Strategic community-based theory of firms: Case study of dialectical management at NTT DoCoMo

The greatest issue that leading corporations are facing in the twenty-first century is how they can achieve innovation in a speedy yet reliable manner. For example, on one side of this double-faceted issue is speed in introducing innovative new products and services to market ahead of the competition, while on the other side is expansion of the market for these products and services. To attain success, leading companies need to balance a variety of paradoxes both inside and outside the organization and exercise their practical abilities. In this paper, the author discusses a case of innovation by NTT DoCoMo, Inc. (DoCoMo), in becoming the first leading mobile telecommunications carrier in the world to offer mobile Internet services, and analyzes this case from the viewpoint of the paradox perspective on organizational performance. In this case, a leadership-based strategic community uses the practical method of dialectical management that includes top management to merge and integrate the community competences of an existing traditional community infrastructure with a new, creative community infrastructure and promote an emergent yet deliberate integrative strategy. With the integrative competences generated by this leadership-based strategic community, DoCoMo balances paradoxes such as creativity and efficiency to achieve innovations in creating and propagating new services. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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