MAST: Mental Ambidexterity in Strategic Thinking

There are two fundamental ways to think about what strategy is. The first one is strategy as a plan of action for reaching one or several goals. The second one is strategy as discipline, a formalized body of knowledge. The latter can be understood as the set of governing ideas that guide managers in the identification of opportunities for value creation and the realization of that value. In the present article, we argue that these ideas tend to fall into two main paradigms, which come with two metaphors about managers: managers as commanders and managers as designers. We further argue that these represent two fundamental ways of thinking, which in turn become ways of ‘seeing’ and even feeling. Is one better than the other? We suggest that is not the right question to ask. Rather it is important to appreciate that these are worldviews that affect how we interpret our day-to-day reality and our ability to see opportunities. We introduce the notion of Mental Ambidexterity in Strategic Thinking (MAST) and define it as the ability to hold both views of the world—that of the commander and that of the designer— and play with them simultaneously, rather than focusing solely on one and rejecting the other. MAST is an individual level capability; it is a flexible, non-ideological and fluid mode of cognition. At the core, it is characterized by switching flexibility back and forth between rational decisionmaking among alternatives, and creation of new alternatives, between what is and what could be. We illustrate three principles – i) intellectual humility, ii) contingent thinking and iii) poke into ambiguity – that act as catalysts for individuals to develop MAST capabilities

Coevolutionary dynamics of a variant of the cyclic Lotka-Volterra model with three-agent interactions

We study a variant of the cyclic Lotka-Volterra model with three-agent interactions. Inspired by a multiplayer variation of the Rock-Paper-Scissors game, the model describes an ideal ecosystem in which cyclic competition among three species develops through cooperative predation. Its rate equations in a well-mixed environment display a degenerate Hopf bifurcation, occurring as reactions involving two predators plus one prey have the same rate as reactions involving two preys plus one predator. We estimate the magnitude of the stochastic noise at the bifurcation point, where finite size effects turn neutrally stable orbits into erratically diverging trajectories. In particular, we compare analytic predictions for the extinction probability, derived in the Fokker-Planck approximation, with numerical simulations based on the Gillespie stochastic algorithm. We then extend the analysis of the phase portrait to heterogeneous rates. In a well-mixed environment, we observe a continuum of degenerate Hopf bifurcations, generalizing the above one. Neutral stability ensues from a complex equilibrium between different reactions. Remarkably, on a two-dimensional lattice, all bifurcations disappear as a consequence of the spatial locality of the interactions. In the second part of the paper, we investigate the effects of mobility in a lattice metapopulation model with patches hosting several agents. We find that strategies propagate along the arms of rotating spirals, as they usually do in models of cyclic dominance. We observe propagation instabilities in the regime of large wavelengths. We also examine three-agent interactions inducing nonlinear diffusion.Comment: 22 pages, 13 figures. v2: version accepted for publication in EPJ

Dzyaloshinskii-Moryia interaction at an antiferromagnetic interface: first-principles study of FeIr bilayers on Rh(001)

We study the magnetic interactions in atomic layers of Fe and 5d transition-metals such as Os, Ir, and Pt on the (001) surface of Rh using first-principles calculations based on density functional theory. For both stackings of the 5d-Fe bilayer on Rh(001) we observe a transition from an antiferromagnetic to a ferromagnetic nearest-neighbor exchange interaction upon 5d band filling. In the sandwich structure 5d/Fe/Rh(001) the nearest neighbor exchange is significantly reduced. For FeIr bilayers on Rh(001) we consider spin spiral states in order to determine exchange constants beyond nearest neighbors. By including spin-orbit coupling we obtain the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). The magnetic interactions in Fe/Ir/Rh(001) are similar to those of Fe/Ir(001) for which an atomic scale spin lattice has been predicted. However, small deviations between both systems remain due to the different lattice constants and the Rh vs. Ir surface layers. This leads to slightly different exchange constants and DMI and the easy magnetization direction switches from out-of-plane for Fe/Ir(001) to in-plane for Fe/Ir/Rh(001). Therefore a fine tuning of magnetic interactions is possible by using single 5d transition-metal layers which may allow to tailor antiferromagnetic skyrmions in this type of ultrathin films. In the sandwich structure Ir/Fe/Rh(001) we find a strong exchange frustration due to strong hybridization of the Fe layer with both Ir and Rh which drastically reduces the nearest-neighbor exchange. The energy contribution from the DMI becomes extremely large and DMI beyond nearest neighbors cannot be neglected. We attribute the large DMI to the low coordination of the Ir layer at the surface. We demonstrate that higher- order exchange interactions are significant in both systems which may be crucial for the magnetic ground state

LUCIO FONTANA AND ARCHITECTURE

Lucio Fontana’s collaboration with architects, which continued to progress over the entire period of his creative experience along with his more famous artistic and spatial production, offered important opportunities for experimentation and research. The artist worked with architects such as Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini, Giò Ponti, Luciano Baldessari, Marco Zanuso, Osvaldo Borsani and Ico Parisi, and it was actually the architects who first intuited the innovative scope of his research. It involved works of a temporary nature carried out for exhibitions, trade fairs and celebrations of historical events, some of which went missing at the end of the events, but also some that became an integral part of extant architecture. Indeed, the artist made numerous environmental works for public buildings, hotels, cinemas and private homes, using traditional materials such as ceramics, mosaics and plaster, as well as new media such as fluorescent colours, black lights, neon lights, and more. As often happens, and as needs and tastes changed, the works were decontextualized and assumed a different connotation.Here below is a description of the choices made during three of the seven restorations we carried out in the last few years on environmental works created by Fontana between the mid-1940s and the end of the 1950s, which were taken from their original location and moved to new sites.Lucio Fontana’s collaboration with architects, which continued to progress over the entire period of his creative experience along with his more famous artistic and spatial production, offered important opportunities for experimentation and research. The artist worked with architects such as Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini, Giò Ponti, Luciano Baldessari, Marco Zanuso, Osvaldo Borsani and Ico Parisi, and it was actually the architects who first intuited the innovative scope of his research. It involved works of a temporary nature carried out for exhibitions, trade fairs and celebrations of historical events, some of which went missing at the end of the events, but also some that became an integral part of extant architecture. Indeed, the artist made numerous environmental works for public buildings, hotels, cinemas and private homes, using traditional materials such as ceramics, mosaics and plaster, as well as new media such as fluorescent colours, black lights, neon lights, and more. As often happens, and as needs and tastes changed, the works were decontextualized and assumed a different connotation.Here below is a description of the choices made during three of the seven restorations we carried out in the last few years on environmental works created by Fontana between the mid-1940s and the end of the 1950s, which were taken from their original location and moved to new sites

A Core/Periphery Perspective on Individual Creative Performance: Social Networks and Cinematic Achievements in the Hollywood Film Industry

The paper advances a relational perspective to studying creativity at the individual level. Building on social network theory and techniques, we examine the role of social networks in shaping individuals’ ability to generate a creative outcome. More specifically, we argue that individuals who occupy an intermediate position between the core and the periphery of their social system are in a favorable position to achieve creative results. In addition, the benefits accrued through an individual’s intermediate core/periphery position can also be observed at the team level, when the same individual works in a team whose members come from both ends of the core/periphery continuum. We situate the analysis and test our hypotheses within the context of the Hollywood motion picture industry, which we trace over the period 1992–2003. The theoretical implications of the results are discussed