The full project description is available in .pdf format in English and French.

Creating Breakthrough Business Models

InnovationLabs is pleased to announce that Langdon Morris has just been named Senior Practice Scholar of the Ackoff Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Langdon is leading a research project called "Creating Breakthrough Business Models."

The Ackoff Center is named for Dr. Russell L. Ackoff, Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of the Wharton School. The Center operates as a think tank in the vanguard of systems thinking, dedicated to education, research and service to industry, government and education, using systems sciences and systems thinking and global knowledge and competency resources. The University of Pennsylvania was founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1749, and is the oldest secular university in America. Its Wharton School, founded 1881, is the oldest business school of its kind in the world.

The purpose of this project is to discover how existing companies can become proficient at creating breakthrough business models, and developing sustainable competitive advantage thereby. The project examines the complex linkages between the evolution of the market, new technologies, the development of organizational strategy, the design of operations, the management of engineering, R&D and innovation, and the roles they play in the creation of new breakthrough businesses.

Project outputs will include case studies on new business creation in sponsoring companies, related publications, and a software game that illustrates the key findings in an interactive, educational format.

The project builds on Morris' book, Fourth Generation R&D: Managing Knowledge, Technology, and Innovation (John Wiley & Sons, 1999, co-authored with William L. Miller).