Most innovation results from borrowing and adapting rather than inventing, hence the importance of successful learning and roll out of best practices. However, borrowing and applying ideas is only possible when organizations can learn and transfer knowledge successfully. In this paper we focus once again on innovation by focusing on the identification and roll out of best practices.

Many companies often struggle with the application of best practices, may they come from within their organization or from an external source. How can we break down this problem to understand its causes?

In order to identify them we present the following four factors and we detail the key issues that have been identified in previous research to have a stronger impact:

Characteristics of the knowledge being transferred:
Causal ambiguity is one of the main causes for failed transfers of best practices. This...

Researching the topic of innovation the works of I. Nonaka stand out throughout the span of the past few decades. In this brief article I will present a few of his ideas from his writings in “The Knowledge Creating Company”.

Innovation is proving to become increasingly important as corporations need to adapt to an increasingly changing environment. By innovation, we refer to the “capability of a company as a whole to create new knowledge, disseminate it throughout the organisation, and embody it in products, services and systems” (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). In a way, innovation is all about setting the right organisational conditions that will connect and amplify relevant knowledge within the organisation and foster the creation of new solutions. But, how is it done? What do we have to change? What are the trade offs?

Nonaka sees organisations as something organic and alive. As such...

Talented Tribe

At Talented Tribe, we are adventurers seeking new heights, explorers covering new territory, and pioneers redefining the limits of what’s possible. We deeply believe in people; in the capacity of each individual and the great talents they have in them. We believe that when we allow their talents a space of liberty, when we give them the opportunity to develop, amazing things can happen. Everyday, we strive to be better than the day before. We are devoted and passionate and, everything we do, we pour our hearts into it.

It so happens that we have made a website, wanna join?

Airbus Helicopters

At Airbus Helicopters, we are a devoted family. Generation after generation, we have broken new grounds and made the impossible possible. We deeply believe in the tremendous capacity of our people. Everyday, through know-how and determination, we strive to go higher, faster and...

Ethical leadership is a fundamental pillar for organisations. Specially if a goal of this organisation is to innovate, and today this is a requisite of survival for any organisation, both in an incremental and a disruptive manner. Hence, we could take it a step further and state that ethical leadership is necessary for survival. It doesn’t surprise me now when I remember that the Google’s motto, of one of the greatest large corporations in terms of innovation, is “Don’t be evil”. At first ethics and innovation might seem a bit detached but the research is quite convincing. Let’s quickly go through a few examples:

Research shows that managers that are perceived as ethical leaders protect the employees rights through respect, dignity and autonomy. When this takes place, employees feel empowered and satisfied, and reciprocate by doing more for the organisation. Leaders that encourage...

Almost 500 years ago, Hernan Cortés sailed from Cuba to the Mexican coast with a small army. Instead of briefly exploring the coast like he was initially assigned to do, he disembarked in Mexico. He was determined to explore and colonize the unexplored lands. In order to do so, he scuttled all his ships. No retreat was possible. His men knew that there was no turning back. They had to move inland and conquer the land ahead of them.

Cortés was making a bold move by understanding the psychology behind motivation, fear, and decision making. As behavioral economists have proven to us, the fact of having several alternatives makes us more unsatisfied with whatever choice we make. If we choose A over B, we partly deduct the imagined happiness coming from B, from the happiness of having chosen A. Choice doesn’t make life easier.

This effect is also related to the classical yet difficult...

A large part of management decisions are based on the individuals personal experience or at best, based on the groups collective experience. They are often not based on available evidence, when by doing so we would be taking well informed decisions.

In some occasions, time and budget limitations forbids us to run a more thorough study of a situation. But unfortunately its part of our management culture not to apply a scientific method even if we could, and instead of testing a concept or searching for evidence before applying it broadly, common sense or trial and error is the standard methodology.

If we take a look at other sectors like medicine, it’s an obligation to stay in touch with the latest research and to test empirically if a proposed solution works before using it. Why is it that in management this is not the case?

To be fair, business schools teach us case studies about...

In previous papers we have discussed the topic of cooperation. Building on these findings we will now focus on altruistic behaviors in a group or corporation based on research from D. Caina, J. Danab and G. Newman from Yale University. The ongoing scientific debate shows that we still have much to learn about the causes and motivations of altruistic behavior but many interesting learnings are available for managers to consider.

Altruism is commonly defined as behavior where the agent carries some sort of cost in order to help an external entity. In other words, the receiver benefits at the expense of the giver.

From an individuals point of view, it’s biologically and economically irrational to be altruistic. However, we seem to see many behaviors in our societies that look altruistic. Why do we behave like this? Is it truly non-selfish behavior? And finally, can we influence a group...

Traditionally, a goal has been understood as a conscious desirable thing or state that triggers a set of actions, if one decides to pursue it. However, goals and intentions are different concepts. So different that one can be pursuing a goal without the intention of doing so. In other words, goals can be pursued unconsciously.

An important source of unconscious actions is one that we are all familiar with, habits. We all know the feeling of automatically finding yourself doing something automatically that you have done hundreds of times before, because the context or a particular action triggered your habit. But the power of our unconsciousness goes far beyond that. Your unconscious is able to pursue a goal even if to do so it needs to innovate. It works in very subtle but powerful ways.

There are interesting consequences to this unconscious system. Firstly, your conscious goals are...

This paper is a bird’s eye view of jet airliners. In it, we propose to look at this market from the vantage point of the Constructal Law, and try to refresh our understanding of the market positioning of existing and future aircrafts and aircraft families, as well as the global commercial flight system.

Entrenched Champions

While Airbus and Boeing are engaged in a fierce competition in this space, they effectively form a duopoly that has been on-going since the nineties. But new contenders may be on their way.

The following figure shows all current Airbus and Boeing commercial airplane families—as well as their up-and-coming competitors in the shorter range, A320/B737 segment.

And as the Constructal Law predicts, commercial airliners sit tightly on a straight line of the graph.

The x-axis shows the aircrafts’ volume, which is an indicator of the number of passengers or cargo...