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Block 3, Sessions 1 & 3 - Putting your idea in time - short and long…

- - - - Business cycle - the ways a market economy goes through connected periods of expansion and then recession (growth more resources for innovation, downturn may need innovation for catalyzing future prosperity)
      - Product life cycle - reflects how innovations are quite time-sensitive – where what is new and exciting will, over time, become established and then replaceable
      - Long waves of economics - combines business and product life cycles: new idea creates growth, stimulating range of innovations in response to more resources and capital. Gradually established leading to stability, then declines over time.
      - Virtuous cycles and Vicious cycles - complex chain of events in which an innovation can create or reinforce a certain pattern of behaviour or set of results (first is positive, latter negative)
- - - - Crozier and Friedberg (1980) explained that a political game is a concrete mechanism through which people and/or organisations structure their power relations and regulate them
      - Concept very important because the interpersonal and often inter-organisational practice of business and management can also be understood as a system of political games where different actors, depending on the issue, can take part in formal and informal coalitions
      - Understanding political contexts and engaging effectively in political games are increasingly important skills for any individual working in any organisation, whether located in the private, public or voluntary sector.
  - - - One type of political analysis tool that can be done for any organisation
      - Definition of stakeholder: ‘any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organisations objectives’ (Freeman)
      - Stakeholders exist in both the internal and external environment of any organisation and can have different kinds of concerns in interacting with and in influencing an organisation’s mission; more importantly, stakeholders can have a profound impact on what an organisation does
      - Organisations need to be able to understand who the main stakeholders are and their main characteristics
      - stakeholder analysis is a dynamic activity because the characteristics of a stakeholder can evolve over time and/or change according to the occurrence of certain events. Moreover, stakeholders can make coalitions among themselves or can enter into conflicts, thus changing the position and the features of some stakeholders.
      - The Johnson et al. matrix (2008) looks at ways to map stakeholder power against their level of interest - for every cell of the matrix there is the type of strategy that an organisation should adopt in relation to each stakeholder group that falls into that category.
      - Identifying the different groups of stakeholders is very important for defining the strategies and the actions to be implemented for each group. However, both the strategies and the actions need to be reviewed regularly because stakeholder power and interest varies over time and according to different issues.
  - - - Can be interpreted as a competency made up by the five skills highlighted above
      - The intensity of political skills required increases through the five elements of the framework until arriving at the maximum in the case of strategic direction and scanning
        
        Personal skills - ability of listening to others and of being curious
        
        Interpersonal skills - deals with the ability to influence others behaviours and to negotiate effectively with other people
        
        Building alignment and alliances - ability to use political astuteness skills is further challenged because it calls into question not only your ability to make the right analysis of the political context, but also to make the right moves
        
        Reading people and situations - refers to analysing or understanding the power dynamics among different actors and using knowledge of institutions, processes and social systems to understand what is happening or what might happen in the near future
        
        Strategic direction and scanning - ability to develop a vision and a strategic direction for the future by scanning and managing different possible scenarios.
      - Defines political astuteness skills as a crescendo from personal skills to strategic direction and scanning