Editor’s note

Citation

(2013), "Editor’s note", Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 34 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jbs.2013.28834baa.001

Editor’s note

Article Type: Editor’s note From: Journal of Business Strategy, Volume 34, Issue 2

JBS welcomes its third new editorial advisory board member in just two months as Dr Michael B. Goodman, Professor and Director of the MA in Corporate Communication program at Baruch College, The City University of New York, joins the board. Michael has been a good friend to JBS for many years, offering counsel, contributing papers and helping to reinforce the link between corporate communications and business strategy. He is a visiting professor at universities in Denmark, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Italy. As the founder and director of the Conference on Corporate Communication, he regularly organizes and manages conferences and seminars on communications that draw leading practitioners in the field. Among his many publications is a special issue of the Journal of Business Strategy on “The role of business in public diplomacy,” an example of his ongoing efforts to advance cultural understanding and global communication in the business environment.

In this issue of JBS, Andrew Campbell and J. Hans Strikwerda make the case for a reversal of compartmentalization and silos in the corporate world. As companies have become more complex, larger, and more scattered around the world, decentralization has become the byword for managing. But the authors say the time has come for a new model of organization management that revolves around oneness rather than multiples.

Until recently, the idea of a city (or a country) needing to brand itself seemed gratuitous at best. But Ram Herstein and Ron Berger, experts in city branding, believe that geographical entities need to establish identities as much as retail products do, and sports events can serve as focal points. Sports of all descriptions generate billions of dollars annually in revenues, not just for owners and players, but for their host cities. South Africa’s Johannesburg, for example, not usually considered a destination city for safe tourism, gained a more positive reputation as a result of the 2010 FIFA World Soccer games being played in its huge stadium. Now the city is building on the success of the sports event and continuing to attract visitors. Other cities around the world whose names may mean little to most people can rapidly acquire reputation and renown when major sports contests take place in their environs, provided city managers think strategically about long term opportunities.

Business models take center stage in two other papers, one on China’s new energy vehicles and one on Nespresso’s innovations. China’s expanding auto industry is now producing cars that use fuels other than gas, but the real news is that the competitive advantage goes to producers of vehicles who lead in business model innovation, not technical innovation. And in Switzerland, Nespresso, a division of Nestle, hopes to continue outperforming its rivals by marketing not just individual coffee servings in unusual flavors, but by offering customers the hardware as well, creating value and differentiation. But Nespresso may have a rough road ahead because gourmet store shelves and other retailers and e-tailers now offer a wide array of individual coffee systems.

Two other papers focus more on people than on models or theories. Stephen A. Stumpf and his co-authors investigate ten change programs in major companies to see how employees react and what keeps them from leaving. Raises are not to be dismissed but many other intangible factors are equally effective in retaining good people. Intrinsic rewards and feeling valued go far in giving employees a sense of loyalty even when confronted with organizational change on a large scale. In another paper that also confirms the logic of treating people well, family firms that hire outside CFOs need to integrate the new hires carefully and thoroughly into their culture, sharing information and decision-making.

We hope you enjoy the range of papers in this issue of JBS and let us know your comments.