First of all I would like to wish all readers of Strategy Blogs a successful new year. In the new edition of the Journal of Management there are two interesting articles to start the year. In “Thinking About Entrepreneurial Decision Making” a research overview is given how entrepreneurs deal with opportunities, starting with opportunity assessment. In doing so, it might help to consider what imprints you and your organization have. Imprinting means that our present state and behavior can be somehow a reflection of historical experiences, conditions, and constraints. In the article “What’s Past Is Prologue” a coherent research overview is given, that can help to detect where you might have imprints that contribute to success or that do not contribute. In that respect beware of Strategic Taboos, which are those strategic options that initially disqualify and seem inconsistent with organizational identity beliefs of strategic actors.

Thinking about opportunities and imprints can take quite a time lapse.

In considering your opportunities for success and hopefully more sustainable success, it might help to understand what sustainability profile you have in relation to other companies in your supply chain. Companies often tend to embed sustainability in their business models in different ways and therefore there are business opportunities in aligning business models as is described in the Journal of Cleaner Production in the article “Corporate Sustainability Approaches and Governance Mechanisms in Sustainable Supply Chain Management“.

The real opportunity for success lies within the person not in the job (Zig Ziglar)

Norbert Bol

Front image is courtesy of Athiwat at FreeDigitalPhotos.net