PurposeThe article introduces the Entrepreneurial Management System (EMS), which delineates a strategic process within an organizational context that is aimed at encouraging and supporting the pursuit of opportunities that have the potential to create value through innovative strategic actions. It is designed to stimulate entrepreneurial thinking and corporate venturing at all levels.Design/methodology/approachThe authors offer an approach to organization-wide continuous innovation that incorporates proven concepts from existing research with lessons learned from the authors’ research analysis and consulting experience in helping large and medium companies across different industries and markets to establish effective entrepreneurial management.FindingsGiven the spectre of constant disruption from new technologies or business models, management teams will be judged on how they proactively respond to these challenges by turning them into value-creating opportunities.Practical implicationsMultidisciplinary teams allow employees to become familiar with other domains and see possible solutions, share their problems and ideas and vet their insights with the input of colleagues.Originality/valueAn Entrepreneurial Management System allows a firm to "internalize" the marketplace’s evolutionary processes so that a company can generate, develop and implement ideas that will have value for customers. It should be a clear decision for all of today’s business leaders and investors to have an implementation plan to ensure continuous innovation.

Disruptive decoupling, a radical business model.Executive teams' undiscussable behaviors and how to address them.

Purpose As the author defines “followership” followers cannot have authority. But, they can and increasingly they do have power and influence. Social media embolden followers to pressure leaders, to push leaders as they never have previously been pressured or pushed. The author explores the consequences of this new dynamic. Design/methodology/approach The author urges that a curriculum be developed by academics and trainers that includes teaching the fundamentals of followership and learning what constitutes a follower who is as ethical as effective. Findings History is replete with examples of what goes wrong when individual answerability is abdicated and followers have the responsibility learn how to use their power to pressure their organizations to act ethically and morally. Originality/value Implicit in the growing if still modest interest in followers by researchers and trainers is the implication that the leadership industry is now obliged – for moral, intellectual and practical reasons – to pay them some increased level of attention. This article makes the case that followers have more power than ever before and need to learn how to use it ethically and morally.

Purpose How can strategists and their companies learn to survive and thrive in this new “connected customer” competitive environment? This is the question that Nicholaj Siggelkow and Christian Terwiesch set out to address in their latest book, Connected Strategy: Building Continuous Customer Relationships for Competitive Advantage. Design/methodology/approach A guide to building better business models in a new “connected customer” competitive environment. Findings The key promise is that a connected strategy can allow a firm to increase the customer’s happiness – or ‘willingness to pay’ – while at the same time reducing the cost of creating this better experience. The efficiency frontier is the graphical representation of the trade-off between ‘willingness to pay’ and fulfillment cost. Practical implications Instead of selling a product, firms can sell an outcome by creating a pay-for-performance network. Originality/value The biggest potential of connected strategies is to be able to move up the hierarchy of needs of a customer. By learning more about a particular customer a firm is able to personalize the offering and create a better fit between the needs of a customer and the available product/service.

Purpose This article demonstrates the value of adding a learning and adaptation component into the decision-making process. Design/methodology/approach By reviewing the case of Kodak’s decision not to focus its investments in digital technology in the 1980s the article introduces The Learning and Adaptation Decision Process, a model enables a firm to reassess analysis about future market disruptions and opportunities Findings Organizations need decision processes that are designed to be reviewed and rethought so they continue to provide fresh insight into how to prepare for disruptions and opportunities. This example shows how Kodak could have used its considerable resources to expedite its own digital camera technology, purchased companies with leading edge digital technology, put a digital technology-minded management team in place and lead the industry into the realm of mass market digital photography.” Practical implications A learning and adaptation approach might have helped Kodak take advantage of an opportunity to survive the disruption of its market and to avoid the eventual bankruptcy of the firm.” Originality/value The model introduced in this article can help leaders in a wide variety of industries review critical decisions, identify problematic outcomes, anticipate disruptions and prepare sooner for opportunities.