Management Innovation Conference

26 March 2009 at 11:36 am Nicolai Foss 1 comment

| Nicolai Foss |

There are reasons to think that changes in organization designs, administrative systems, and managerial technologies are important sources of firm-level value creation. It is also quite conceivable that changes that amount to innovations in organization design, etc. may give rise to sustained competitive advantages. Business history, popular management writing, and some academic papers offer examples, notably the introduction of the M-form, TQM, the Oticon spaghetti organization, the HRM practices of Lincoln Electric, and so on. And yet, very little systematic, research-based knowledge exists about such “management innovation.” The first conceptual and theoretical treatment of management innovation as a subject deserving of focused inquiry is Julian Birkinshaw and Michael Mol’s paper in the Academy of Management Review — which was published in 2008!

To further research on management innovation, the Center for Strategic Management and Globalization at the Copenhagen Business School is arranging a conference on management innovation later this year (3-4 September 2009). Keynote speeches will be delivered by Julian Birkinshaw, Ed Zajac and Richard Burton. Details on the conference homepage (version 1.0). Submit a paper!