Agility.X How Organizations Thrive in Unpredictable Times

In recent years, the concept of agility has captured the executive imagination, and leaders in a variety of industries and companies of all sizes are now searching for ideas on how to effectively utilize agile thinking. This book provides insights on agility from world-class experts on leadership, strategy and organization, alongside seasoned practitioners who have successfully implemented agility programs for companies such as Daimler, Ford Motor Company, J. W. Thompson, Siemens, and NASA. By combining theoretical expertise with a variety of managerial experiences, it provides a wide-ranging yet succinct guide for companies seeking to engage in the transformative journey towards becoming more agile. As such, it will be of great use and interest to executives in all industries, executive education participants and consultants, M.B.A. students and researchers interested in agile. Agility.X prepares leaders for managing under uncertainty and organizations for thriving in turbulent environments.

Introduction; Part I. Agile Leadership: 1. Leadership agility for strategic agility Bill Joiner; 2. Strategic agility requires leaders with an ambidextrous mindset Costas Andriopoulos; 3. From agility to antifragility – coping with the unknowable Haridimos Tsoukas; 4. Strategic agility: the critical role of language Mary Yoko Brannen and Terry Mughan; Part II. Agile Strategy and Design: 5. Examining agile development as a management fashion Alec Cram and Susan Newell; 6. Using management control systems to support agility Constantinos Markides, Daniel Oyon and Mael Schnegg; 7. Playfulness and agile strategizing David Oliver and Loizos Heracleous; 8. Organizational design for agility Christina Wawarta andLoizos Heracleous; Part III. Agility in Practice: 9. Agility, innovation, technological disruption: how to better deal with uncertainty Edward Krubasik and Christiane Prange; 10. Journey to agility at NASA's Johnson Space Center Douglas Terrier, Loizos Heracleous and Steven Gonzalez; 11. Agility means pivoting and quickly reacting to changes David Schoch and Christiane Prange; 12. Axel Springer ideas engineering: creating the digital future through agile innovation Ard Weiher and Christiane Prange; 13. Agile thinking in China – experiences from a 30-year career in advertising Tom Doctoroff and Christiane Prange; 14. Language and organizational agility in practice Robert Marshak and Loizos Heracleous; 15. Agility at Daimler Oliver Fischer and Katrin Adt; Concluding comments: beyond Agility.X.

Christiane Prange is Professor of Global Strategy at Tongji University, China and Director of the AgileVentureLab, a think tank researching and helping companies to better cope with ambiguity and unpredictability. In the last twenty years, she has consulted numerous multinational companies on internationalization strategies, global innovation management, and agility. Her research has been published in six books and numerous research papers in leading journals, such as, Organization Studies, the Journal of World Business, International Business Review, and others.
Loizos Heracleous is Professor of Strategy and Organization at Warwick Business School (where he has received a DSc for lifetime contributions to his field) and Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College and the Said Business School at Oxford University. His research on strategic management and organization change and development has been published in six books, including Strategy and Organization (Cambridge, 2003); Discourse, Interpretation, Organization (Cambridge, 2006); and Crafting Strategy (Cambridge, 2011). He has also written over sixty-five research papers in leading periodicals and his writings have been honored by several awards including three Best Paper Awards from the US Academy of Management and three research awards from Emerald.