Rather than an integrated process where risk is distributed evenly from beginning to end, innovation is a series of discrete steps whose risk and role in the innovation process can be highly different. Failing to look at parts of the innovation cycle in discrete terms and integrate them with appropriate internal and external resources often […]
The discipline of financial engineering has been criticized on the ground that it blindly follows statistical and mathematical paths that lead, at times, to the edge of or over economic cliffs. Despite the risks involved in reliance on quantitative correlations and measures that struggle to capture the unpredictability and irrationality that often drives markets, financial […]
Many companies that search for funding only focus on the amount of capital to be raised. But capital is the economic combination of costs and benefits and at times investment terms and conditions can do more harm to a business than good. This article discusses the economic structure of financial capital and argues that companies […]
Most companies that need capital try to raise it as quickly as possible. This strategy is often based on the view that capital raising is expensive, uses scarce firm resources and diverts the company’s attention away from other important business activities. While this approach may sound reasonable, it often does not lead to the best […]
Business strategy has historically been based on the assumption that business sectors are clearly demarcated. However, due to the disruptive power of technology and the digitalization of the global marketplace, many sector border lines have become blurred, cross-sector competition has grown and the pace of sectoral transformation has increased exponentially. As this transformation creates large […]
One possible corporate innovation pathway is intrapreneurship, entrepreneurial activity that is carried out within a firm. As an innovation catalyst, intrapreneurship has many potential advantages, including accelerating firm innovation cycles, reducing entrepreneurial risk and building a firm culture that can generate many positive organizational changes. This article analyzes the potential of intrapreneurship to create shareholder […]
While innovation is often thought of as an isolated individual breakthrough, it is more often than not the consequence of a great number of sustained, collective actions. In many firms, highly innovative concepts often fail to be implemented, not because the core ideas are not sound, but rather because they are not supported by the […]
One of the most important components of corporate resilience is firm culture. A company’s culture defines how it views itself, how it acts and even how it thinks. Firms with strong cultures are often able to thrive under very difficult conditions while firms with weak cultures can struggle even when it has extensive resources and […]
Many valuation methods are directly or indirectly based on projecting potential firm performance in the future. While it is sensible to consider a firm’s ability to create future economic value in the valuation process, forward-looking valuation approaches all share the analytical weakness that the future cannot be predicted with certainty. Due to the negative consequences […]
Inherent in the process of strategic planning is assumptions about levels of business certainty. One way to approach strategic planning is to take what is known about a firm and market conditions and design an approach for maximizing shareholder value based on that knowledge. In this approach, certainty is often viewed as positive and uncertainty […]
