The Network Challenge (Chapter 6)


Book Description

Biology remains the most extensive and complex information network on the planet. This chapter examines the nature of biological networks, including their inherent stability and risks to their resilience. After a general introduction exploring networks and biological systems, this chapter reviews (1) the evolution of biological networks; (2) principles that govern biological networks; and (3) measures of stability, productivity, and efficiency in biological networks. The authors use examples from food (energy) transfer in rainforests and coral reefs, as well as the creation of a biological network through colonization in Darwin’s Finches of the Galapagos Islands. Research shows that while large biological networks are inherently unstable, some are more stable than others.




The Network Challenge (Chapter 5)


Book Description

This chapter provides an overview of social networks, the basic discipline from which ideas and terminology are drawn when characterizing popular phenomena such as “social networking” Internet sites like Facebook. The authors offer the reader a flavor of the theoretical and empirical research conducted by social network scholars since the 1930s. They explore how researchers have used social networks to generate and test economic, sociological, and organizational theories. They also examine broad insights from this research, as well as management implications in areas such as advertising, brands, loyalty, authenticity, and segmentation. The overriding message is that as power shifts from firms to social networks, companies have less control over their own destinies and need to pay more attention to networks.




The Network Challenge (Chapter 8)


Book Description

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers computational methodologies for modeling systems, which can be valuable in understanding networks. In this chapter, the author examines several types of applications of these methods in exploring how the behavior of individual agents leads to outcomes across networks. For example, he considers how one system, based on a Prisoner’s Dilemma that provides a higher payoff for players who don’t cooperate, can result in a surprising outcome in which cooperation dominates after many rounds of play. He also considers agent-based models--including turtles in a pond, showing discrimination effects; and sugar and spice trading, showing interactions through trading. Finally, he explores applications to ant colony optimization and swarming optimization of flocks of birds or schools of fish. He concludes that computational models offer important insights into networks, and the procedures used in modeling have a significant impact. The discussion also demonstrates that “networks matter,” affecting outcomes in sometimes unpredictable ways.




The Network Challenge (Chapter 16)


Book Description

Although networks in key business areas such as communications, supply chains, R&D, and sales are designed to improve the flow of information, people, or goods, they can also be used to improve the “peripheral vision” of the organization. In this chapter, the authors examine how networks can be used by organizations to scan, sense, and adapt to new and important signals from the organization’s strategic environment beyond its core focus. The first part of the chapter emphasizes the importance of peripheral vision in helping organizations not being blindsided by threats while seeing new opportunities sooner. The authors examine some key obstacles to using networks to better mine the periphery for early insight. They then explore how extended networks can help the organization be a responsive open system adapting faster to changes in the environment. They examine to what extent network constructs such as centrality, hierarchy, self-healing, distributed intelligence, multihoming, and latency can be used to improve organizational networks for scanning the periphery. The last section explores some of the leadership challenges associated with using networks to detect weak signals sooner.




The Network Challenge (Chapter 25)


Book Description

From oil companies seeking rights to drill to consumer products firms attempting to forestall a consumer boycott, organizations often seek to influence political or social policy to achieve their own objectives. But to exert this influence, they need to understand the structure of political and social networks. In this chapter, Witold Henisz examines how information about the structure of political and social networks can be integrated into data acquisition and analysis, as well as strategy implementation. Although sophisticated companies have long relied on an informal understanding of networks of informants to gather information about social and political actors at home and abroad, the analysis of the information and design of an influence strategy has too often occurred without reference to that structure. As Henisz points out, a more rigorous approach to analysis is transforming political and social risk management from art to quasi-formal science. This chapter outlines the past, present, and future frontiers of political and social risk management with particular attention to using an understanding of the network structure of diverse actors in perceiving, analyzing, and influencing the political and social environment.




The Network Challenge (Chapter 7)


Book Description

What can we learn about networks from ants, honeybees, and other animals with evolved social structures? The impact of information and communications strategies on network dynamics did not arrive with the emergence of computers, cell phones, and the Internet. This chapter describes communication networks selected from among many that have been studied in communities of nonhuman organisms. It explores the extent to which communication linkages have controlled the development of those networks. In some of those networks, developmental histories are manifest as evolved body plans and gender roles not represented in human communities. Many of those networks are founded on efficient exchange of information via pathways of which humans are almost fully oblivious.




The Network Challenge


Book Description

New Paperback Edition Networks and the Enterprise: Breakthrough Thinking and Actionable Strategies “This book presents an amazing collection of insights on underlying forces and ways to thrive in our post-Coaseian age—an age in which the centralized firm is changing into an agile and resilient network of participants. A must read for a world where unpredictability reigns supreme.” —John Seely Brown, Independent Co-Chair of the Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation, and Senior Fellow at the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California “I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this research...I have already begun to put the ideas into practice in designing next-generation open innovation networks...the diversity of ideas and perspectives is truly amazing and will be a terrific resource to anyone seeking to move to new business models based on the power of networks for innovation, marketing, and creating and leveraging big ideas. Job well done!” —Larry Huston, Creator of the “Connect and Develop” program for Procter & Gamble, and Managing Director of 4iNNO, a major Open Innovation consulting practice “In our borderless world, every manager needs to understand the strategic implications of networks. For the first time, The Network Challenge brings together thought leaders from many fields—a team of experts as broad as the network challenge itself.” —Kenichi Ohmae, author of more than 100 books, including the seminal work, The Mind of the Strategist, advisor on global strategy to foreign governments and scores of multinational corporations, selected by The Economist as one of five management gurus in the world. Networks define modern business. Networks introduce new risks (as seen by the rapid spread of contagion in global financial markets) and opportunities (as seen in the rapid rise of network-based businesses). While managers typically view business through the lens of a single firm, this book challenges readers to take a broader view of their enterprises and opportunities. This book’s 28 original essays include CK Prahalad on networks as the new locus of competitive advantage Russell E. Palmer on leadership in a networked global environment Dawn Iacobucci and James M. Salter II on the business implications of social networking Franklin Allen and Ana Babus on contagion in financial markets Steven O. Kimbrough on artificial intelligence, evolutionary computation, and networks Satish Nambisan and Mohan Sawhney on tapping the “global brain” for innovation Manuel E. Sosa on coordination networks in product development Christophe Van den Bulte and Stefan Wuyts on customer networks Christoph Zott and Raphael Amit on using business models to drive network-based strategies Yoram (Jerry) Wind, Victor Fung, and William Fung on network orchestration Valery Yakubovich and Ryan Burg on network-based HR strategy Howard Kunreuther on risk management strategies for an interdependent world Paul R. Kleindorfer and Ilias D. Visvikis on integrating financial and physical networks in global logistics Witold J. Henisz on network-based political and social risk management Boaz Ganor on terrorism networks And much more...




The Network Challenge (Chapter 4)


Book Description

Global networks of firms are rapidly replacing top-down, hierarchical organizations. Such networks, thanks to information technology and global communications systems, can respond to changes in international demand faster and more flexibly than rigid corporate organizations of the past. But by drawing together diverse cultures and individuals, these networks present new challenges to leaders. Traditional styles of leadership are not enough for this emerging environment. The kind of leadership style that leads to efficient execution in these global networks is different from the “do it and do it now” approach that might work in hierarchical organizations. Based on the author’s experience in the leading global accounting firm Touche Ross, serving as dean of the Wharton School, and heading his own corporate investment firm, this chapter discusses leadership in a networked, global environment.




The Network Challenge (Chapter 28)


Book Description

Information about life-and-death matters such as ways to attain good health or prevent disease is often diffused through informal social networks. Network-based strategies and competencies are probably even more important in poor societies with limited means of communication and less effective formal structures than in developed economies. In this chapter, the authors explore the nature of and impacts of informal social networks in reducing fertility and HIV infection in Kenya and Malawi, using longitudinal quantitative and qualitative data that they and their collaborators have been collecting and analyzing for more than a decade. They find that social networks and informal interactions are relevant for many different health domains in developing countries. Their research shows that network effects may be nonlinear, that there may be multiple equilibria, and that networks may either reinforce the status quo or help diffuse new options and behaviors. They show that both the context (e.g., the degree of market development) and the density of networks matter (possibly interactively), as well as the endogeneity of network partners. Their work demonstrates that multiple approaches, including both qualitative and quantitative analyses, can be informative in providing greater understanding of what networks do and how they function.




The Network Challenge (Chapter 13)


Book Description

As manufacturing supply chains have moved from vertically integrated factories to diffused networks, manufacturers need to manage complex, global webs of suppliers. In this chapter, Netessine examines supply networks in two industries in particular: automobiles, and aerospace and defense. He explores how different strategies and technologies have helped companies manage, organize, and capitalize on their networks of suppliers. He discusses how Japanese automakers have used partnerships to outperform their U.S. rivals, who have taken a more adversarial approach to their suppliers. He also considers how companies such as Airbus and Boeing have used technology to coordinate and integrate far-flung networks. While Netessine notes that the formal study of network-based supply chains is just emerging, he offers insights from research and practice on the growing importance of supply networks and strategies for managing them successfully.