Anders Melander: A portrait of one of MMTC's researchers and his work in strategic change and transformation.

Anders Melander is a researcher at MMTC and an Associate Professor of business administration at Jönköping International Business School (JIBS). Anders’ research focusses on innovative ways to work with strategy, mainly in growth oriented small and medium sized companies.

After three years in the banking industry, Anders began a period of study first at Linköping University, and then coming to JIBS in 1995. Anders successfully defended his thesis entitled “Industrial Wisdom and Strategic Change in the Swedish Pulp and Paper industry 1945-1990” in 1997 and has since continued with further research on the role of industrial wisdom in strategy processes within the pulp and paper industry. Over the last ten years this interest has developed and now the question of how an organisation’s formal strategy work evolves, has dominated his research.

"Strategy work is often viewed with skepticism as it is not believed to really contribute to organizational development. I think a more open way of working with strategy (transparent/inclusive) will liberate energy in many organizations. The question is only how to make it happen. This is where I think my research can contribute a lot to societal development."

Through his research Anders’ explores how and why formal strategy work is initiated in organizations, what the outcomes of this work are, and how organizations can combine a structured (more formal) way of working with strategy utilizing creative and innovative behaviors. During the last five years Anders has specifically studied how an inclusive and transparent way of working with strategy (Hoshin Kanri - a Japanse inspired technique for strategy work) can be introduced in organizations and is currently writing a paper, together with MMTC member Olof Brunninge, on management innovation with a focus on how senior management develop a sense of psychological ownership of the innovation in question.

Considering future projects, Anders has a lot of ideas to pursue in the area of strategy work. One such idea is to dig deeper into the link between innovativeness and (formalized) strategy work. For Anders, as other MMTC researchers, there is clear benefit in digging deeper as part of MMTC.

"MMTC is a context consisting of many bright scholars sharing the same driving forces. Even if most are not researching exactly the same topic as I am, they represent a bunch of supportive and critical academics that challenge your thoughts in constructive ways."