ThevaluenetAmethodologyfortheanalysisofvaluecreatingsystems.docVIP

Strategic Management Conference 1996 The Value Net: A Methodology for the Analysis of Value-Creating Systems Cinzia Parolini Most recent studies in strategic management underline the emergence of related paradigm shifts in technology, corporations and industries. As a matter of fact, nowadays it is difficult to run across an article in a business magazine academic or review which does not take into careful consideration the impact of technology on competition, the increasing innovation rate, the blurring of industries boundaries and the continuous shifting and increasing permeability of firms borders. Even if most of these contributions are illuminating in so far as they point out new key issues in strategic management, new and clear operative models and tools coherent with the new competitive landscape have failed, as yet, to emerge. The use of such terms as “boundaryless organization”, “virtual corporation”, “extended enterprise”, “blurring industry boundaries” is now widespread, but when business analysts have to do their work, they find within their strategic tool box essentially the same models conceived in the 70s and 80s and by and large still in use, such as “portfolio matrices”, “Porter’s five forces model”, and “the value chain”. One possible explanation for this lack of innovation in strategic models and tools can be found in the human reluctance to reconsider concepts so rooted in traditional economic theory as to be considered immovable. Disturbing though it may be, we must admit that the starting point for the development of a new set of strategic tools can only emerge from a radical change in some of the most basic concepts upon which economic theory itself has been built. Consolidated concepts such as firm and industry must be reconsidered. We must rethink and redefine the traditional concepts of firm and industry, and overcome mental images and schemes which are so widely accepted as to appear “beyond question” even if they no longer reflect reali