This week my research work centers on how new technologies and material changes transform businesses’ expectations and the kind of changes they stimulate. For instance, in today’s economy, globalization helped changed the markets and business environment dramatically in how organizations operate. New countries, governments, leadership, and markets emerged which helped create a global economy that stimulates both opportunities as well as conflict. The dismantlement of the Berlin Wall for example, which once again unified East and West Germany, was one example of a social change that transformed the region. In addition, the European Union’s goal was to create a cohesive economic culture. This also helped change the face of global markets which helped entrepreneurs sprout in places like the Balkans, Russia, and Siberia. These social changes helped shift the face of the former Soviet Union.
Information technology in the meantime, helped redefine traditional business models by altering work performance, production costs, and how information is used and managed. The methodologies of how organizations collect, store, manipulate, utilize and transmit information helped lower costs while increasing the value and quality of services and products. Information technology is after all, the heart of e-commerce strategies and organizations (Cummings & Worley, 2008).
As a result, managerial innovation responded to globalization and information technology by accelerating their impact on institutions. New networks, strategic alliances and virtual corporations, for instance, provide new ways of manufacturing goods and delivering services. Companies and individuals that implement new initiatives, are in a better position to address preliminary conditions, including initial ideas, investments and control systems. In his book, The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses, Amar Bhide (2000) purports that the following differences in conditions can affect:
- The nature of opportunities pursued;
- The degree to which dependence relies on former analysis and planning rather than adapting to unforeseen situations;
- The strategies to secure customers, employees, credit, supplies and other inputs; and
- The factors that differentiate the successful initiatives from the unsuccessful ones (p. 196)
Most individuals, however, eager to start a new enterprise, typically face inadequate conditions due to reasons like, the lack of innovative ideas, experience and/or credentials for that matter. Plus, they tend to experience significant capital constraints. On Thursday, we will conclude our research on the role new technical systems play to assist in stimulating commerce and how it affects global and social change.
Well, that’s it for today! Until next time … keep building your leadership and management skills!
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You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
Buckminster Fuller
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References:
Bhide, A. (2000). The origin and evolution of new businesses (p. 196). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Cummings, T., & Worley, C. (2008). Organizational development and change (9th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
