May 3, 2022 - 10:00-11:00 am EDT (UTC -4)
Duration: 1 hour
Rebecca Henderson, John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard Business School discussed themes from her book, Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire, which was shortlisted for the FT/McKinsey 2020 Business Book of the Year Award. In the book, Rebecca debunked the worldview that the only purpose of business is to make money and maximize shareholder value. She argued that as a society, we have failed to reimagine capitalism so that it is not only an engine of prosperity but also a system that is in harmony with environmental realities, striving for social justice, and the demands of truly democratic institutions. With rich discussions of how the worlds of finance, governance, and leadership must also evolve, Rebecca’s book provided a pragmatic foundation for navigating a world facing unprecedented challenges.
Rajshree Agarwal, SMS Fellow, Rudolph Lamone Chair of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, and Director of the Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets at the University of Maryland was the discussant for the session.
April 5, 2022 - 10:30-11:30 am EDT (UTC -4)
Duration: 1 hour
Ranjay Gulati, SMS Fellow and Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School will present ideas from his new book, Deep Purpose. Based on extensive field research at 18 organizations, the book explores how leaders can navigate the inevitable tradeoffs between performance and purpose more deliberately to effectively balance the short- and the long-term. Ranjay goes inside some of the world’s most purposeful companies to understand how they leverage purpose as an organizing principle and suggests that a deeper engagement with purpose holds the key not merely to the well-being of individual companies but also to humanity’s future.
Laurence Capron, SMS Fellow and Professor of Strategy and Paul Desmarais Chair in Partnership and Active Ownership at INSEAD will be the discussant for the session.
The increased complexity and pace of change in the business environment elevates the need for management innovation, but there is some indication that the rate of such innovation has not increased and management disciplines are struggling to keep up.
In this 90-minute panel presented by the Fellows of the Strategic Management Society, Martin Reeves, Chair of the BCG Henderson Institute, will present evidence on management innovation from a survey of experts in the field as well as observations from practice. He will identify a set of frictions in the “learning cycle” wherein new needs in practice are surfaced, solutions are developed and tested, and ideas are refined and amplified. He will recommend ways in which the gap between the theory and practice might be closed in order to break tradeoffs and overcome current institutional barriers to management innovation.
Following Martin's talk, SMS Fellows Africa Ariño and Harbir Singh offered their perspectives and moderate a broader discussion among the Fellows and webinar participants on the connections between strategy practice and scholarship. Live webinar participation is open to Fellows and 2021 SMS members.
