Managerial Effectiveness, You Tease!

I read the Proctor & Gamble case study this evening for Managerial Effectiveness. Even though the write-up isn’t due for another 10 days (Team 6 on the ball!), after a full day’s work AND cutting the grass, I felt it was better to read an ME case study than try and make sense of Accounting for Pensions.

(Note to self:  Get Accounting tutor!)

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Crowdsourced or Elite Unit Innovation? (Link)

I read a great blog post today from a man named Hutch Carpenter, who wrote about sustaining innovation and discontinuous innovation and the effect it has on different types of organizations.  It also discusses two types of business models to deal with innovation:  Integrated and Separate.

I found this article to be very interesting as it highlighted Motorola, a company which fumbled the transition between analog and digital cell phones (discontinuous innovation).  He also talks about Whirlpool and 3M, which foster innovation through the daily work environment.  And finally, no discussion of innovation would be complete without an analysis of Google and their “20% employee innovation time” business climate.

Take a read, let me know what you think.  I think of all my MBA studies, these types of analyses are my favorite to read; hopefully we’ll focus a bit more on innovation before the ME class is finished.

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iPod + MacBook Pro + iPhone = MBA Student (Part 2)

In London, we learned of the concept of the “Abilene Paradox”, where a group of people come to a conclusion that no one in the group would’ve come to individually. Everyone assumes their opinion runs counter to the group, and thus moves in the (assumed) group direction at the expense of their personal wishes.

Of course, I am only one person, but in light of my recent technology purchases I think the general concept holds:  in a series of three individual purchases, I arrived at a conclusion directly counter to the one I would’ve assumed.  Had you asked me before the iPod purchase, I would’ve scoffed at the idea that I would be the ‘Apple guy’ at business school.  And yet, here I am!

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