8 Steps To Building Innovating Organizations

In the speed of life, today’s organizations are under constant pressure to change, adapt, create, and innovate. Organizations that neglect to innovate find themselves back in the pack, unable to compete effectively; paving a quick path to the graveyard of commercial ventures. Many see innovation as serendipitous events, bordering on the calamitous exchange of related ideas taken from an ocean of knowledge, born from homogeneous minds. Those who are truly innovative thinkers would be quick to disagree, and say that innovation is a process; calculated, manipulated, and involving heterogeneous minds and often apparently unrelated pools of knowledge. As Manu Parashar points out in his new book, 8 Steps To Building Innovating Organizations, “ … innovation is all about combining various kinds of knowledge in a unique manner.”

Online social networking and the economic crisis

In the fallout of the global financial meltdown, it’s difficult to think of a positive side to the economic crisis. But it actually might be good news for Web 2.0 social networking.

It would reasonable to predict that social networking sites like LinkedIn, Plaxo, Ning — and even Face book — will see their membership ranks soar in coming weeks and months as widespread insecurity drives people to connect with others to boost their social capital.

Maximising shareholder value: an ethical responsibility?

Finance professors often get criticized by ethics professors because they tell their students that the goal of the firm is to maximize shareholder value. Financial scandals such as Enron, Tyco and others are regularly blamed on the excessive focus on shareholder value maximization. 

Theo Vermaelen, Professor of Finance at INSEAD, says this critique is misplaced and reflects a lack of understanding of what we teach in finance courses.