What do Kmart, Lucent, Bull, Marks & Spencer, Moulinex, Polaroid and Xerox have in common? All are examples, say the authors of a recent white paper, of once thriving companies that seem unable to reinvent themselves in response to environmental change. The paper's central argument is that certain companies are unable to adapt to shifts in the competitive environment, despite the best efforts of their CEOs and management teams, because the required adaptive response is inconsistent with the company's core identity.The paper is “Escaping the Identity Trap” by Hamid Bouchikhi, professor of strategy and management and director of the New Business Center at ESSEC Business School in Cergy-Pontoise, France, and John R. Kimberly, the Henry Bower Professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, who is also the Novartis Chaired Professor at INSEAD.The authors' concept of corporate identity emerged from field-based, inductive research.
