„Ambidextrous organizations have built-in capabilities for efficiency, consistency and reliability on the one hand, and experimentation, improvisation and luck on the other. “

Tushman, Michael L. & O`Reilly Charles A. 2004


The Entrepreneur-Manager

In 2008 Peter Lorange and Bala Chakravarthy published an article about driving renewal, in which they introduced a new type or role of an executive : the entrepreneur-manager. They defined the following profile :

  • Skills
    • see the big picture and shape startegy
    • communicate and market strategy
    • manage stakeholders, gain support and mobilize resources
    • assemble and motivate a team of experts
  • Personal traits
    • propensity to take risks
    • passion and inner fire
    • action orientation
    • Self-confidence
  • Professional experience
    • established track record – buys freedom and trust
    • long tenure and varied experience – helps with networking

In our MEL-model of the thre archetypes  Manager – Entrepreneur – Leader (see Post “Manager – Entrepreneur – Leader”) we predicted and found, that a strong combination of the archetypes Manager and Entrepreneur is very rare, because they have conflicting or contradicting strength or traits. While the Manager is concentrated on efficiency and control, the entrepreneur is appealed by opportunity and  making things happen. So we claim that there is no entrepreneur-manager, as Lorange and Chakravarthy suggest. Their description of the entrepreneur-manager would lead in our MEL-model to an individual that combines the archetypes leader and entrepreneur, which you find quite often, because both are future oriented and very much people focused.

We are looking forward to your opinion. What do you think ?

Prof. Dr. Udo Dierk

MIC 2009

On November 26th 2009 Udo Dierk presented the paper “Sustaining Innovation in the Global Corporation : The Role of Managers, Entrepreneurs and Leaders” on the 10th MIC Conference about “Creativity, Innovation and Management” in Sousse, Tunesia.

MIC2009 Annual Conference

MIC2009 Annual Conference

About 120 papers were peresented. Our paper was evaluated as one of the best 5 papers of the conference. See also the MIC Website . Download the Article MIC 2009 here.

Manager – Leader – Entrepreneur

archetype modell

The basic assumption of our research is the existence of three archetypes of leadership : the Manger focusing on reducing complexity and optimizing through planning and organizing, the leader focusing on new directions and change, thus on people, and the entrepreneur focusing on business opportunities and innovation, thus on the market.

What do you think about these archetypes ? Are they in line with your observations and thinking ?

Our initial findings are that there are some individuals, who have a strength both in the Manager and Leader role, some are both strong Leaders and Entrepreneurs, but very rarely we found individuals who are strong as Manager and as Entrepreneur.

Launch of MEL Institute

Dear all,

Phil Dover from the US and I, Udo Dierk from Germany, have just launched our new website and our new Institute, the MEL-Institute. This Institute serves as a platform for research and debating on the topic of the role of the leadership team for sustainable growth through continuous innovation. We strongly believe that the leadership team of a company plays the most important role in making a company sustain over a longer period. The composition of the leadership team and its individual talents does and will make the difference. Our approach reflects the importance of this composition and widens the role of the leadership team.

Most companies face the paradox of finding ways to sustain in their longer future and in parallel finding ways to survive in the presence. The ambidexterity of most organizations and companies and the role of the leadership team in it is our fascinating topic of research .

We like to invite you to actively contribute to our research and comment on our findings, on our methodology, on our ideas and on our approach.

Become a member of the MEL-community and contribute to the future !

Phil and Udo

Conference Presentations

Phil Dover and Udo Dierk are going to present their findings on “Manager – Leader – Entrepreneur” on two more conferences.

MIC2009 Annual ConferenceThe first one is the “5th European Conference on Management, Leadership and Governance (ECMLG 2009)“, to be held at the Hellenic American University, Athens, Greece on 5 – 6 November 2009.

The second one is the “Management International Conference MIC 2009” on Creativity, Innovation and Management, to be held in Sousse, Tunisia on November 25th to 28th.

Strategies in an Uncertain World

Phil Dover and Udo Dierk will present a paper on the 29th ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE of the Strategic Management Society in Washington DC about :

2009 Annual SMS Conference

2009 Annual SMS Conference

Sustaining Innovation in the Global Corporation:

The Role of Managers, Entrepreneurs and Leaders

How can we understand the role of key personnel in sustaining innovation within corporations around the globe? This article presents the results from the pilot study of a two-stage research project. It is underpinned by the concept that three basic archetypes exist – managers, entrepreneurs and leaders. We tested a new tool: the MEL-Index, a numerical and graphical representation of executives’ evaluation of their own and their corporation’s performance as managers, entrepreneurs and leaders. It was shown to have considerable diagnostic potential. Improvements were made in the test instrument, which will form part of a subsequent extended study.

FHDW Research Prize

1. FHDW-Research Prize awarded

Topic : Strategies for Going International

Researchers from Germany and abroad applied for the 1. FHDW-Reserach Prize  on “Innovative Strategies for Sustainabel International Growth of Corporations” . The renowned jury awarded two of the ten submitted papers as the best papers for the prize. On October 21st in 2008 the winners were honored at the Technology Center of Schüco International KG, in Bielefeld / Germany.

The first price was awarded to Dr. Jonas Puck and Prof. Dr. Dirk Holtbrügge form the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, and Dr. Alexander T. Mohr form the Bradford School of Management, UK, for their research about foreign companies in China :  why do some companies keep their joint ventures in China while other companies change their representation into subsidiaries.

The second prize was awarded to Prof. Phil Dover (Babson College/USA) and Prof. Udo Dierk (International Center for Management Learning ICML at FHDW Paderborn). They investigated  the impact of Managers, Leaders and Entrepreneurs for sustainable innovation in global companies.

(upper left) Prof. Dr. Thomas Zacher, Prof. Dr. Michael Gilroy, Michael Jungblut, Karl-Heinz Stiller, Dirk U. Hindrichs; (lower left) Eberhard David, Prof. Dr. Udo Dierk, Prof. Dr. Franz Wagner, Dr. Jonas Puck .

(upper left) Prof. Dr. Thomas Zacher, Prof. Dr. Michael Gilroy, Michael Jungblut, Karl-Heinz Stiller, Dirk U. Hindrichs; (lower left) Eberhard David, Prof. Dr. Udo Dierk, Prof. Dr. Franz Wagner, Dr. Jonas Puck .

The research prize was endowed with 15,000 €, 10,000 € for the first winner and 5,000 € for the second one. The jury was set up with high level international personalities. Prof. Dr. Mike Gilroy, deputy rector of the University of Paderborn, Thomas E. Moore, Dean of the Business School of North-Eastern-University in Boston, one of the largest private universities in the USA, Dirk U. Hindrichs, General Manager Schüco International, Bielefeld, and Karl-Heinz Stiller, Chairman of the advisory board Wincor Nixdorf, Paderborn.