I was participating / presenting at the Tekes Liito-program seminar on August 26,2008 in Helsinki, Finland.
Here is my notes shared to all of you.
.jpg "Janine Nahapiet, University of Oxford")
- challenges today are linked to the connecting
- organizations are working in other ways rather than a formal organization
- how to resource a large organization?
- A world of opportunity is there waiting for you
- Sports as a starting analogy
– Around a gold-winner there are several other persons guaranteeing the success
– Ability to make connections like in relay competitions is vital
– F1
— Individual championship – team championship
— 150000 parts with 750 vendors providing stuff for McLaren team
- People, groups and organizations connected well together link to a success
- Social capital is the value of social connections, more specifically the resources embedded within available through and derived from social networks
– If you have sailed together, I’ll reach a mutual understanding using no words or no commands
– As trusting relationship will provide more than browsing the Internet
- Social capital affects
– Information flows
– Power and influence
– Solidarity and identity
– +access to other resources
- Social capital research deals directly with some of the major challenges facing global business
– Organizations do manage externals better than internals !
- The globalizing professional service firm
- The international biosciences organization
- How to build innovation & highly linked into trusted issues
- Fundamentally dependent on trust and partnering
- Increasingly do depend on:
– What they know – their intellectual capital
– Who they know – their social capital
- Three critical forms of capital:
– People- Human Capital
– Knowledge – Intellectual Capital
– Connections – Social Capital
- Social capital impact
– Influences career success
– Helps workers find jobs
– Facilitates inter-unit resource exchange
– Strengthens supplier relations
– Reduces turnover rates
– Enables innovation
- even helps prevent the common cold !
- network types: the importance of structure
– individual network better for fast implementation
– networked network better for better team work
– combines these will form a new complete network
- 3 dimensions:
– Cognitive – shared ways of thinking
– Structural – close or loose ties
– Relations – trust
- What’s important:
– Trend towards the extended enterprise
– Innovation focused
– Globalization as a challenge
- Building social capital requires investment in
– Structure
– Quality of relationships
— Trust
— Shared identity
— Norms
– Ways of thinking
— Shared stories
- Capitalizing on connections
– At individual level
– At organizational level
– At industry level
Leading project management globally. Osmo Härkönen Case: Wärtsilä Corporation
.jpg "Osmo Härkönen")
- business changing towards service business therefore a need for project management definition completed in the Liito program pilot
- creating a general project model for the whole corporation including
- unified job descriptions and competence requirements
- position descriptions could be done locally
- most of the job descriptions were completed within the project
- all the projects should be like these kind of projects
- all the major companies should have this kind of models in use
Professor Eero Vaara, Svenska Handelshögskolan
.jpg "Eero Vaara")
Social construction of competence: It’s all about people
- investing in competences
- social, cultural and political issues
- in research, “essentialist” and “rationalistic”
- which factories/units could be still existing
- focus on Finnish-based MNCs developing operations
- struggles around strategy: different views on competence
– headquarter’s & local views
- HQs and subsidiaries
– control vs. autonomy
- competence development involves also people
Sami Saariketo, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Niina Nummela, Turku School of Economics
- how to build the partner network and how they will be becoming an international network
- enterprises do seek similar knowledge-owning partners
- software-intensive programs do globalize around the globe leaving less to Finland
- leading international partnership network
– overall view on company functions
– multiple skills
– defining the corecompetence
– longlasting relations
– commitment in all levels of organization
– crosscultural literacy
– communication readiness
- Requirements for partners low vs product simple
– Partner selection
- Requirements for partners high vs product simple
– Partner motivation
- Requirements for partners low vs product complex
– Network management
- Requirements for partners high vs product complex
– Flexible development of network
- Speed, cost & quality paradigm goes forward
- Analysis, planning & control loop
- Sales is the only true process of the company, others are support processes ! (that should be a salesman saying this)
- Observation: more companies should utilize a global value chain
- Also the software industry is very fragmented
Taina Tukiainen, Metropolia
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- Rendez: renewal and redirection
– new management models for supporting innovations
- creativity, openness and discipline
– culture & values, vision&strategy
– people
– organization
– process
- case IBM: “innovation that matters for our company and the world”
– important due to transition made during this century
– issues:
— global
— multidisciplinary
— open
— innovative
- innovation jam
– everyone could participate into the business competition, and then put into the system and then personnel could evaluate them and selecting them as well as in investing them
Case: Nokia Creating New and Opening up
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- New values
– Achieving together
– Passion for innovation
– Very human
– Engaging you
- Forum Nokia 1998 – driving mobile innovation
- New technology sourcing – Venturing (NVO)
- Nokia Growth Partners 2004 – Blue Run Ventures
- Collaboration & Co-creation – Alpha labs, beta laps
Creativity
- strong vision and rich category descriptions aspiring design and product planning
- culture supporting novelty and differentiation
Openness
- innovation, renewal and openness driven by strategies
- tradition of networking
Discipline
- respect for processes and agreed ways of working
- innovation roles delegated
- organization set boundaries for innovation work
- motivated, skillful and engaged personnel
- renew your organization and processes innovation
- open innovation environments and social media will social media
Ilpo Ihanamäki, Tekes
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