Thomas W Malnight

Professor Emeritus of Strategy and General Management

Thomas W Malnight is Professor Emeritus of Strategy and General Management. His fields of interest are strategy, leading and accelerating transformational organizational change, and the role of purpose in redefining businesses and their impact on society.

Malnight works extensively with top leadership teams in challenging how they view their emerging volatile and uncertain competitive landscape, how they shape future strategies and organizations for moving forward, and how they engage and align priorities and actions across their organizations and leadership teams. This work has led to the creation of the BTI at IMD, focused on partnering with senior business leaders as partners and provocateurs in addressing and co-creating responses to major challenges.

His research focus has been on trends reshaping the future of business strategies and organizations. He is the co-author of Put Purpose at the Core of Your Strategy (2019), The 3Rs of Preparing Your Organization for the Future, Must Win Battles: How to Win Them, Again and Again and Accelerating International Growth. Malnight co-authored the Global Trends Reports 2011, 2012, and 2013 and has written for Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Journal, McKinsey Quarterly, Strategic Management Journal, the Journal of International Business Studies, and the Academy of Management Journal. He has also authored more than 30 case studies on various aspects of global strategy and organization.

Prior to joining IMD, he was on the faculty of the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania from 1992 to 1999. He has attended graduate studies at Harvard Business School, Boston, MA where he obtained a Doctorate of Business Administration and wrote a dissertation on Managing the Globalization Process: An Exploratory Study. He obtained an MBA from The Wharton School in 1979 and a BA from Northwestern University in 1977. Prior to his doctoral studies, he worked for 10 years at Mitsubishi International Corporation, including two years working in Japan.

Malnight also consults extensively with companies from around the world on the topic of emerging future strategies and organizations.

Academic publications
Case Study
Mahindra’s aftermarket business: Bringing Silicon Valley inside
Strategy
The case focuses on the challenges of achieving scale and profitability for an entrepreneurial business operating as a subsidiary of a large multinational company. Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd. is the...
31 December 2017
Case Study
Growing pains: Mahindra First Choice 2017
StrategySustainability
The case focuses on the business and leadership challenges at the intersection of corporate ownership and entrepreneurship. Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd. is the leading utility vehicle manufacturer in...
31 December 2017
Case Study
Mahindra Finance: Accelerating growth
Strategy
The case traces the journey of Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Ltd (Mahindra Finance), a pioneer and leader in catering to the financing needs of rural and semi-urban India – typically under...
16 December 2016
Case Study
Recruit Japan: Harnessing data to create value (Abridged)
Operations
Recruit Holdings, Japan’s largest staffing firm and a leading marketing media company started out in the early 1960s as an advertising company publishing magazines for jobseekers. It scaled up over...
2 November 2016
The global trends fieldbook: From data to insights to action
Book
The global trends fieldbook: From data to insights to action
StrategyChange Management
Game changing trends, including the increasing power of the crowd, disruptive technologies and demands for responsible capitalism, are redefining our work, lives, societies and planet. As Paul Polm...
6 June 2014
Ready? The 3Rs of preparing your organization for the future
Book
Ready? The 3Rs of preparing your organization for the future
Change ManagementStrategyTop Team
What do Indian tractors and iconic America ice-cream companies have in common? Why are leaders of Unilever, Nestlé, and many other global companies redefining their futures? Why does this matter to...
29 May 2013
Article
Emerging structural patterns within multinational corporations: Toward process-based structures
Global BusinessChange ManagementOrganizational Design
This study investigated the nature and extent of organizational change in the context of globalization through a longitudinal matched-pair analysis of two leading pharmaceutical companies. The stru...
1 December 2001
Article
The transition from decentralized to network-based MNC structures: An evolutionary perspective
StrategyGlobal BusinessFinance
The transition process within established multinational corporations (MNCs) in moving from decentralized toward network-based structures is investigated and modeled. Whereas there has been substant...
1 January 1996
Article
Globalization of an ethnocentric firm: An evolutionary perspective
StrategyOrganizational DesignGlobal Business
The globalization process is investigated at one traditionally ethnocentric firm, Eli Lilly and Co. Whereas there has been substantial research on how multinational corporations (MNC) structure and...
1 February 1995
Insight for Executives
Article
L’ancienneté, un avantage stratégique
InnovationDisruptionStrategy
A few years ago, as part of our work with large legacy companies, we built a mock graveyard with the names of industrial giants that had gone bankrupt early or were being sold off at a loss - Kodak...
14 April 2022
Here's how incumbents can win in the disruption battle
Article
Here's how incumbents can win in the disruption battle
CompetitivenessStrategyDisruption
Established firms can bridge the advantages of market power, long-standing customer relations and industry insights to triumph over rivals.
17 March 2022
Article
The strategic advantage of incumbency
DisruptionStrategy
For most of the 20th century, size, longevity, and a large market share were seen as assets in business. Then they began to be viewed as vulnerabilities, putting many companies in a defensive stanc...
1 January 2022
How not to define your purpose
Article
How not to define your purpose
Strategy
An organization’s purpose is too often segregated from strategy and associated with long-term rather than short-term gains, impeding future success.
14 April 2021
How to put purpose at the core of strategy:
Article
How to put purpose at the core of strategy:
Strategy
Competition for new growth and opportunity is fierce and relentless. In this fight, business leaders are often left puzzled as to why their strategies, the result of arduous planning and painstakin...
8 April 2021
Article
‘Never let a crisis go to waste’ : How three CEOs helped their companies thrive in a pandemic
Organizational TransformationService ExcellenceStrategyDigital
The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted different responses from company CEOs seeking to ensure their businesses survive. Keeping their employees safe has been the first priority, but beyond that, their...
24 November 2020
Article
Put purpose at the core of your strategy
StrategyLeadership
Eight years ago, Malnight, Buche, and Dhanaraj launched a study of high growth in companies, looking at three strategies known to drive it: creating new markets, serving broader stakeholder needs, ...
1 September 2019
Put purpose at the core of strategy
Article
Put purpose at the core of strategy
Growth Strategy
Putting purpose at the core of corporate strategy is a critical driver of growth, profitability and organizational relevance. To achieve this, purpose must play two distinct roles to: (1) redefine ...
26 August 2019
Article
When machine intelligence meets main street
Technology Management
AlphaGo may have been about games. But the broader implications are clear: We can expect imminent advances in commercial applications of many kinds. Demis Hassabis, who heads Google’s machine-learn...
7 September 2016
The best companies aren’t afraid to replace their most profitable products
Article
The best companies aren’t afraid to replace their most profitable products
Competitiveness Disruption Strategy
Four rules to make self-cannibalization successful in the long run.
31 August 2016
Article
The best companies aren't afraid to replace their most profitable products
StrategyDisruption
The fundamental advantage of large companies is in their ability to integrate and reconfigure offerings and services based on their prior capabilities. Startups may move fast, but they lack experie...
14 July 2016
Article
Ten thoughts for the future
Strategy
CASSANDRA has decided to revisit her fellow forecasters Thomas Malnight and Tracey Keys to find out what their predictions are for 2014. Once again they have produced a collection of trends for the...
17 December 2013
Article
Addressing the short-term trap in a changing world
Top TeamChange ManagementStrategyOrganizational Behavior
We live in a rapidly changing world. The economic centre of gravity is shifting from West to East. The generational centre of gravity is shifting from baby boomers to Gen X, Gen Y and beyond. Compe...
8 July 2013
Article
Global trends for 2013: A top ten for business leaders
LeadershipStrategy
The great global redistribution of economic and social power will continue over the next 12 months. Power will flow away from traditional institutions that have failed to deliver progress – especia...
19 December 2012
Article
Global trends for 2013: A top ten for business leaders
LeadershipStrategy
The great global redistribution of economic and social power will continue over the next 12 months. Power will flow away from traditional institutions that have failed to deliver progress – especia...
30 November 2012
Article
Global trends for 2013: A top ten for business leaders
LeadershipStrategy
The great global redistribution of economic and social power will continue over the next 12 months. Power will flow away from traditional institutions that have failed to deliver progress – especia...
26 November 2012
Report
Recasting business around relationships...not transactions
General Management
Majors trends are fundamentally reshaping the future environment in which business will operate - from the growth of connectivity, falling geographic and industry boundaries, new technology revolut...
8 April 2011
Report
Preparing for a connected future: Beyond thinking outside the box, is it time to throw away the boxes
Technology Management
1 January 2011
Report
LCF interview with Harish Manwani President - Unilever Asia, Africa, Central & Eastern Europe
Top TeamLeadership
LCF: I would like to start by asking you a general question. What do you think the challenges and opportunities are for Asia as a whole?¦Harish Manwani: The biggest opportunity for Asia is truly a ...
1 January 2011
Report
LCF interview with Adi Godrej Chairman, Godrej group
GrowthFamily BusinessLeadership
LCF: Let’s start off talking about India as a whole. If you look at the five-to ten-year period¦going forward, what do you see as the major opportunities and challenges facing India, particularly i...
1 January 2011
From data to insights to action
The Global Trends Fieldbook