special issue of long range planning

Special Issue of LRP (Long Range Planning)

This special issue deals with two topics: Knowledge Management and Strategic Renewal. Both are vitally important topics in the 21st century. The papers on strategic renewal represent a report from the Rotterdam School of Management on a current research project into European Financial Services.
Charles Baden-Fuller, Editor-in-Chief

The Changing Landscape of the European Financial Services Sector
Bert Flier, Frans A. J. van den Bosch, Henk W. Volberda, Carlo A. Carnevale, Neil Tomkin, Leif Melin, Bertrand V. Quélin and Mark P. Kriger
Following the Herd or Not? Patterns of Renewal in the Netherlands and the UK
Henk W. Volberda, Frans A. J. van den Bosch, Bert Flier and Eric R. Gedajlovic

'The Changing Landscape' and 'Following the Herd' led by Bert Flier, provide an overview of the current environmental challenges and individual bank responses to what has been happening recently. The Changing Landscape paper traces the speed of change across Europe. It provides a set of metrics, which exemplifies how events have taken place, and uses these to speculate upon the pace of future change. The Following the Herd paper examines the behavior of a small group of Dutch and British banks over the last ten years. It provides cogent evidence that despite claims to the contrary, most banks have been conservative in their actions and have copied other banks closely. The authors do not prove that this was unwise, but they do suggest that the individualism and diversity has been ignored, at a cost.

Mastering Strategic Renewal: Mobilising Renewal Journeys in Multi-unit Firms
Henk W. Volberda, Charles Baden-Fuller and Frans A. J. van den Bosch

Mastering Strategic Renewal, co-authored by Volberda, van den Bosch and Baden-Fuller, reflects on how financial service firms mobilise their middle managers to promote change. They contrast four styles of change management, and explain why a more co-evolutionary dialogue between top management and front line management is necessary when responding to current turbulent environments. The paper maps out the resulting differences in terms of key success factors such as ability to innovate and create synergies across boundaries. The authors couch their arguments using metaphors and models drawn from theories of adaptation, selection and co-evolution, an emerging and important way of thinking about these problems.

Clicks vs. Bricks in the Emerging Online Financial Services Industry
Manuel Hensmans, Frans A. J. van den Bosch and Henk W. Volberda

The piece led by Manuel Hensmans examines the challenge posed by new Click styled businesses to traditional Brick institutions. The authors point out that in the current competitive battle, each type of firm relies on the other to create legitimacy in the eyes of the consumer. It is not, they say, a case whereby one will supplant the other, but rather a process of co-evolution with joint adjustment and development. By focusing on issues of legitimacy rather than technology, the paper provides a new way of thinking about the e-business environment, and gives powerful insights into which firms might be the winners.

Reflections on Strategic Renewal at Rabobank A CEO perspective
H. N. J. Smits and J. M. Groeneveld

Smits, the CEO of Rabobank, provides a refreshing and candid account of how he runs one of Europe's largest (unquoted) financial institutions. Rabobank is a co-operative institution, and so takes a different approach to offsetting the balance between shareholder and customer value, yet it maintains a highly pro-active view to change management.

Strategic Renewal from an Industry Perspective
David van der Zande