What is the impact of the changing world of business on the way in which companies organize themselves? Based on detailed investigations inside such well-known and pioneering companies as Ericsson, Volvo, ABB, and Hewlett Packard, this book argues that companies are increasingly organized as networks. They are spinning off business to external companies, and breaking up their internal structures to make individuals more entrepreneurial and accountable for performance. This book describes the capabilities that companies need to develop in order to work effectively in this new networked form.

What is the impact of the changing world of business on the way in which companies organize themselves? Based on detailed investigations inside such well-known and pioneering companies as Ericsson, Volvo, ABB, and Hewlett Packard, this book argues that companies are increasingly organized as networks. They are spinning off business to external companies, and breaking up their internal structures to make individuals more entrepreneurial and accountable for performance. This book describes the capabilities that companies need to develop in order to work effectively in this new networked form.

This pioneering book, available in paperback for the first time, represents leading-edge thinking on contemporary issues in business strategy, globalization, and technology management. The Dynamic Firm brings together well-known international experts in the fields of technology (such as Richard Nelson and Nathan Rosenberg); strategy and organization (such as Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi); and international business (such as Michael E. Porter, John Dunning, and Allen J. Scott).

Business strategy is becoming increasingly "pluralist", drawing on the insights of different disciplines, and business practice in different parts of the world. This book brings together the work and ideas of leading international scholars working in the field under three main headings - technology, strategy and organization, and regions. The purpose of the book is to explore from different perspectives the dynamic interplay between the technology of a firm - its strategies, organizational choices and issues of place, region, and location. The contributors are Peter Hagstrom, Alfred Chandler, Takahiro Fujimoto, Richard Nelson, Nathan Rosenberg, Erik von Hippel, Cristiano Antonelli, Giovanni Dosi, Benjamin Coriat, David Teece, Gunnar Hedlund, Pari Patel, Keith Pavitt, Ikujiro Nonaka, Hirotaka Takeuchi, Lars-Gunnar Mattsson, John Cantwell, John Dunning, Michael Enright, Masahisa Fujita, Ryoichi Ishii, Allen Scott, Orjan Solvell, Ivo Zander, J-C Spender, and Michael Porter. Together they address the challenge of explaining the long-run competitiveness of firms in an ever more global world.