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MIT Sloan School of Management
Length: 3 pages
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Abstract
Today''s world of evolving ideas and opportunities calls for less hypothesis testing and more systematic observation. Sometimes the only way to find out if things work - in management as in science - may be to try them. No enterprise can out-innovate all potential competitors, suppliers and external knowledge sources. Knowledge frontiers are moving too fast. In almost every major discipline, up to 90% of relevant knowledge has appeared in the last 15 years. Terabytes of data (each approximating Shakespeare''s collected works) pour into every discipline''s or industry''s database daily. This requires a transformation of cherished ideas about, first, strategic analysis and positioning; and second, approaches to gathering and validating information for executives. The self-sufficient enterprise is becoming anachronistic. Each organization is part of a matrix of merging and evolving ideas and opportunities. To realize its own potential, a company must engage external knowledge centers through well-developed alliances. Often technological use precedes full scientific explanation (bumblebee flight, steam engines, anesthetics, float glass, aspirin). The only way to find out if some things work is to try them. Many behavioral, environmental, technical and economic observations were useful before undergoing strict laboratory tests. Systematic observation and rapid, interactive, inexpensive in-use testing - enabled by superior software and planned flexibility - will be key strategies as managers try to ride today''s turbulent opportunity waves without wiping out. James Brian Quinn is the William and Josephine Buchanan Professor of Management, Emeritus, at Dartmouth College''s Amos Tuck School of Business in Hanover, New Hampshire.
About
Abstract
Today''s world of evolving ideas and opportunities calls for less hypothesis testing and more systematic observation. Sometimes the only way to find out if things work - in management as in science - may be to try them. No enterprise can out-innovate all potential competitors, suppliers and external knowledge sources. Knowledge frontiers are moving too fast. In almost every major discipline, up to 90% of relevant knowledge has appeared in the last 15 years. Terabytes of data (each approximating Shakespeare''s collected works) pour into every discipline''s or industry''s database daily. This requires a transformation of cherished ideas about, first, strategic analysis and positioning; and second, approaches to gathering and validating information for executives. The self-sufficient enterprise is becoming anachronistic. Each organization is part of a matrix of merging and evolving ideas and opportunities. To realize its own potential, a company must engage external knowledge centers through well-developed alliances. Often technological use precedes full scientific explanation (bumblebee flight, steam engines, anesthetics, float glass, aspirin). The only way to find out if some things work is to try them. Many behavioral, environmental, technical and economic observations were useful before undergoing strict laboratory tests. Systematic observation and rapid, interactive, inexpensive in-use testing - enabled by superior software and planned flexibility - will be key strategies as managers try to ride today''s turbulent opportunity waves without wiping out. James Brian Quinn is the William and Josephine Buchanan Professor of Management, Emeritus, at Dartmouth College''s Amos Tuck School of Business in Hanover, New Hampshire.