Professor profile
Henk W. Volberda is Professor of Strategic Management and Business Policy and Scientific Director of INSCOPE: Research for Innovation.
1. What are you currently working on?
I am currently working on the following:
• A European version of Hitt, Ireland & Hoskisson’s textbook on Strategic Management together with Robert Morgan of Cardiff Business School and Patrick Reinmoeler of Canfield Business School
• A Handbook of Research on Strategic Renewal for Edward Elgar Publishing
• An in-depth case-study of management innovation at DSM Anti-infectives; as a response to fierce competition in China they introduced self-organizing teams, open-innovation and shared leadership which fundamentally increased their productivity and competitiveness. The Executive Board of DSM is thinking about how to replicate this management innovation in other plants within DSM.
• The launch of the 5th Erasmus Competition & Innovation Monitor and the Executive Opinion Survey in the Netherlands for the World Economic Forum
• Working on several academic papers on topics such as Governance Issues within Joint Ventures, Strategic Renewal Patterns within Royal Dutch Shell, and How Offshoring can Boost Innovation
2. A case study that you think is important. Why?
The classic Honda case written by Richard Pascale, “Perspectives on Strategy: The Real Story Behind Honda’s Success” (Harvard CMR0006-PDF-ENG). Actually, on this case of the introduction of the Supercub (a motorcycle) two versions appeared. One that was written by the Boston Consulting Group claiming that Honda’s entry in the US motorcycle market was based on superior planning and elaborate market analysis; they had spotted a new leisure market and exploited their economies of scale and scope. Strategy in this BCG version is viewed as a highly top-down, deliberate, analytical process in which management can design an explicit “grand strategy” for the entire enterprise. Pascale however found out that Honda’s successful introduction of the Supercub in the US market was a result of its ability to learn from failure and consistently reconfigure its resources and develop new strategic schemas. Due to the technical problems with the larger motorcycles and limited cash reserves, it was able to discard its cognitive ideas that Americans are interested only in the larger 250cc and 305cc motorcycles and that 50cc motorcycles would harm its image in a heavily macho market. It invested heavily in 50cc motorcycles, in new retailers like sports-goods stores instead of traditional motorcycle dealers, and in non-traditional marketing programmes such as “You meet the nicest people on a Honda”. Pascale’s case-study demonstrates quite nicely that sound strategies are not always explicitly formulated. The opportunities to experiment within Honda, the trial-and-error behavior in design, and the firm’s lack of a hierarchical structure suggests that perhaps the most effective process of strategic management is through originating, developing, and promoting strategic initiatives from the bottom up.
3. A management book you think highly of. Why?
The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail by Clayton Christensen (1997, Harvard Business School Press). This book nicely illustrates that a core competence of a well-established firm over time becomes a core rigidity; success becomes a source of failure.
4. A recent management title you read and/or one you would like to read. Describe.
Giant Steps in Management: Innovations that Change the Way We Work by Michael Mol & Julian Birkinshaw (2008, Prentice Hall). In our field, the effect of technological inventions and R&D on innovation and performance is overestimated, while the effects of management innovations (new ways of managing, organizing, and division of labour) on innovation and performance are underestimated.
5. What is one of your well-liked teaching moments (case, discussion topic,…)?
I very much enjoy teaching my ABN Amro Executive Course on “Mastering Strategic Renewal: Hyper-competition and Flexible Organizational Forms”. The financial sector and in particular this financial player was confronted with radical change. I ask managers to fill in an online “quick-scan flexibility” and present the findings of this survey in terms of the actual organizational form and the adequate trajectory of revitalization that is most adequate.
6. What was your most interesting consulting assignment? Why?
A study on the added-value of Corporate Headquarters for the Netherlands. We interviewed many CEO’s, the Top 100 CEOs filled in a survey, and above all, we were asked to give a presentation on CHQ mobility for the CEOs of Akzo Nobel, Shell, Unilver, DSM and Philips. This was for me a unique event to have five CEOs of the largest multinationals of the Netherlands in one single room.
Also, a presentation for the prime-minister on the position of the Netherlands in the Global Competitiveness Ranking was very special.
7. A product or service gap to be filled. Explain.
Improving social innovation performance of European firms. Europe has an excellent record in knowledge creation, but a mediocre record in innovation activity, which is defined as the successful transfer and application of knowledge in new products and services. I think that European management scholars are too silent in this debate and that they have much to offer to bridge the innovation gap. I therefore created a new research institute INSCOPE, Social innovation for Competitiveness, Organizational Performance and human Excellence. It is a consortium of three Dutch Universities (Erasmus University, University of Amsterdam, University of Maastricht) and TNO. Evidence from both SMEs and large firms shows that successful innovation is not just the result of technological inventions, but is also heavily reliant on what has been called “social innovation”. Social innovation is defined as changing a firm’s organization, management and labour in a way that is new to the organization and/or the industry, with the effect of leveraging the firm’s technological knowledge base and improving organizational performance.
For Europe, and the Netherlands in particular, more active stimulation of social innovation and its leverage of technological innovation will be crucial to sustain long-term competitiveness. At the moment, firms in the Netherlands are relatively unsuccessful in introducing non-technological innovation. They are apparently weak in terms of transferring and utilizing technological, management, organization, and marketing knowledge. The aim of INSCOPE is to conduct a systematic and enduring investigation and development of the various ways in which social innovation and its leverage of technological innovation can be enhanced within a firm; between firms through open innovation networks; and during interaction with institutional stakeholders, as well as through overall better measurement and monitoring. In comparison to technological innovations that are measured by deployment of budgets, number of scientists involved, number of patents or simply by R&D expenses as percentage of turnover, social innovations in terms of outstanding managerial capabilities, management practices and organizing principles of innovation are more difficult to assess and quantify.
