The role of qualitative knowledge in decision making

System dynamics is a very elaborate theory since the works of Forrester but in cognitive psychology we enphasize its qualitative aspect which is often the only one to be practically represented namely by managers because they lack of the pertinent data to be able to perform rigorous calculation

SAFE MANAGEMENT OR DISRUPTIVE CHANGE?

Change is imperative for organizations which will remain thriving but its necessity is not always neatly perceived by those who are immersed into the daily activity; indeed, the cycle duration of change often lasts much longer than the time you practise in the same organization. To be more clear-sighted, you have to look the situation with enough loftiness and even some "obliquity". This states the problem of managing those organizations: on one hand, you have to ensure safe management as in performance-driven ones, on the other hand, you have to facilitate innovation as in adaptation-driven ones.The difficulty of this exercise lies in the difference between the two kinds of governance required

METRICS

Metrics are a sine qua non condition of an efficient management. Indeed, management cannot be based upon intuition: it has to be underpinned by figures.\ud \ud The choice of the indicators, their link to objectives and their strategic value, the weight to be assigned to them in terms of performance and cascading accountabilities imply considering:\ud \ud - outputs vs outcomes\ud - short term vs long term\ud - suboptimization vs global optimization\ud - lagging vs leaders indicators\ud \ud New metrics methods in management are doomed to give priority to effectiveness over efficiency.\ud \u

Learning Organization

Managing innovation on-line is a powerful factor of competitivity; we show how an adequate organization allows firms to reach such a target by combining knowledge management and collective learning ability

Collaborative Network for Knowledge Mining and Capitalizing

In companies, each member has partial knowledge which may be useful to others; whereas this knowledge is not always formalized, it is possible, by means of more or less "intelligent" systems, to localize it and put into relation the right people who possess knowledge and those who need it

Knowledge Management: The Paradigm of Complexity

Knowledge Management encounters difficulties when it aims to tackle the complexity of the innovating firms structure. Indeed, it has to enhance emergent strategies while preserving the executives goals. This may be obtained through continuous training so tha the organization woud become self-organizing thanks to the building of a collective intelligence

Neither Ants nor Hermites

Acceleration of renewal of technologies make management more complex and induces organizations to absorb more and more knowledge, in less and less time; of course each member of the organization accomplishes this task of its own but only a collective effort is doomed to be efficient. To cope with such a situation, it seems that we need a new breed of managers or leaders

How to have results from Conversations

The difficulty of emergence is not the complexity but the recursivity of its working. That is why there are so many debates to know whether structure generates strategy or strategy generates structure. In fact all we know is that networking allows conversations and that conversations help creating structure, that is a system embedding procedures and technologies; in other words, the network is the tool, the conversation the use of the tool and the structure the result of this use. The use is starting from the identification of a problem, its solving and the decision making. The system itself resulting from such a process, it will be necessary to bootstrap this process starting from a network, a conversation or a nascent or already existing structure.\ud \u

How to have results from Conversations?

The difficulty of emergence is not the complexity but the recursivity of its working. That is why there are so many debates to know whether structure generates strategy or strategy generates structure. In fact all we know is that networking allows conversations and that conversations help creating structure, that is a system embedding procedures and technologies; in other words, the network is the tool, the conversation the use of the tool and the structure the result of this use. The use is starting from the identification of a problem, its solving and the decision making. The system itself resulting from such a process, it will be necessary to bootstrap this process starting from a network, a conversation or a nascent or already existing structure.Complexity, Emergence, Leadership, Collaborative work, Teams, Knowledge, Structures, Problems solving, Decisions making, Conversations, Goals, Roles, Strategy

Prospects on Innovating Organizations

We aim to give the main rationale to create products and/or services in a state-of-mind associating every stakeholder in the frame of a reactive and networked organization. This implies a value-chain from basic research to users needs, the starting point being often fuzzy. The consequences upon the strategy of the firm's offer is analyzed as well from a quantitative point of view (accounting) than a qualitative one. Various forms of organizations are reviewed or suggested, including the kind of corresponding culture, the necessary data-bases and the importance of collaboration.reactive organization; collaborative work; teams; creativity: holistic attitude; fuzzy front-end; global supply; emergent strategy; collective intelligence; virtual enterprise; decision making; rank; peers