles comportant deux résumés
(français/anglais) de 200 mots au maximum et l’article complet. La première page doit indiquer le nom de ou des auteur(s) ainsi que les adresses de correspondance postale et électronique. Les articles sont à soumettre par voie électronique à l’adresse suivante : sebastien.liarte@univ-tlse1.fr
- 15 septembre 2008 : notification aux auteurs de la décision du comité éditorial
- 15 octobre 2008 : date limite du renvoi de la version définitive des articles retenus
- Parution fin 2008
Contact
Sébastien Liarte
IAE Toulouse
2 rue du Doyen Gabriel Marty
31042 Toulouse Cedex
sebastien.liarte@univ-tlse1.fr

Michael Porter about the Five Forces

Michael Porter speaking about the Five Forces . More at http://hbsp.ed10.net/h/LROHO/BXPKG/YT/B6CUS

Black tissues (courtesy of MCL)

Why are tissues always white? No reason. In fact, they can be black, which is apparently this winter's trendy color. Daishowa First Corp's boxes of black tissues are available at Beaux-Art shops all over Japan.
Daishowa First Corp
500 yen
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/product/1328

Witness seminars

un excellent exemple d'utilisation des archives orales par un centre de l'Université de Londres.
http://www.icbh.ac.uk/icbh/witness/past.html
J'ai lu le dossier sur le Concorde l'inscription est gratuite et très rapide.

CFP : The Conquest of the Air: Birth of a New Imaginary Vision? 1900-1920

(from H-Net)
The Conquest of the Air: Birth of a New Imaginary Vision? 1900-1920 Université du Maine (Le Mans, France)
November 27-28, 2008
International Conference organized to commemorate the centennial of Wilbur Wright’s flights in Le Mans (1908).

Open to all scholars interested in historical and cultural issues related to the birth of aviation and its pioneers in the period 1900-1920.
Concerned fields: History, Cultural Studies, Art History, Literary Studies, Philosophy.

Description of the project:
At the beginning of the 20th century, the birth of aviation deeply transformed human societies. Beyond its groundbreaking effects in technology, history and politics, to what extent did the mastery of flight transform perceptions of reality, space and human relationships for both political and military elites, but also for the common people? To what degree did the conquest of the air establish a new way of thinking about society, and even the role and place of human beings in the world? The conference intends to promote new approaches on these new visions and perceptions during the period 1900-1920. The modern imaginary is a source of investigation, permitting us to better define the difficult and often-debased notion of “modernity” while attempting to give an anthropological definition of a historical phenomenon inscribed in a specific context.

Four scholarly themes will be approached in four half-day thematic sessions:

Theme 1: Are the 1908 flights an event?
How did aviation shift from sport and the hobby of amateurs to a major technical phenomenon with political, historical and even philosophical implications?
How did aircraft manufacturers from Le Mans, Pau, Rome and Berlin manage to gather their technical knowledge?
We will look also at how the information was diffused, the way in which elites and the general public were informed about this event and the possibilities it opened.

Theme 2: Another way to perceive reality
Of course, flying is not new in 1908-1910. However, with the development of the plane another dimension appears. Besides the height acquired with the hot air balloon, there is also the factor of speed and the possibility of seeing the world upside down (with the advent of acrobatics during the war of 1914-1918).
Avant-garde painters and writers, photographers and the filmmakers immediately adopted this new vision given through air travel or aerial photography.
Thus, it can be fascinating to study this new vision, “seen from the top”. How did European and American artists take part in the changing perception of reality? We can also wonder at the spread of this perception of the earth seen from the sky. What were the different stages of this diffusion in the media? How fast was it done, in relation to social levels and access to information and culture? What imaginary vision did it trigger in the population?
Theme 3: New impressions of the sky
At the beginning of the 20th century, aviation raises the issue of the relationship between modernity and religion, such as the religious rituals set up during the first aerial meetings and the religious discourse about how men and nations had captured the sky. Furthermore, did philosophical reflection or scientific discourse change in response to the conquest of the air? In a more directly relevant manner, in that period the sky became the site of a new threat: new fears concerning the sky arose with the emergence of a new military risk, especially with the use of aircraft by the armies between 1910 and 1918. How do governments and political and military leaders perceived? How does it fit the political or strategic thinking?

Theme 4: The pilot, a heroic figure of modernity?
Finally, another way of approaching the conquest of the air is to look at the key figures involved. The study of the figure of the pilot and his interactions with emerging public opinion may enhance this approach to modernity. From the forerunners to the of World War I, it is an imaginary inhabited by heroes who have mastered technology. Did the development of different air shows play a role in the setting up of this imaginary hero? Is there a link between the pioneers' representations and the aces of WWI?

Please submit a temporary title of your paper, a 20-line abstract and a short curriculum vitae to Francoise.Lucbert@univ-lemans.fr and Stephane.Tison@univ-lemans.fr, before Febuary 15, 2008. The presentations should not exceed 20 minutes. A priority will be given to scholars able to give their paper in French. Papers will published later on if they do not exceed 30 000 characters (notes and spaces included).

Dr. Françoise Lucbert
Université du Maine, Faculté des Lettres
Avenue Olivier Messiaen
72085 LE MANS cedex 9
Phone: 33 2 43 83 31 66
Fax: 33 2 43 83 36 50
Email: francoise.lucbert@univ-lemans.fr

Management History Research Group (from the ABH newsletter)

The Management History Research Group (MHRG) held its annual workshop in the peaceful surroundings offered by St. Anne’s College, Oxford. Ably managed by Judy Slinn of Oxford Brookes University, this event sustained the momentum built up over the last seven years, following similar workshops in Milton Keynes, Nottingham, London (Queen Mary, University of London),and Bristol.

To commemorate the enormous contribution that Edward Brech made to management history, the first session of the 2007 workshop was dedicated to his memory. Presentations by Derek Pugh and Peter Starbuck, as well as note sent from New Zealand by Andrew Thomson, skilfully teased out the way in which Edward used his wide experience as a consultant to bring practitioners and academics together in creating the MHRG. We certainly owe a massive debt to this man, a reflection of which is the way that at future workshops there will be an Annual Brech Lecture, as a means of sustaining our memories of a remarkable person. At the end of this session, John Wilson also stimulated some debate about the future direction of the MHRG, given the personnel changes on its governing body and the existence of diary-congestion for most of the academics who regularly contributed to the workshop. Arising from this debate, further electronic discussions have taken place over the summer, reaffirming our belief that the MHRG workshops should continue to be a feature of the conference calendar.
The second session, entitled ‘Before World War 2’, included papers from Trevor Boyns (Cardiff) on Lyndall Urwick, Susanna Fellman (Helsinki) on Finnish management, and Kevin Key (Salfrod) on transport management. This was followed in theafternoon by a session on ‘Management in the leisure industries of the twentieth century’, with papers from Richard Coopey (LSE and Aberystwyth) on the British popular music industry, Jonathan Groucutt (Oxford Brookes) on the GPO film unit, and Mary Quek (Oxford Brookes) on the international hotel industry. These sessions reflected both the diverse and international nature of MHRG papers and presenters, prompting a varied and lively discussion. The first day was completed by John Wilson, who gave an extended presentation on his contribution to an international research project entitled ‘Mapping Corporate Europe’. This was followed by an excellent dinner in St. Anne’s, as well as a tour of some of the nocturnal delights offered by Oxford to facilitate the networking that is at the heart of MHRG events.
The second day started with a genuinely international session on ‘Strategic management’, featuring papers by Kurt Pedersen and Jesper Strandskov (Aarhus) on schools of thought in strategy, Giuliano Maielli and Peter Clark (Queen Mary, London) on national specificities and boundaries of path dependencies, and Eric Cassells (Oxford Brookes) on strategic consulting. After coffee, a session on ‘Management and entrepreneurship quality’ included papers by John Quail (York) on management performance, and Bernardo Batiz-Lazo (Leicester) on Mexican business elites. The consequent debates were highly stimulating, leading to lively discussions over lunch about future collaborations and publications. The final session of the was about ‘Management in the pharmaceutical industry’, with presentations from Tony Corley (Reading) on Beecham, Andrew Godley (Reading) on Merck, and Judy Slinn (Oxford Brookes) on the UK pharmaceutical industry. Once again, the international nature of the papers provided a base for extensive discussions concerning the links between different management systems, providing a theme for the two-day event that we will take on to future workshops.
For those who have never attended any of these workshops, it is important to stress that they combine academic and practitioner work in the broad field of management history, reflecting the desire of the MHRG’s founders to link the two perspectives as much as possible. Given that the MHRG has benefited with funds donated by John Bolton and Adrian Cadbury,it is clear that the practitioner perspective is a vital thread in our discussions. Crucially, the annual MHRG workshop offers a rich social experience that provides the basis for extensive debate and future collaborations. Of course, a lot of reliance is placed on the local organizer, and Judy Slinn certainly upheld the tradition of excellent organization combined with pleasant socialisation.
As we are looking for a suitable venue for 2008, volunteers should contact John Wilson ( John Wilson ) to discuss the details. It is especially important to stress that the MHRG offers £3,000 as a subsidy for each event, making it relatively easy to persuade local management that hosting a workshop will not pose any financial difficulties.