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The Catalyst of It&C Industry. a Case Study of Blackberry Company View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Directory of Open Access Journals Change and Leadership 55 leadership and innovation – the Catalyst of it&C industry. a Case study of BlackBerry Company ~ Ph.D. Camelia Cojocaru (Faculty of Business and Administration, University of Bucharest, Romania) E-mail: [email protected] ~ Ph.D. Silviu Cojocaru (Faculty of Business and Administration, University of Bucharest, Romania) E-mail: [email protected] Abstract: IT&C companies need to adapt themselves to an environment featuring a high level of competition. Innovation stays as the main vector of the domain, while the renewal rate of new technologies grows in speed (there are cases where new technologies emerge and replace the older ones in months). With this series of research we aim to analyse several local or global companies within the IT&C field, as well as the importance of leadership for their development. This first article will focus on leadership within a com- pany called Research In Motion – RIM (currently named BlackBerry) and on the main problems that have arisen within the company after the organisation was left without support from the leaders that created its worldwide brand. Key words: information technology, productivity, leadership, management, operational im- provements JEL Classification: J24 - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice 1. Introduction no organization involved in innovation may exist without leadership. The correla- IT&C is a very dynamic domain, where tion between management and leadership innovation processes play an extremely im- is vital for organizations. As the main func- portant role. Seen as the Father of Leadership, tion of the management is to organize and John Kotter (Kotter, 2009) stipulates that No. 17 ~ 2013 56 Change and Leadership plan operational processes within organiza- While not intending to further mud- tions, for certain categories of companies the dy the waters, I have provided a sampling management process is enough for achiev- of leadership definitions collected over the ing planned results. For example, should years to provide the interested observer a we choose to pick a vertical line of activi- brief glimpse at the variety. They include: ties within FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer “Leadership is a function of knowing Goods) – e.g. meat processing – we could see yourself, having a vision that is well com- that things stayed unchanged there since the municated, building trust among colleagues, introduction of freeze generating technology. and taking effective action to realize your The management plays an overwhelming own leadership potential.” Warren Bennis role inside such a range of domains, while the “…leadership is a complex phenom- leadership stays as a less important feature. enon that touches on many other important Generally speaking, IT&C is completely organizational, social and personal processes. different, as new technologies emerge with a It depends on a process of influence, whereby speed that in best situations is measured by people are inspired to work towards group years and in worst by months. Under such goals, not through coercion, but through per- circumstances, the innovation capability be- sonal motivation.” (Bolden, 2004, p. 5) “Leadership over human beings is exer- comes of high value for IT&C organizations. cised when persons with certain motives and One may see the management role as homeo- purposes mobilize, in competition or conflict static (Kotter, 2009 – page 94), being mainly with others, institutional, political, psycho- involved with keeping an organization with- logical, and other resources so as to arouse, in reasonable limits. When we talk of change engage, and satisfy the motives of followers.” and launching new technologies and prod- (Burns, 1978, p. 18) ucts at high pace, leadership becomes the or- “Leadership is the lifting of a man’s vi - ganizational development engine. sion to higher sights, the raising of a man’s performance to a higher standard, the build- 2. Literature review ing of a man’s personality beyond its normal limitations.” Peter Drucker Nearly 40 years ago, Stogdill (1974) “The process of influencing people by noted “there are almost as many different providing purpose, direction, and motiva- definitions of leadership as there are persons tion, while operating to accomplish the mis- who have attempted to define the concept” sion and improve the organization.” (FM (p. 7). This should probably be expected of a 6-22, 2006, p. Glossary-3) popular topic with a long history of interest. “Leadership should be defined in terms Much of the diversity is driven by the theo- of the ability to build and maintain a group retical underpinning / approach / lens the that performs well relative to its competi- tion.” (Hogan & Kaiser, 2005, p. 172) definer uses when crafting a new definition. “Leadership is the art of mobilizing Unfortunately, at times, this lack of defini- others to want to struggle for shared aspira- tional clarity has led to significant confusion tions.” (Kouzes & Posner, 1995, p. 30). by those interested in the topic. No. 17 ~ 2013 Change and Leadership 57 “Leadership is a process whereby an in- 3. leadership in it&C industry dividual influences a group of individuals to Considering how “young” IT&C in- achieve a common goal.” (Northouse, 2010, dustry is, most companies had leadership p. 3) and vision as their core assets. Microsoft has “Leadership is an influence relationship been built around the “a computer for every- among leaders and collaborators who intend one” key concept, with Bill Gates as the un- real changes that reflect their mutual purpos- challenged leader for almost three decades. es.” (Rost, 1997, p. 11) Steve Jobs has been the development engine “Leadership is defined as the initiation of Apple, both at the time of the company’s and maintenance of structure in expectation foundation laying and after 1996, following and interaction.” (Stogdill, 1974, p.411). the acquisition of NeXT Company and the “Leadership is a process of interaction reinstatement of Steve Jobs as Apple’s CEO. between persons who are participating in IBM is another example of a company where goal oriented group activities.” (Stodill & several leaders and visionaries contributed Shartle, 1948, p. 287) to the constant development of the company “…(a) influencing individuals to con- and to radical shifts in strategy (e.g. when tribute to group goals and (b) coordinat- IBM decided to give up manufacturing per- ing the pursuit of those goals.” (Van Vugt, sonal computers and sold that division to Hogan, & Kaiser, 2008, pp. 182-183) Lenovo, a Chinese company). Google and “…a process of motivating people to Facebook are yet other examples where lead- work together collaboratively to accomplish ership and vision of their founders play a de- great things.” (Vroom & Jago, 2007, p. 18) cisive role for the company’s development “Leadership is the process of influenc- with time. ing others to understand and agree about Leaders and their capability of main- what needs to be done and how to do it, and taining a high rate of innovation and de- the process of facilitating individual and col- velopment within their companies are lective efforts to accomplish shared objec- extremely important. Within the information tives.” (Yukl, 2010, p. 8) technology field, the technologic framework “Leadership is viewed as a process is dominated by change. The Internet com- that includes influencing the task objectives pletely changed the way all economic and and strategies of a group or organization, social processes are performed, while social influencing people in the organization to networks today change the Internet. A few implement the strategies and achieve the ob- years ago we could speak of unprecedented jectives, influencing group maintenance and rates of growth for the PCs and laptops mar- identification, and influencing the culture of ket, while today, with the global expansion of the organization.” (Yukl & Van Fleet, 1990, p. tablets and smartphones, that market with- 149) stands a steep decline. “Leadership inevitably requires using As such, leadership plays a crucial role power to influence the thoughts and actions for organizational development. The key for of other people.” (Zaleznik, 1977, p. 67) success rests with the continuous emergence of new leaders that are able to take over the No. 17 ~ 2013 58 Change and Leadership vision related to the development of the Microsoft CEO, after taking over from Bill company. Gates). 4. the importance of communication 5. Research in motion (Rim) – history and alignment of a leadership failure? Communicating the message and align- Although the IT history is rich in lead- ing people behind it are highly valuable for ers (dubbed as founders) that fuelled com- leadership processes performed within any panies since their beginnings, there are company (Kotter, 2009). No leadership pro- exceptions. With the IT, involvement of the cess may be performed without employ- leaders needs to be continuous, no matter ees understanding the need for change and they are the founders or leaders taking over the need for new products or services. Even from founders). more, employees have to align themselves Research in Motion, or RIM, is well to a leader’s vision by their own free will. known by means of its BlackBerry range of Things are completely different with the smartphones. The company was founded management process, as managers go for bo- in 1984, in Canada. The awareness of the nuses or penalties for employees achieving BlackBerry brand led to the company chang- certain tasks or not. Leaders don’t use such ing its name, beginning January 30th 2013, means, as they have the ability to convince from RIM to BlackBerry. employees for transforming a certain vision RIM founders were Mike Lazaradis and into reality. Jim Balsillie. They both took joint CEO posi- Under such circumstances, the message tions within the company until January 22, sent by the leader and the communication 2012.
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