National Conference on Global Management 2009

FAST School of Business

PAPER TITLE

The Role of Contextual Intelligence in Business Leadership

By
Imran Hameed, Assistant Professor Air University, Islamabad. imran.hameed@mail.au.edu.pk Contact: 0333 4333601

Keywords: context, contextual intelligence, strategy, environment, business

opportunity, business leadership, entrepreneurship

ABSTRACT
The business environment of today is heavily influenced by macro-level factors such as economic, political, social and technological forces that constantly change over time. These discontinuous shifts require distinct styles and approaches for leadership. Context is vital in explaining business since it shapes and defines opportunity structure for industry players. This paper explains contextual leadership as an interaction of contextual realities with leadership patterns. It also identifies contextual intelligence, a concept attributed to accurately interpretation of macro-level paradigm for identification of key opportunities threats, challenges, and risks. As a vital step to creation, growth and transformation of business, contextual intelligence requires a distinct mindset for sensing time, capacity, and circumstances. It also implies that degree of utilization of opportunities and business execution depends on the nature and quality of contextual interpretation by organizations. An important aspect of this paper is studying business leadership patterns that emerge from the context itself. Typical executive archetypes include entrepreneurs, managers, and leaders. In fact, all three co-exist in organizational environment as vital forces for new enterprises, growing and optimizing current business, and transforming business at critical inflection points. In traditional view, business success is credited to personal characteristics such as risk-taking, vision, innovation and charisma. Nevertheless, history and research consider success as not just possession of these attributes but by their application within unique contextual setting. From determination of strategic direction to creation of organizational structures, institutionalization of efficient systems, implementation of innovative processes, and from launch of effective functional practices to stakeholder engagement and employee motivation policies, all path-breaking organizational practices of the past and current century demanded entrepreneurial, managerial and leadership responses in unique ways. The common pattern includes embracing opportunities, facing risks and challenges, and maximizing potential for success. Generally, critical factors that influence business include governmental intervention, global events and trends, demographics, social mores, labor, etc. This paper makes a point that degree, impact, and interaction of context-shaping forces take a distinctive contextual configuration each time. Further, as contextual forces heavily influence customer needs, requirements, behavior, and psychological proclivity, they spawn unique customer-centric opportunity structure circling around customer demand. Further, the paper tries to establish that context-based leadership is a special executive response pattern entrepreneurial, managerial, and leadership that gravitates around wide ranging overall opportunities and challenges. To blend it all together, contextual intelligence is necessary. It is a characteristic of effective business executives for accurately reading sign of the times, identifying profitable opportunities, and creating effective organizational responses resulting in long-lasting customer and business value.

1. Introduction Throughout business history, context has presented opportunities needed to be capitalized by business. External circumstances are generally same for all businesses in a given sector and comparable to all industries in a given economy. Still, determinant of success lies in sensitivity towards understanding the real contextual influences. The impact of shifting trends, opportunities and business issues may be same for different economic entities, but businesses require unique management approaches pivotal for success. In light of circumstances facing organizations, managers face issues in decisionmaking that require reading the environment and its trends very carefully. Termed as Contextual Intelligence, the art of correct interpretation of the language of time and environment is an extremely valuable skill (Mayo & Nohria 2005). Executives may read differently from their environment but if that interpretation is true to their organizational, customer and competitive realities, the impact would always be significant. In other words, winning managers may sense different but if their judgment of external facts aligns with internal realities of culture, capacities and direction, the outcome is positive. For some it may be opportunities for growth and market share, new products and services, and for others economies of scale and productivity, technological leapfrogging or rebirth and redefinition of business may be order of the day. Executives routinely explore and utilize contextual opportunities that complement or extend their own entrepreneurial, managerial and leadership skills and approaches. This makes a business leader take the centre-stage in determining success of an organization. Nohria et al (2001) found that after controlling for economic conditions, industry factors, and unique company attributes, the impact of a CEO on company performance appears to be roughly 15 percent which is around the impact of industry on performance i.e. 16 percent. In other words, a CEO has the same impact on companys economic performance as the industry in which it operates. This explains the link between contextual realities, leadership approach, and business performance. 1.1. Nature of Contextual Intelligence The skill of correctly reading ones circumstances require a keen sense of contextual understanding along with an appreciation of history. This willingness to learn from past successes and failures leads to avoidance of losses in future and anticipation of upcoming opportunities and challenges. Amabile (1996) suggests that the creativity skills of entrepreneurs determine the extent to which entrepreneurial actions depart from previous behaviors. Executives need to stay in touch with present context culture, demography, political and economic trends. Contextual intelligence seriously requires a person to break out of ones own world and get into facts and moments of truth. Fact-based decision making demands physically getting out in the competitive arena, talking to customers, meeting suppliers and partners, getting the slice of their minds and putting ones self to the stakeholders shoes. Furthermore, there is no alternative to utilizing from collective wisdom industry conferences, trade and commerce associations, think tanks, etc. This firsthand knowledge and experience of the market has the potential to make one visualize things much clearer than others. The payoff of correct envisioning of future is

immense. Companies that acquire the intellectual advantage of sensing context better than the others are always better in terms of ability, readiness and willingness to act at the right moment.
Unique Contextual Configuration

Context-Based Leadership

Business Value

Customer-Centric Opportunity Structure

Figure 1: Drivers of Contextual Intelligence Contextual intelligence requires a multi-dimensional thinking. As Figure 1 shows, executives need to be cognizant to the idiosyncratic contextual configuration of their industries and businesses. This view needs to be aligned with correct notion of customercentric opportunity structure to be utilized. Both factors need to be consistent with internal organizational realities and their managerial approaches. Success in new ventures or in established businesses often need an entrepreneurial approach. For established firms facing growth or maturity, a managerial tendency for scale, size, capacity, cost-and scaleeconomies may be the right way to go. And for organizations that require change and turnaround, strong leadership is essential for redefinition of business and sustainability of influence over environment. 1.2. Managerial Determinants Business executives in literature are marked with how they brought a sense of purpose in creating a difference to their organizations. Successful businesspeople realize a common spirit and understanding among people. For leaders, the art of emotional intelligence is both understanding and adjusting to the wavelength of co-workers and partners. It requires managerial focus on commonalities and convergence of ideas than on differences and divergence of thought. Furthermore, at every point of time there are key social, economic, and environmental factors that influence the direction taken by executives. Foresight, as a management attribute, is important to exploring range of creative possibilities to be exploited. Managers who display a sense of vision and sense of direction often stay nimble and aware of inflection points that signals opportunity, crisis or challenge. The third important managerial determinant is strategic approach that acts as key differentiator between high- and low-performance in a competitive arena. Contextually vigilant executives are better equipped with a plan and a course of action that is either more efficient or effective than others or sometimes both. A sound business strategy requires proper and methodical execution with a deep knowledge of the circumstances and key drivers of success and failure.

2. Unique Contextual Configuration 2.1. Contextual Idiosyncrasies Throughout history, business executives have been influenced by contextual pressures of their times. These influences provide a unique opportunity to understand and assess changing business landscape thus defining the opportunity structure for entrepreneurs, managers and leaders. Every decade of the twentieth century brought a different configuration of opportunities, threats, and challenges. It thus characterized every decade with a distinctive configuration of environmental factors such as government intervention, global affairs, demography, social mores, technology and labor. The configuration and intensity of contextual factors differ from time to time depending upon degree, impact, and interaction of macro-economic forces. Trends keep on evolving and shifting such as power within government circles, policy influence of government on business and vice versa, advancement of innovation and technology, and major global trends such as outsourcing, employee rights, consumer activism, competition intensification, etc. All continuously pose opportunities and challenges for entrepreneurs, managers, and leaders in a different perspective and manner. This dynamic phenomenon puts a tremendous bearing upon business creation, its growth, and industrial transformation. For example, in the last century, U.S., business context was largely shaped by three trends: governmental intervention in business affairs during and after the first decade of twentieth century; business growth in the post World War II and 1950s era; and rise of information-technology and its pervasiveness during and after 1990s. Above developments brought with themselves paradigm shifts with changing role of government and business, growing consumer rights and environmental concerns, and many others. Each influence had a different meaning in its own time and impacted across-the-board from small to large businesses, multinationals, and from business sectors to entire industries. 2.2. Key Contextual Drivers Interventionist government policy forms the first and foremost factor effecting industrial and business context. The degree of autonomy that a business founder or executive could exert can be explained and predicted by the extent of government policies. This intervention can be mild and severe at same or different times. For example, in U.S. during the Depression era of 1930s and war mobilization of the 1940s and at other times in the history, the federal government policies were considered as laissez-faire. In the passage of time as government intervention reflected its full colors, executives increasingly found themselves under pressure to adapt to the changing business environment which was at times easy going for somenew opportunities, unfettered competition and tough for others as they forced firms for compliance, retrenchment, and even divestiture. The impact of global paradigm on business decision making can never be underestimated. For businesses, the ability to adapt to optimize global events and trend patterns has a strong effect on their performance outcome. As international competition, its pervasiveness and toughness is rule of the day, it is important that domestic businesses met their international competition, both inside and

outside their homeland. This may take the shape of retrenchment or head-on collision with the competition. Furthermore, the concept of competition may be taken as opportunity or threat by businesses competing for domestic and global hegemony. Another dictate of identification and pursuance of markets is awareness of shifting demographic trends. The world saw a shifting pattern in demographic structure soon after the World War II when the baby boomer generation exploded in Europe and the U.S. In passing decades, this effect got complemented with rapid immigration in the later part of the twentieth century, a phenomenon that was earlier experienced in the initial part of the same century. Business activity relied on industrialization greatly took it as an opportunity for growth and expansion. This effect brings forward diversity in population and workforce in almost every corner of the West and especially the U.S. Demography, as an art and science of knowing about people and their profile, has strong implications on managing global workforce as well as marketing products and services at international scale. Stakeholders, be it internal such as employees, partners or external including investors, suppliers etc., are greatly impacted by their immediate and overarching social milieu. Social factors often play a role in determining businesses that will flourish and fail. These elements influence approaches to competition and nature of products, markets and services. Normally, businesses that succeed are the ones with their executives showing most adaptability and flexibility in interpreting social factors of their times (Mayo & Nohria 2005). Similarly, technological breakthroughs with their twisting nature can always shape the demand pattern in terms of economic sense and productivity considerations. For twentieth century, the role of technology has been pivotal in determining the quality of human life, its productivity and impact on other macroeconomic forces. Businesses have greatly contributed in furthering technology as well as utilizing from its application for efficiency and productivity. Almost all industries have experienced growth from technology and automation, creating new businesses and opportunities. It is hard to comprehend execution of any business operation without considering labor availability and movement of human resource within industries, markets, regions, and even continents. In developed economies, the labor movement that is tied to economic circumstances experiences cycles of progress and crunch. This entails opportunities for firms who show a serious concern for their employees. In the midst of opportunities and threats across the board, executives that recognize the worth of human potential and synergy are the candidates for outstanding results. This requires managing before-the-fact with foresight of moving conditions of labor and supply factors. 3. Customer-Centric Opportunity Structure In businesses, time and again, we have seen successful entrepreneurs, managers, and leaders giving birth to new entities, leveraging scale and scope, aligning resources with capabilities, and redefining their businesses. This necessitates applying right levers for attaining greatest possible value. Business executives who display contextual intelligence are not necessarily all CEOs of high growth firms; managers may come from all types of

background, qualifications and contextual base. History shows entrepreneurs building upon on path-breaking experiences of prior entrepreneurs; second- or third-generation managers from family firms turning their forerunners ideas and spirit into vital, longterm business success; and leaders transcending their businesses to new frontiers from stagnant, mature entities into vibrant and profitable entities. 3.1. Unique Contextual Framework Learning from their context, leaders display an ability to identify hidden potential with a confrontationist approach towards change. In transforming their businesses, leaders tackle some of the most difficult and intractable challenges. Contextual management requires an understanding of the circumstances and an ability to shape along the business as the context changes. This adaptive capacity as termed by Bennis and Thomas (2002), provides flexibility and adaptability to new situations and contexts. The authors classify such organizations as first-class noticers in recognizing talent, identifying opportunities, and avoiding pitfalls. History of business suggests that for long-term success, one cannot ignore the impact of context neither can we rely solely on business leaders personality and character. Organizations risk being either overtaken or victimized by competitors without their leaderships sensitivity to context in which they operate. Success or failure of a businesses and industries are best explained in their contextual framework or else there is a chance of putting too much emphasis on individuals and personalities. Too often, focus gets divulged into future opportunities without link to the past what worked, what didnt, and why it didnt. This tendency to overlook the context of past success and simply to glorify an individual is a serious leadership lapse. In order to link with the shaping landscape of business environment, it is important to connect with historical context. 3.2. Opportunity Structure Whatever contextual changes emerge at any time or space, the role of consumers and their importance in business growth remains at the centre stage. In fact, all contextual factors and forces revolve around consumer demand. Customers can leverage their importance to determine ultimate acceptance or rejection of new forms of technology. With their changing needs and want patterns that are influenced by social mores, demographic shifts and economic realities, consumer demand differentiates enduring products, services, brands, and industries from the non-enduring. Successful business executives realize that under similar contextual circumstances approaches differ in attaining objectives. The key is determining alignment between the executive approach (entrepreneurial, managerial, leadership), firms strengths in resources and capabilities, and life-cycle stage of the company and its industry (birth, growth, maturity, decline). A proper realization of the connection between the three dimensions is necessary for attaining response synchronicity. Based on identification of unique contextual configuration and their inter-connections, business leaders can answer basic questions of strategic choice much effectively. For example, shaping or adapting to

3.3.

uncertainty? Making strategic commitments now or later? Following a focused or diversified strategy? (Courtney, 2001). Adaptive Capacity Business executives must possess courage to adapt for difficult decisions in times of changing contextual realities. The importance of adaptability is not just important for business profitability and growth but also for long-term survival. The courage and flexibility to change directions and gears as the environment changes is an attribute of competitive spirit. This requires a strong ability for adaptation and keen awareness of changing contextual landscape. The term, adaptive capacity, established by Warren Bennis and Robert J. Thomas in their work on leadership (2002) was based upon their interviews with over 40 top leaders from public and private sector enterprises. They explain adaptive capacity as ability to correctly read ambiguous situations, understand necessities and demands, and adjust with suitable leadership style to guide through turbulent and precarious conditions. This requires a passion for discovery and learning, a process that guides leaders to explore new social realities and new modes of interacting with technology and people. As their personal and organizational investigations progress, a sense of transfer of learning takes place where knowledge gained in a certain context is applied to a different situation. Similarly, adaptive capacity leads serial entrepreneurs to discover and utilize value in new and unexplored products, markets, and geographic territories. Time and Focus Since stakeholders commit themselves into business activity, understanding the business context is essential be it suppliers, labor or partners. This is especially true for venture capitalists, bankers and other funding sources. Understanding the events and trends is essential to maximizing returns and mitigating risks. These actors, with their unique vantage position, can deliver a pragmatic advice to business leaders as to when should they adjust for the changing times. Providers of capital can, in turn, protect and further their financial interests at all stages, whether startup or growth, looking at the evolving contextual landscape in which businesses operate under their investment. Similar to investors, employees can also benefit from reading situations before taking their career decisions in firms. Career-seekers can take advantage by aligning their personal strengths and preferences with life-cycle stage and context of their potential employers. For both employers and employees, people need to understand their capacity and performance track record under varying contextual landscapes as to ascertain under which environments did they succeed or fail. This sensing capacity provides a great deal of thought-clarity to utilize opportunities for personal development and professional growth. Putting Right Person at the Right Time As success is a contextual factor depending upon a number of conditions, winning executives know that past success may not be the indicator for future performance. That is, success in one time, place, or environment may not repeat itself in other conditions. Rather, for leaders, the focus should rotate around individuals ability to understand, judge, and adapt according to the demands of the situation. For corporations preparing for leadership transition, it is important to look at factors that contributed to success or

3.4.

3.5.

failure of the company in the past. Corporation boards should pay attention to abilities of candidates filling in the top position for flexibility in changing contexts. Boards must consider environmental conditions under which candidates for CEO-ship operate. Does the person in question possess strong managerial qualities if, for example, maximum growth is the companys objective? On the other hand, if business context is turbulent with anticipated crises or decline, does the candidate possess leadership qualities to get through? Candidates for the top slot must possess strong qualifications in aligning their strengths with companys contextual reality. This requires openness and willingness to see beyond ones own experiences along with analytical and imaginative skills to feel the pulse of time and environment. 4. Context-Based Leadership 4.1. Business Leadership Archetypes Winning business executives are in tune to time and space under which they operate. As timing holds the key to right or wrong decision, the same act too early or too late can bring different outcomes. Examples of success is revealed in three approaches: entrepreneurs who venture into unknown to create new business forms as advocated by Schumpeter (1961), managers who stretch to the limits of efficiency and productivity in leveraging opportunities in the light of Chandler (1977), and leaders who brought new vision and approach for transformation as explained by Bennis and Nanus (1985). The contextual ability of business executives to sense, identify, analyze, execute and finally capitalize on given opportunities is a major component of their success. Among them some have a specialty of revitalizing and reinvigorating their industries and businesses, some with skills in setting consumer trends, and some following trends with highest levels of efficiency and productivity. Last century saw emergence and dominance of three types of executives that were most aligned with challenges of their times. Entrepreneur as an executive type, envisaged in the early twentieth century, was considered to be obsessed with creation of new businesses. Similarly, the manager or the organization man in the post World War II 50s era focused upon growing and optimizing businesses. And the change agent of the 80s era was believed to shoot at critical inflection points for transforming their businesses and industries. 4.2. Entrepreneurial Business Creation Entrepreneurs are traditionally not bound by limitations of their times. The thrust behind entrepreneurial spirit is the innovativeness, risk-taking ability, and proactivity that result in breakthrough ideas, business models and processes that transform not just businesses but entire demand patterns and industries. One main attribute of this breed is marshalling resources. Entrepreneurs are marked with conquering limitations, obstacles, and challenges for exploring the new and the unknown. Their inquiry-based mindset sets in identifying new opportunities that are congruent with resources and strategies for the purpose of new venture creation.

Entrepreneurs with their pursuit from bootstrap to high growth stage have always been a symbol of ingenuity, perseverance, and determination. Schumpeter in his work, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1950) carefully studied industrialization of American economy with expanding marketplaces and innovative ideas for products and services, and described the function of entrepreneurs as to reform or revolutionize the pattern of production by exploiting an invention, or more generally, an untried technological possibility for producing a new commodity or producing an old one in a new way, by opening up an new source of supply of material or a new outlet for products, by reorganizing an industry and so on. He, however, admits that entrepreneurial characteristics are not widely available as the ability to overcome resistance and persevere in the creation of new entities was present in only a small fraction of the population. In his later work, Schumpeter (1961) describes entrepreneurs in an interesting way: the carrying out of new combinations we call enterprise, the individual whose function it is to carry them out we call entrepreneurs. He explains an entrepreneur as more self-centered than other types (traditional managers), because he relies less than they do on traditions and connection and because his characteristic task theoretically and historically consists precisely in breaking up old and creating new tradition. The main thrust of entrepreneurial spirit is new venture creation. This involves opportunities with the outcome of creation and innovation. Entrepreneurial minds can grasp a potential opportunity or technology early on, and with their sense of dedication and persistence, are able to build a successful new enterprise altogether. For example, Dee Ward Hock of Visa International was an enterprising figure who envisioned an interconnected world of electronic communication interchange. He established Visa as name synonymous to financial services over the electronic distribution. Similarly, American entrepreneurs such as Sam Walton, Walt Disney, Ray Kroc, Henry Ford, and Bill Gates are synonymous to high-stretch imagination and ground-breaking pursuit for exploring new frontiers of growth. 4.3. Management: Business Growth This breed is skilled at efficiencies for optimized results. The main element in managerial control is shaping existing business into a profitable venture following growth prospects. The art of management is endowed with discipline, structure, and organization. This includes focus on resource allocation, organizational alignment of systems and processes, scale and scope efficiencies, and predictability of superior business results. Managers have a knack of understanding circumstances facing businesses and how to harness environmental forces for creating successful organizations. Managerial potential is the key in getting organizations reach full potential for growth and productivity. Alfred Chandler (1977) highlighted the role and relationship between firm and the manager in his work. His focus was organic business growth and growth through mergers and consolidations resulting in standardization and large-scale business efficiencies. Chandler saw the visible hand of management countering the invisible forces of market that had shaped business for a long period of time. He prescribed distinct roles at various managerial levels to harness industrialization and technological innovations. Chandler

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saw value creation as a consequence of standardization and organizational structure, systems and processes that should speed up commercialization and productivity in U.S. and other parts of the world. Middle managers, for Chandler, suited monitoring and coordinating of production and distribution units. In his view, the top management replaced market forces in allocating resources for future production and distribution in addition to evaluating and coordinating the work of middle managers. As a result, Chandler depicts, in order to carry out these functions, the managers had to invent new practices and procedures which in time became standard operation methods in managing American production and distribution. 4.4. Leadership: Organizational Transformation Business leaders are fundamentally oriented towards anticipating and capitalizing on change. This involves decisions such as turnarounds, reinvigoration that incorporate cultural change, business consolidation, product and service reformulation, restructuring or organizational processes and its lifecycle extension. Leadership is the second archetype of business executive. Leader as a change agent is considered to embrace, survive and thrive in a toughest times and seemingly impossible situations. Leaders known for their vision see extraordinary possibilities and opportunities either unseen or abandoned by others This breed instills new life in declining businesses and industries with their profound sense of hope and purpose through reinvention, and reengineering of the enterprise. For the corporate world, Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric, is synonymous to growth and transformation from a faltering industrial conglomerate to a financial powerhouse known for its product and services worldwide. Warren Bennis looks at leadership as architect of change and transformation. Bennis and Namus (1985) expect effective leadership to move organizations from current to future states, creating visions for potential opportunities, instilling commitment to change within cultures, and shaping strategies to mobilize energy and resources. They view leaders and leadership to emerge from complexities and problems that cannot be solved by unguided evolutions. For Bennis and Namus, leaders take charge and responsibility for adapting to environmental change by reshaping organizational practices, empowering people to seek new ways of doing things, and overcoming resistance to change by invoking confidence and mastery of new organizational practices. Another perspective of leadership takes it to a notion of a story-teller. According to Howard Gardner (book, leading minds) a good leader can quench followers thirst in words, can inspire narratives, even embody those narratives. 5. Business Value Business value is all about identifying and exploiting opportunities in the context of turbulent and volatile business environment. Drucker (1986) looks at business value in the light of profitability. He considers profitability to fulfill three purposes a) measuring net effectiveness and soundness of a business b) identifying risk premium, that covers the cost of staying in business, and c) ensuring the supply of future capital for innovation and expansion. As business entities are strongly affected by environmental conditions, Hitt et al. (2002) believes contextual changes play an important role in bringing new

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winners unexpectedly and quickly. And at the same time, it makes established leaders decline or disappear. The researchers see an unanticipated increase of winners in the competitive landscape of the new millennium. Interestingly, these winners will rely on unique business models dependent upon entrepreneurial and discovery-driven mode. In other words, new business models with reliance upon opportunity-seeking and advantage-seeking behavior is an integrated framework for future competition (Hitt et al., 2002). Similarly, for reaping a better results, Chesborough (2006) advocates an open business model to create value and capture a portion of it. His observes that firms that effectively build or change to open business model in an effort to exploit global trends and opportunities are more amenable to succeed. Amit and Zott (2002) identified business model as a unit of analysis that enables the examination of new approaches in which value can be created. According to the authors, a business model refers to the structure, content and governance of transactions enabled by a network of firms, customers, supplies, and complementors. Although applicable to both on-line and traditional businesses, they have used this view of new business model to especially analyze the interactive, rapid growth of electronic (e-commerce) markets. For business leaders, Ram Charan (2004) looks at their value-generating behavior with fresh look at business fundamentals. These include efforts that a business puts in to prosper their clients, quality of sales force that shapes and customizes a unique value proposition for customers, pricing that is tied to the attributes highly valued by customers, and finally information that is extracted about customers needs in every interaction with them, and relaying that information to the people and departments in best position to satisfy those needs. Conclusion Contextual shift is vital to be incorporated by entrepreneurs, managers, and business leaders in their response framework. Strategies that neither manage the risk nor take advantage from prevailing opportunities may not deliver desired results. This paper proposes that every environment of a particular time and space bears a unique paradigm, and a distinct opportunity structure. Business executives need to accurately understand the level of uncertainty, risks and challenges facing the organization. Context, therefore, shapes the way businesses serve their stakeholders in unique manners that are attributed to the context itself. The hallmark of contextual-leadership is a better, informed business decision. References Amabile, T.M. (1996). Creativity in context. Boulder: Westview Press, U.S. Amit Raphael, Zott Christoph (2002), Value Drivers of e-Commerce Business Models, Creating value; Winners in the New Business Environment, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, U.K.

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Bennis, Warren G., Nanus Burt, Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 17-18 Bennis, Warren G., Thomas, Robert J. (2002), Geeks and Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders, Harvard Business School Press, Boston Massachusetts. Chandler, Alfred D. Jr., The Visible Hand (Cambridge, MA; Harvard University Press, 1977), 7 Charan, Ram (2004), Profitable Growth is Everybodys Business, Crown Business, New York, U.S. Cesbrough, Henry (2006), Open Business Models, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. Courtney, Hugh (2001), Twenty-Twenty Forsight: Crafting Strategy in an Uncertain World, Harvard Business Press, Boston Massachusetts Drucker, Peter F. (1986), The Practice of Management, HarperBusiness, New York, U.S. Hitt, Michael A., Amit Raphael, Lucier Charles E., Nixon, Robert D. (2002), Creating value; Winners in the New Business Environment, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, U.K. Mayo. J. Anthony, Nohria, Nitin (2005), In their time: the greatest business leaders of the twentieth century, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Massachusetts. Noam Wasserman, Bahrat Anand, and Nitin Nohria, When Does Leadership Matter? working paper 01-063, Harvard Business School, Boston, 2001; also see S. Lieberson & J.OConnor, Leadership and organization performance: A study of large corporations American Sociological Review 37: 117-130. Schumpeter, Joseph A., The Theory of Economic Development, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961), 74 Schumpeter, Joseph A., Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New York: Harper & Row, 1950), 132.

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