It is an old cliche that leading and managing academics is like herding cats. This book challenges this myth and presents a way to deal with the many challenges of academic leadership, from managing departments, research groups and teams to managing tensions between research and teaching. The book is a practical and stimulating guide to different pathways to successful academic leadership, both in personal and organizational terms.

It is an old cliche that leading and managing academics is like herding cats. This book challenges this myth and presents a way to deal with the many challenges of academic leadership, from managing departments, research groups and teams to managing tensions between research and teaching. The book is a practical and stimulating guide to different pathways to successful academic leadership, both in personal and organizational terms.

Over the last decade, there has been a substantial rise in the number of knowledge-intensive firms - constituted primarily of professionals. The core assets of these businesses are the people themselves. Handle them badly, and they may defect or stall. Successful managers of knowledge-intensive firms must create meaning among and inspire their employees, to ensure high performance. To achieve this, leaders must understand how to target each employee 's ambitions and challenges to facilitate their personal and professional development.

This book examines what sets knowledge-intensive firms apart from other types of organizations, and the resultant organizational and strategic differences in business models, talent management, and client-handling approaches. The authors bring their own complementary perspectives on the subject: one, as the manager of a private consulting firm with a strong research background; another, as a business school professor whose practice-based skills are fundamental to his work; and a third, a world leading commentator on professional service firms acting as a consultant, business school researcher and a manager.

Ejler, Poulfelt and Czerniawska present a new model for transforming the management of knowledge-intensive firms, which is supported throughout with practical examples and cases.

Why is it that some companies turn out to be more successful when doing the opposite of what is prescribed in many of the current books on management and strategy?

Interestingly, many of the companies depicted as very successful companies in the standard literature end up not faring well over time - probably because they somehow end up in a dangerous autopilot mode. What this suggests is that the conventional literature cookbook isn t telling us the whole story. Even if companies have temporarily developed from an ugly duckling to a white swan, the popular recipes for success may be clipping such companies wings.

Conversely, companies adhering to disruptive business models are seen to be more agile and to possess a higher degree of actionability. Such next generation companies are labeled black swans. They thrive because they are bold and embrace the great unknowns of tomorrow with open minds and eyes. At the same time, they are able to take advantage of incumbents fears, risk-aversion and blindness to what s coming. Beyond Strategy delves into the inner workings of such black swans as Apple, Aravind, Emirates, Huawei, Natura, Ryanair and Tata and addresses the rise and fall of Nokia. The authors provide explosive evidence of black swan companies working against the norms to enter unchartered waters, determined not to adhere to the best practice of others, but rather to create a genuine next generation practice.

Next generation companies and their underlying philosophies are here to stay are you?"

This casebook complements the text Management Consulting Today and Tomorrow. The book consists of 20 cases, including those from Harvard and Stanford and the University of Southern California. The cases cover a broad range of topics and practice areas that are pertinent to current management consulting. The six parts parallel the six parts in the text, including an introduction to the cases by the editors, delineating topics and issues that are critical for today's consultants. Several cases offer new insights into the practice areas of Strategy, IT, Operations Management, Change Management and more on Data Gathering and the Future of Consulting. This casebook, together with the text, will help to increase awareness among consultants and students about skill requirements, as well as make clients sensitive to what is demanded of them in a highly competitive consulting environment.

This casebook complements the text Management Consulting Today and Tomorrow. The book consists of 20 cases, including those from Harvard and Stanford and the University of Southern California. The cases cover a broad range of topics and practice areas that are pertinent to current management consulting. The six parts parallel the six parts in the text, including an introduction to the cases by the editors, delineating topics and issues that are critical for todaya (TM)s consultants. Several cases offer new insights into the practice areas of Strategy, IT, Operations Management, Change Management and more on Data Gathering and the Future of Consulting. This casebook, together with the text, will help to increase awareness among consultants and students about skill requirements, as well as make clients sensitive to what is demanded of them in a highly competitive consulting environment.

This new edition gathers more than 22 experts to outline the theory behind consulting, providing insight into change processes and management issues in the field. The business of consulting has grown faster than most other businesses, due not only to increased demand by clients, but also to the innovative capabilities of numerous consulting firms as they develop new services. Divided into six parts, the book introduces readers to the consulting industry, addressing the major practice areas, contexts, and implementations of the field. Significant updates detail the effect of the economic troubles between 2004 and 2010 and then 2010 and now; analyze the market response to consulting in recent years; and provide a more thorough understanding of how consulting is applied in the different areas of a business, such as operations, marketing, and finance. Introductions written by the editors offer further insight into the themes and learning goals of each section, helping readers to recognize the elements of a successful consultation, and utilize their new skill set. The text concludes with a look at the future of consulting with regards to ethics standards and how strong manager-client relationships contribute to financial growth. Readers will also learn how the developing field of entrepreneurship creates new economic structures and job opportunities. Practitioners, consultants, clients, faculty, and students of business and management will learn not only how to consult, but also gain the skills needed to adapt to and lead organizational change, giving them a competitive edge when they enter the field.

Why is it that some companies turn out to be more successful when doing the opposite of what is prescribed in many of the current books on management and strategy? Interestingly, many of the companies depicted as very successful companies in the standard literature end up not faring well over time - probably because they somehow end up in a dangerous autopilot mode. What this suggests is that the conventional literature cookbook isn't telling us the whole story. Even if companies have temporarily developed from an ugly duckling to a white swan, the popular recipes for success may be clipping such companies' wings. Conversely, companies adhering to disruptive business models are seen to be more agile and to possess a higher degree of actionability. Such next generation companies are labeled black swans. They thrive because they are bold and embrace the great unknowns of tomorrow with open minds and eyes. At the same time, they are able to take advantage of incumbents' fears, risk-aversion and blindness to what's coming. Beyond Strategy delves into the inner workings of such black swans as Apple, Aravind, Emirates, Huawei, Natura, Ryanair and Tata and addresses the rise and fall of Nokia. The authors provide explosive evidence of black swan companies working against the norms to enter unchartered waters, determined not to adhere to the best practice of others, but rather to create a genuine next generation practice. Next generation companies and their underlying philosophies are here to stay - are you?

Over the last decade, there has been a substantial rise in the number of knowledge-intensive firms - constituted primarily of professionals. The core assets of these businesses are the people themselves. Handle them badly, and they may defect or stall. Successful managers of knowledge-intensive firms must create meaning among and inspire their employees, to ensure high performance. To achieve this, leaders must understand how to target each employee s ambitions and challenges to facilitate their personal and professional development.

This book examines what sets knowledge-intensive firms apart from other types of organizations, and the resultant organizational and strategic differences in business models, talent management, and client-handling approaches. The authors bring their own complementary perspectives on the subject: one, as the manager of a private consulting firm with a strong research background; another, as a business school professor whose practice-based skills are fundamental to his work; and a third, a world leading commentator on professional service firms acting as a consultant, business school researcher and a manager.

Ejler, Poulfelt and Czerniawska present a new model for transforming the management of knowledge-intensive firms, which is supported throughout with practical examples and cases.

Why is it that many companies meticulously following recipes on management and strategy fail? Did Google, Skype, Ryanair, Huawei and a number of other successful companies buy into a well thought out strategy and adhered to that over time? How do companies deliberately opting out of the recipe game and opting into the out-of-the-box-thinking fare? In short, why is it that some companies achieve a higher Return on Strategy than others?

Whereas Return on Investment (RoI) has attracted increased attention over the last couple of decades, little, if any, attention is being paid to whether companies do at all achieve Return on Strategy (RoS) and how.

This book provides an overview of contemporary strategy literature and recipes brushed up with a view to identifying explanations as to how recipes has seldom worked as intended. One out of several reasons rests on the fact that recipes do not take the so-called X-factor into account.

With the X-factor as the starting point the book examines a sample of 50 global companies of which some has achieved a remarkable high Return on Strategy and others failed. The 50 companies covers most continents as some are from the North America, some are from the European continent and others are from different parts of the emerging Asian region ? threatening companies from the Western hemisphere.

The book explains the reason behind success and failures and provides practical tools as to how companies may increase their Return on Strategy. In the toolbox, you will find a framework on how to increase the Return on Strategy as well a number of dynamic positioning tools, road maps and bearing points. Invariably, more and more companies - including consultants, business leaders and MBAs - now work diligently in order to increase their Return on Strategy and the best of them are here to stay successfully ? are you?

This new edition gathers more than 22 experts to outline the theory behind consulting, providing insight into change processes and management issues in the field. The business of consulting has grown faster than most other businesses, due not only to increased demand by clients, but also to the innovative capabilities of numerous consulting firms as they develop new services. Divided into six parts, the book introduces readers to the consulting industry, addressing the major practice areas, contexts, and implementations of the field. Significant updates detail the effect of the economic troubles between 2004 and 2010 and then 2010 and now; analyze the market response to consulting in recent years; and provide a more thorough understanding of how consulting is applied in the different areas of a business, such as operations, marketing, and finance. Introductions written by the editors offer further insight into the themes and learning goals of each section, helping readers to recognize the elements of a successful consultation, and utilize their new skill set. The text concludes with a look at the future of consulting with regards to ethics standards and how strong manager-client relationships contribute to financial growth. Readers will also learn how the developing field of entrepreneurship creates new economic structures and job opportunities. Practitioners, consultants, clients, faculty, and students of business and management will learn not only how to consult, but also gain the skills needed to adapt to and lead organizational change, giving them a competitive edge when they enter the field.

The process of founding new enterprises and making them grow and prosper is a far more convoluted undertaking than it was just a few decades ago. This book explores the complexity faced by today's entrepreneurs. Institutional boundaries, evolutionary perspectives and the intricacies of management are the central themes in this study of entrepreneurs and SMEs in a world marked by major transitions. While mainstream research enhances our understanding of the dynamics of the entrepreneurial process, this book progresses the research yet further. It examines another fundamental role of research in entrepreneurship: our understanding of future organizational and managerial forms evolving from the globalization process. Issues addressed include: growth patterns among enterprises initiated by science-and-technology-based entrepreneurs; the actions and motives driving radical entrepreneurs; the role of experience versus formal education in entrepreneurship; the role of endogenous growth processes; managerial complexity in new knowledge-based enterprises; and, the role of collaboration for innovation in new business ventures.The contributors aim to further encourage dialogue and reflections triggered by the growing emphasis on entrepreneurship in policy agendas and business communities all over Europe. As such, this book will prove stimulating reading for researchers, students, academics, consultants and advisors involved in entrepreneurship, business and management.

The literature on strategy in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is fairly limited despite their great innovative talents. This book provides the reader with a thorough insight into six companies and their prerequisites for creating growth. Strategy Execution focuses on a varied picture of Scandinavian SMEs, and illustrates how this group of companies can contribute with new ways of managerial thinking and progress in the business community. It presents the best practice framework for strategic management.

A volume in Research in Management ConsultingSeries Editor Anthony F. Buono, Bentley UniversityThe tenth volume in the Research on Management Consulting series-Client-ConsultantCollaboration: Coping with Complexity and Change-draws on papers presented at theAcademy of Management's Management Consulting Division International Conferenceon this theme in Copenhagen, Denmark in June 2007. The volume presents twelve chaptersthat explore a broad range of questions and concerns that illustrate the scope andcomplexity of the consultant-client relationship. The chapters illustrate the richness and excitement that takes place notonly in research on consulting but also in its application as the various empirical analyses of consulting in practice portray.

A volume in Research in Management ConsultingSeries Editor Anthony F. Buono, Bentley UniversityThe tenth volume in the Research on Management Consulting series-Client-ConsultantCollaboration: Coping with Complexity and Change-draws on papers presented at theAcademy of Management's Management Consulting Division International Conferenceon this theme in Copenhagen, Denmark in June 2007. The volume presents twelve chaptersthat explore a broad range of questions and concerns that illustrate the scope andcomplexity of the consultant-client relationship. The chapters illustrate the richness and excitement that takes place notonly in research on consulting but also in its application as the various empirical analyses of consulting in practice portray.

Challenges and Issues in Knowledge Management - the fifth volume in the Research on Management Consulting series - presents sixteen chapters that explore these various perspectives, focusing on knowledge management within the context of the management consulting industry, the dynamics associated with knowledge sharing and dissemination, methodological approaches to studying knowledge in organizations, and reflections on knowledge management and management consulting. As the chapters underscore, it is important to ensure that KM initiatives are aligned with the needs of the organization and its members, that the KM system is "owned" by organizational members with particular emphasis on executive sponsorship and team member acceptance, and that it be understood as an ongoing process rather than simply another management objective or faddish consulting tool. The focus, therefore, should be on how knowledge processes can be facilitated, leveraged and utilized in organizational value creation.

Challenges and Issues in Knowledge Management - the fifth volume in the Research on Management Consulting series - presents sixteen chapters that explore these various perspectives, focusing on knowledge management within the context of the management consulting industry, the dynamics associated with knowledge sharing and dissemination, methodological approaches to studying knowledge in organizations, and reflections on knowledge management and management consulting. As the chapters underscore, it is important to ensure that KM initiatives are aligned with the needs of the organization and its members, that the KM system is ""owned"" by organizational members with particular emphasis on executive sponsorship and team member acceptance, and that it be understood as an ongoing process rather than simply another management objective or faddish consulting tool. The focus, therefore, should be on how knowledge processes can be facilitated, leveraged and utilized in organizational value creation.