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    Is competition always good and are monopolies always "bad"?

    Governance Language Performance Readings Strategy
    What a great question. Throughout my business career, of over thirty years now, the prevailing answer has been 'yes'. However, Peter Thiel reckons the answer to both parts of the question is or at least should be 'no'.

    Thiel's thesis, that competition is for losers, and this response to it will get you thinking... Boards and regulators might need to take note.
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    BAM2014: Reflections

    Conferences Governance Research Strategy
    So, the 28th Annual British Academy of Management Conference is now over. Something approaching 800 delegates (total attendees, including late registrations) have considered over 650 papers, workshops and symposia over the last three days, on three adjacent sites centred on the Belfast Waterfront complex. Overall, the conference was well-run—although not without some interesting nuances. A few reflections, based on my experience: 
    • That the organisers successfully marshalled delegates to twenty-something meeting rooms spread across the three sites—in half-hour slots—was a sight to behold!
    • There was only one plenary session—the opening—to bring all of the delegates together and to reinforce the conference theme. Also, the opening was scheduled after lunch on day one, and there were no other plenary sessions throughout the conference. My experience at other conferences is that the opening welcome and keynote address typically occurs at the beginning of the first day, and a plenary keynote is delivered as first scheduled session each following day of the conference. It provides a very useful means of pulling people together to reinforce the conference: a sense of purpose if you will. I hope the organisers of future BAM conferences consider adopting the more traditional programme.
    • The catering was pretty good. Finger-food was the order of the day for morning and afternoon breaks and for lunch. While there weren't enough seats, the food was such that delegates could eat standing without too much difficulty.
    • While the number parallel tracks (24 from memory?) meant that delegates had a wide range of topic and paper choices at any given point, the unwanted effect (from my perspective and many others that I spoke to) as that the audiences for many papers were small. I would rather that the conference organisers set a higher bar on paper selection (select fewer, higher quality papers) and run fewer parallel tracks, but over a full three days.
    • The conference is an academic-cum-research conference. Consequently, many of the papers were quite theoretical with only tenuous practical application. This served to highlight the chasm that often exists between research and practice. One way of minimising this chasm might be to call applied research papers and case studies. In so doing, a broader audience of managers and executives might find value in attending the conference, to hear about emerging trends that they can utilise in practice in their own environment.
    • The breaks between sessions enabled much interaction between delegates. I was able to take advantage of this as well, to meet several esteemed thinkers and to bounce ideas around.

    Next year, the conference will be held in Portsmouth, on the south coast of England. I've marked my diary.
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    BAM2014: starts today

    Conferences Governance Management Phd Research Strategy
    The 28th Annual British Academy of Management Conference starts in Belfast today. With over 700 delegates registered, 640 papers to be presented (at times over 20 parallel tracks!), the next three days promise to be very busy. My intention is to attend as many of the corporate governance papers as I can get to, strategy papers and a selection of others. I'll post reflections that various points over the next three days, and encourage those interested to follow the hashtag #BAM2014.
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    BAM2014: Final programme published

    Conferences Governance Leadership Management Research Strategy
    The 28th Annual British Academy of Management Conference is now less than a week away. The conference is being held in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on 9–11 September, and the final version of the BAM2014 programme is now available on the conference website. I'm down to deliver my paper on Thursday morning.

    This year, over 640 full and developmental papers will be delivered over three full days. Helpfully, the wide range of topics have been grouped into 24 tracks. In addition to the papers, keynote speakers will address the delegates each morning; and there are symposia; special interest group meetings; professional development workshops; and, a gala dinner (at the Belfast Titanic Museum, no less) to attend. Delegates will be busy!

    If you are interested in a particular track or specific paper, but cannot attend, please let me know. I will do my best to attend the presentation for you and report back. Also, if you are planning to attend the conference and would like to meet up over a coffee or snack, please contact me via Twitter or email.

    PS: As has become my practice during conferences, I will provide summaries and reflections throughout BAM2014, so please check back regularly if you are interested.
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    "Big firms fail to match growth of economy"

    Governance Leadership Performance Strategy
    Bryan Gaynor shone the light on a very important problem today—that many large firms in New Zealand simply are not growing in line with the growth of the economy. In other words, they are going backwards. Gaynor's analysis is insightful: to lose ground when the flow is good suggests that something is amiss. This raises several important follow-on questions: 
    • What have the boards of these firms been doing over the last few years?
    • Why have the boards not held the Chief Executive accountable for performance?
    • Who is actually in control and who is driving strategy? (It's unlikely to be the board, from what I can see.)
    • What changes are required to get these firms, and the economic contribution they make, back on track?

    While the issues before each firm will be unique, there are some constants:
    • The board is responsible for business performance.
    • The board needs to ensure that an appropriate corporate strategy is in place
    • The budget is not the strategy, it is a measure of progress.
    • The basis of performance should be achievement of strategy, not achievement of budgets.

    Hopefully, the boards of these firms will take stock, ask some quite tough questions, and make appropriate adjustments to get back on track. High company performance has many positive flow-on benefits beyond shareholder wealth, and these need to be realised if at all possible.
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    Are IPO vendors and private equity investors too short-sighted?

    Governance Performance Strategy
    A couple of months ago, I wrote a few articles about the head-long rush towards IPO listings that had been occurring in New Zealand, and asked whether the supply-and-demand equation had reached a tipping point. Since then, many of the companies that listed have suffered at the hands of the market. Some questioned whether the companies were fit to list in the first place. Yesterday, Brian Gaynor made his view plain:
    The problem is that investment banks, private equity investors and other vendors have adopted an incredibly short-sighted, profit maximisation strategy.
    I think Gaynor is on to something here. Rather than thinking about the core purpose of the company and a robust strategy to achieve that purpose, many of the vendors and private equity investors seem to be more interested in profit maximisation (realising a strong return on their own investment). If this assumption is correct, then another—potentially far worse—problem lies under the surface: did the pre-IPO board act in the best interests of the company (as required by the New Zealand statute) by bringing the company to IPO?

    The strength of an economy is dependent on many things, including companies that deliver value to their customers, employment to their staff and profits to their owners over a sustained period. The greedy pursuit of quick profits might satisfy vendors and private equity investors at the time, but rarely is it beneficial to the wider economy or to society at large. However, the invisible hand of the market may be at work. The poor performance of the recent IPOs could actually be a salutary warning signal for vendors and private equity investors contemplating bringing their own company to IPO—to think carefully about their motivations.