books & referred chapters

Building The Flexible Firm: How To Remain Competitive

Henk W. Volberda (1998), Oxford University Press

How do firms cope with changing environments? Is flexibility really the solution? How can we measure a firm's flexibility? Can a more flexible firm be created?

Based on an Igor Ansoff Award winning study, Henk Volberda's Building the Flexible Firm shows how flexibility has become the new strategic challenge for contemporary firms. On the basis of recent developments in strategy and organization theory, extensive interviews with practitioners, and detailed case studies of flexibility improvement within large corporations, he developed a strategic framework which will help managers to organize for flexibility.

Rethinking Strategy

Edited by Henk W. Volberda and Tom Elfring (2001), Sage Publications

This is a new overview of the strategy field, with internationally renowned contributors summarizing the latest directions and developments in strategic management theory in the context of their theoretical roots in economics, organization theory, and systems theory.

The contributors outline the most promising new directions on the basis of a systemic treatment of paradigms or schools of thought in strategy: redrawing firm boundaries, developing dynamic capabilities and discovering viable strategy configurations.

The volume will be an invaluable companion to advanced courses in strategy and management, used as a reader alongside case material and field studies.

Organizing Knowledge in Internal Networks

Raymond van Wijk (2003), ERIM PdD Series Research in Management

Organizing knowledge is fundamental to the competitive success of firms. Recent research shows that many firms experience difficulty in transferring and integrating knowledge across their organizational units, and that its remedy requires firms to change their organization forms.

This PhD study seeks to examine how internal network forms of organizing influence the organization and integration of knowledge. Employing a longitudinal case study method and two questionnaires, four studies are conducted in which the effect and performance implications of both corporate-level and business-level elements shaping knowledge integration in internal networks are examined.

The results demonstrate that firms improve the integration and organization of knowledge by adopting sets of complementary elements characteristic of internal networks at the corporate level, as well as through the contribution of internal networks in developing the capacity to absorb knowledge at the business level.

Copies of this book can be obtained by e-mailing the ESRC.

Referred Chapters in Books

Volberda, H.W. & Charles Baden-Fuller (2003), Strategic Renewal Processes in Multi-Unit Firms: Generic Journeys of Change in Chakravarthy, Mueller-Stevens, Lorange and Lechner (Eds.), "The Strategy Process", Blackwell Publishing.

Volberda, H.W. (2003), Strategic Flexibility: Creating Dynamic Competitive Advantages in Faulkner & Campbell (Eds.) "The Oxford Handbook of Strategy Volume II: Corporate Strategy", Oxford University Press

Lewin, Arie Y. & Henk W. Volberda (2003), The Future of organisation Studies: Beyond The Adaptation-Selection Debate in Tsoukas and Knudsen (Eds.) "The Oxford Handbook of organisation Theory", Oxford University Press.

Wielemaker, Martin, Henk Volberda, Tom Elfring & Charles Baden-Fuller (2003), The Conditioning and Knowledge Creating View: Managing Strategic Initiatives in Large Firms in Chakravarthy, Mueller-Stevens, Lorange and Lechner (Eds.), "The Strategy Process", Blackwell Publishing.

Wijk, Raymond A. van & Frans A.J. van den Bosch (2000), The Emergence and Development of Internal Networks and their Impact on Knowledge Flows: The Case of Rabobank Group in Pettigrew and Fenton "The Innovating organisation", Sage Publications.

Baden-Fuller, Ch. & Volberda, H.W. (2000), Dormant Capabilities, Complex organisations and Renewal in R. Sanchez (ed.), "Knowledge Management and organisational Competence", Oxford University Press.

Volberda, H.W. (1999). Blijvend strategisch venieuwen: het herschikken van de multi-unit onderneming. In W. van Rossum (Ed.), "Interventies en hun consequenties" (pp. 145-158). Enschede: NOBO.

Volberda, Henk W. & Charles Baden-Fuller (1999), Strategic Renewal and Competence Building: Four Dynamic Mechanisms in: G. Hamel, C.K. Prahalad, H. Thomas & D. O'Neal (Eds.), "Strategic Flexibility: Managing in a Turbulent Economy", Chichester: Wiley, pp. 371-389.