Snow fell quietly the night before and the morning sun was shining brightly under the blue sky the next day. Looking out to the snow-white garden from a large w- dow, Sid Winter, one of the contributors to this book, was beaming with smile. It was such a nice and calm morning in the middle of December at a summer resort hotel one hour from Tokyo. That morning, he was going to present the last paper to our conference and to everyone's surprise, in the very same morning a praising book review of the Japanese translation of his famous book appeared in the major economic journal in Japan. Everyone congratulated him for the coincidence and it was such a happy ending to the three-day conference. The atmosphere of the conference, out of which this book grew, was very st- ulating and cordial at the same time. Without picking on the minor defects of the presented papers, every participant was trying to contribute by probing the issues presented deeper and trying suggestions to make the papers better. Among others, Bruce Kogut was responding fondly on Jiro Nonaka's comment on his paper and Dong-Sung Cho was trying to expand even more the already very broad conceptual framework that Hiro Itami presented. For sure, the dynamics of knowledge creation was at work in the conference room and the dining hall.

Snow fell quietly the night before and the morning sun was shining brightly under the blue sky the next day. Looking out to the snow-white garden from a large w- dow, Sid Winter, one of the contributors to this book, was beaming with smile. It was such a nice and calm morning in the middle of December at a summer resort hotel one hour from Tokyo. That morning, he was going to present the last paper to our conference and to everyone's surprise, in the very same morning a praising book review of the Japanese translation of his famous book appeared in the major economic journal in Japan. Everyone congratulated him for the coincidence and it was such a happy ending to the three-day conference. The atmosphere of the conference, out of which this book grew, was very st- ulating and cordial at the same time. Without picking on the minor defects of the presented papers, every participant was trying to contribute by probing the issues presented deeper and trying suggestions to make the papers better. Among others, Bruce Kogut was responding fondly on Jiro Nonaka's comment on his paper and Dong-Sung Cho was trying to expand even more the already very broad conceptual framework that Hiro Itami presented. For sure, the dynamics of knowledge creation was at work in the conference room and the dining hall.

This book presents novel theoretical ideas and empirical findings where the fields of strategizing and organizing meet. At this boundary lie many of the most crucial theoretical and practical issues for management and managing.

Innovative Forms of Organizing, the eagerly awaited sequel to The Innovating Organization (SAGE, 2000), draws upon the comprehensive data sets of the INFORM programme of research, to examine the development of innovative forms of organizing and company performance in organizations across Europe, Japan and the United States.

Innovative Forms of Organizing establishes and develops three strong themes: organizing and strategizing; complementarities, change and performance; and the management of dualities in the modern corporation. The book then discusses the implications of its presented ideas for strategizing//organizing in the 21st century firm and the challenges for management researchers of conducting large scale, international comparative research. Innovative Forms of Organizing thereby illustrates 21st Century management research in 21st Century organizations across Europe, Japan and the USA.

This seminal international study will be a classic in the field for years to come for scholars and policy makers in academia, business and government who are interested in strategy, organization and international management.