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Analyzes the multiple innovation trajectories and changes in competitive strategy in Singapore as it evolves from an industrial economy to a knowledge-based one. In addition to the existing national innovation system in the well-heeled industrial manufacturing sectors such as electronics, chemicals, and precision engineering, a new mode of innovation has been evolving in the research-intensive biomedical industries cluster, which emphasizes a special role for the academic sector in the innovation milieu. Biotech investments at the moment appear to pose high risks due to the rather amorphous and unclear market signals coming out of the industry. However, as technologies become more speculative, governments need to spread their bets more widely to encourage more possibilities. The challenges and opportunities Singapore faces are relevant to other states seeking to adopt new policies for gaining competitiveness and national comparative advantage in an era of globalization.

Real options can be a powerful tool for quantifying the value of strategic and operational flexibility associated with uncertain IT investments. However, they also constitute a new way of thinking about how projects can be organized and managed to maximize upside potential while minimizing downside risk. Explains how practitioners can incorporate options thinking into contemporary IT project management. Options thinking means recognizing real options and how they add value. Just as important is managing projects so that the option value that exists in theory is realized in practice. Several real-world examples illustrate how the value of embedded real options can be realized through active project management. There are pitfalls associated with each option, as well as benefits and limitations of different approaches to valuing options. Organizations must decide whether to undertake the challenges of adopting options thinking as a project management philosophy.

Like many technology organizations in the late 1990s, Cisco was booming. It grew so quickly, in fact, that it was bringing in up to 1,000 new employees each month. Cisco's solution was to acquire talent by buying small firms, topping out in one year with 24 separate acquisitions. However, in 2000, the dot-com bubble burst and Cisco quickly realized that it had another human capital challenge on its hands: how to develop, rather than hire, the strategic thinkers and leaders needed for the future. Explores the challenges facing Mary Eckenrod, Cisco's vice-president of worldwide talent, in developing a new human capital strategy to identify and develop leaders from within the company--and to do this in a company with no tradition of developing people internally. How can Cisco move from a "buy" to a "make" human capital strategy?

Faced with the need for a massive change, most managers respond predictably. They revamp the organization's strategy, shift around staff, and root out inefficiencies. They then wait patiently for performance to improve--only to be bitterly disappointed because they've failed to prepare employees adequately for the change. In this article, the authors contend that to make change stick, leaders must conduct an effective persuasion campaign--one that begins weeks or months before the turnaround plan is set in concrete. Like a political campaign, a persuasion campaign is largely one of differentiation from the past. Turnaround leaders must convince people that the organization is truly on its deathbed--or, at the very least, that radical changes are required if the organization is to survive and thrive. (This is a particularly difficult challenge when years of persistent problems have been accompanied by few changes in the status quo.) And they must demonstrate through word and deed that they are the right leaders with the right plan. Accomplishing all this calls for a four-part communications strategy. Prior to announcing a turnaround plan, leaders need to set the stage for employees' acceptance of it. At the time of delivery, they must present a framework through which employees can interpret information and messages about the plan. As time passes, they must manage the mood so that employees' emotional states support implementation and follow-through. And at critical intervals, they must provide reinforcement to ensure that the desired changes take hold and that there's no backsliding. Using the example of the dramatic turnaround at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the authors elucidate the inner workings of a successful change effort.

Many decry the preponderance of merger failures and conclude that mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are failed strategies. However, analysis of the causes of failure is often shallow and the measures of success weak. Focuses on what makes a merger successful and the appropriate manner of evaluating merger success. Extensive field research of the merger of J.P. Morgan and Chase Manhattan Bank in 2000 illustrates the drivers of merger success and how to improve and value the contributions of mergers.

A study involving over 200 senior managers demonstrates that overall firm performance is strongly influenced by how well a firm's business strategy is matched to its organizational structure and the behavioral norms of its employees. Identifies a taxonomy comprised of four different combinations of structure/behavior types: Management Dominant, Customer-Centric Innovators, Customer-Centric Cost Controllers, and Middle Ground. These alternative structure/behavior types are then matched with specific business strategies (i.e., Prospectors, Analyzers, Low-Cost Defenders, Differentiated Defenders) to identify which combination(s) of structures and behaviors best serve to facilitate the process of implementing a specific strategy.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, was named by Fortune as the "most admired company in America" for the years 2003 and 2004. However, these and other accolades have not quieted a chorus of critics, including organized labor, feminists, human rights activists, environmentalists, local businesses, and antisprawl activists, all of whom revile the retail giant for its business practices, resulting in a growing negative consumer perception of Wal-Mart's corporate citizenship. Wal-Mart has instituted a comprehensive nonmarket strategy to counter this criticism, employing a proactive combination of social, political, and legal strategies to manage a contentious environment that could threaten its future growth and financial success.

Should you set up your own sales force or should you outsource it? The standard analysis is cost based and assumes that the direct sales force is a fixed cost and that the outsourced sales force's cost varies with sales. The standard analysis then calculates the sales volume at which the direct sales force's costs equal the outsourced sales force's costs and suggests that for sales volume above that quantity, firms should use a direct sales force. This analysis has two problems. First, several other cost factors are not considered in the standard analysis. Second, the standard analysis considers only cost, ignoring coverage efficiency and selling effectiveness differences between the two sales forces. Details and develops both problems.

Subtle misdemeanors that are not illegal but rather blur the line between right and wrong can cause serious damage to corporations as they are both widespread and widely accepted. This author argues that over the long run it is the pursuit of both societal and economic value that yields long term and stable profits. The article highlights the economic value versus the societal value argument. While institutional structures in most capitalist countries reinforce the economic argument, economic arguments erroneously assume the existence of perfectly competitive markets. However, because the perfect market is an abstraction, negative externalities impact those who have had no role in, nor consented to the economic transaction. On the other hand, focusing exclusively on societal value yields extremely high short term costs and is likely to lead to closure when profits are persistently negative. The author argues that the either-or approach in the debate between economics and ethics has polarized the discussion and distracted attention from the space where economics and ethics converge and where potential solutions exist. Business should, like some have in the past, focus on building sustainable value. To do so, businesses should focus on the long term and invest in social processes, thus building greater resilience to changes in the market place while addressing social issues throughout the organization. The article also chronicles the advantages of active and up-front stakeholder engagement, community participation and involvement, and strategic decision making by using examples of social processes in companies such as Tembec Inc, Home Depot Canada and TransCanada Pipelines.

It's been slow in coming, especially compared to actions in the United States, but shareholder activism in Canada is gathering momentum, albeit somewhat slowly.

Earnings, for example, may surprise the street but boards that implement an Early Warning Summit will see it coming and be able to prepare for it and other surprises.

Leaders who have been stymied when trying to think outside the box will find a clearer path after reading this article.

Managers who think of pricing as a tool of strategy will see the results flow directly to their bottom lines.

The net result of changes in the work-family politics is that there is, at one level, a merging of work-family pressures for women and men. As women and men move in opposite directions - women increasingly into the workplace, and men increasingly into the activities of the home - both are beginning to embrace greater responsibility in areas where prior generations practiced clear gender segregation. However, in spite of the growing popular rhetoric that families are egalitarian and parents are interchangeable when they do their carework, an imbalance still exists between the primary responsibilities that attributed to women and men. Men and work-family conflict is an emerging workplace issue. This article discusses the importance of father involvement and the positive impact such involvement has on both the parent and the children. Leaders in the area have to plan, manage and develop opportunities for supporting fathers and men as carers. As families are stretched to capacity even with fathers' participation, it is reasonable to assume that demands for change will now shift more strongly for workplace change. The authors call for a more comprehensive discussion that includes men in work-family issues, as well as a more complex discussion that recognizes the role they are already quietly assuming. The article also provides suggestions for what the workplace should do for fathers. Managers should ask dads what would be helpful for them, develop Father programs/groups at lunch and learns, ensure that parental leave is also advertised and planned for fathers within the workplace, communicate a general commitment/attitude shift so that fathers feel they can take advantage of what is already offered, incorporate community relations by including some focus on father/child events organized by a male champion, reduce employee stress by giving extra time off or assisting fathers and their families that work for them and reviewing and adapting policies to reflect a wide variety of family formations

It may be lonely at the top but the person in the C suite - and managers below - should not be alone. Adjusting to change is less trying when there's a network of mentors, advisors and others to support.

A work-life conflict exists when participation in a work oriented life role is made more difficult by participation in a non-work life role or vice versa. This article summarizes key findings of research on work-life conflict spanning over two decades. The results suggest that work to family interference increased for 25% (in 1990) to 30% (in 2000) of respondents. Family to work interference increased more than five times, from 2% to 11% during the same time period. Research results also identified five root causes of the inability to balance work and family demands. Organizational downsizing, organizational culture, changing demographics, non-supportive managers and technology are the factors that are further described in the article. The article also examines coping mechanisms that employees use to help them balance work and family demands. 78 percent of the sample responded that they just work harder-which of course sets conflict levels spiraling out of control. Closely related to just working harder, 60 percent of our respondents indicated they cut down on outside activities, while 55 percent got less sleep. On a more positive note, 47 percent of the sample stated they planned their time more carefully, while 45 percent bought more goods and services (e.g., lawn care, daycare). The most disturbing finding relates to individuals in managerial and professional roles: 26 percent of women in these roles noted they have had fewer children because of work demands; 15 percent of men noted this was also true for them. The results also suggested that many women managers and professionals find that motherhood and career advancement are not compatible goals. The article also posits a solution to the work-life conflict. The authors suggest that employees just say no to work that regularly requires attention outside work hours. They should plan downtime and actively try to maintain a balance between their work and home lives.

Some people choose not to balance the work-life equation. They raise their family first, and then enter the workforce. Organizations would be wise to accommodate these talented individuals.

An interesting dialectic is currently being played out in China: The state is continuing its age-old tradition of preserving order while a much newer force, free-market capitalism, and a previously unheard of phenomenon, a middle class, are slowly creating a new order. It is within such an economic environment that very large bets are being placed on the future of China, both by those already inside and by those rushing to go in. This article examines the crucial role of the state in China's great economic push forward and in its emergence as an economic colossus. It questions the relative safety of placing such bets by examining obstacles faced when investing in China. These include the political dilemma of sharing power with a rising bourgeoisie of prosperous business owners, the managerial challenge of coordinating large, complex organizations at world standards of efficiency, and the fact that global competition has intensified to a level which is virtually impossible for any new entrant to match. Other, more specific features are also considered, such as the fragmentation of the China market, productive inefficiency, allocative inefficiency, the weakness of information, the lack of intellectual property protection, the irrational passion for building capacity, the tendency to diversify rather than focus, and the sheer size of the state. The article also highlights potential opportunities for MNEs investing in China. For instance, declining SOEs may be used as launching pads for entry into the market. Furthermore, there are significant cost advantages to be realized from manufacturing in China, particularly in industries that Chinese companies cannot handle efficiently.

Not having the resources does not preclude the ability to be resourceful, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. Here's how resource-challenged MNEs can play and win. Having access to the Web is essential for SMEs as owning a fax machine and a telephone. And though SMEs usually have limited material and human resources at their disposal, these authors state that successful e-business solutions are still within the reach of these companies. By thinking strategically about e-business, managers can select technological solutions that support the company's business strategies and create value for the company and its customers.

This article outlines the way in which Indians negotiate and highlights the difficulties that such a style may pose for North Americans. It begins by describing some dominant Indian cultural values, and subsequently assesses their impact on the Indian negotiating style. The coexistence of individualism and collectivism, an idealistic mind, a strong nationalistic sentiment, a subjective view of time, and the presence of a hierarchical culture constitute dominant cultural values that have resulted in a complex and highly imaginative Indian negotiator. Implications for Western corporations include the presence of drawn out negotiations, the growing importance of maintaining social relationships, accepting that contractual obligations have less sanctity in India, and finally dealing with a perception of fairness that is relatively more outcome based. The article also explores the possible strategies that North American managers may employ in their interactions with Indians. By being patient but firm, working with the Indian's high aspiration levels rather than against it, recognizing the virtues of flexibility, inducing Indian negotiators to behave differently by being less aggressive, and accepting that negotiated agreements may not be implemented in a timely way, North American negotiators can successfully operate in the Indian business environment.