Ivana Modena
Dr. Ivana Modena is the founder and President of Sustainability Management School (SUMAS), the first Business School in the world to launch the BBA and MBA in Sustainability Management.Dr. Modena, leveraging over twenty years of academic teaching and research experience, led SUMAS to achieve reputable international recognitions, She is particularly proud to offer academic programs in business and sustainability to a student body of over 30 nationalities, from International Baccalaureate to bachelor, master and doctoral level. Ivana is personally leading graduate and doctoral students to achieve their Doctorate of Business Administration and she is coaching students to manage projects in collaboration with companies and international organisations. Her main areas of expertise are Systems Thinking, Leadership and Research Methods.Dr. Modena built on her academic experience through prestigious publications and international conference presentations all over the world. Her book "Globale Märkte und Lokale Strukturen”, published in Germany in 2005, is an important contribution in the field of intercultural marketing. She is a member of IUCN Commission on Education and Communication (CEC) and was previously active member of ECREA, OWIT, ISA, EuroMed and ABC.Ivana is of Italian nationality and holds Swiss Citizenship, she is fluent in English, French and German.
Phone: +41 22 9990375 (direct)
Address: 26 Rue Mauverney
CH-1196 Gland
Switzerland
Phone: +41 22 9990375 (direct)
Address: 26 Rue Mauverney
CH-1196 Gland
Switzerland
less
Related Authors
InterestsView All (8)
Uploads
Books by Ivana Modena
What does it happen when products/brands become global? Economisation of cultures or culturalisation of global markets? In concrete terms one might be primarily concerned with what influence cultural characteristics exercise on the international brand policy of companies operating world-wide. When products/brands are exported, their original meaning and the way they are used are often lost or misunderstood, since consumers belonging to different cultures shape and interpret differently the foreign products. There is an increased awareness of most multinational companies to adapt their products/brands to local sensitivities. This trend speaks in favour of a growing relevance of cultural diversity in the global markets.
In terms of a global expansion of products one can note an increase in contrasting social phenomena such as “Brand-Idolization” and “Brand-Aversion”. The constitution of fanclubs or the purchase of idolisation objects vs the protests of no-global activists or the consumer choice of no-name products are collective realities of our globalised society.
Papers by Ivana Modena
The aim of this theoretical paper is to stress the importance to understand contingencies in inter-organisational collaborations as non-linear and process-system oriented communications. When multinational corporations seek new ways to expand their businesses, they have to cope with the risks of failures as to avoid crisis. So far, from the perspective of the system- and process-oriented theory of communication alliances, joint-ventures, mergers and acquisitions, headquarter-subsidiaries relationships can be defined as self organising systems that seek to create order through a systems-specific processi.
Due to reflexivity as the basic mechanism of communication, and due to the cognitive autonomy of agents (Schmidt 1994), communication processes can be described as enabling conditions which, at the best, trigger a sequence of activities in self-organising systems whose modes, results and efficiencies can normally not be precisely predicted. For this reason inherent uncertainties or complexity due to inter-organisational collaborations cannot be avoided.
This study can serve as a starting point for further investigations and research applications aiming to understand how inter-organisational collaborations can cope with contingencies by using a process-system model of communication which on the one hand admits the necessary awareness accordant with non-linear processes in the sphere of system/environment couplings and on the other hand can be useful as the basal step towards an orientating schematisation of managing uncertainty in social-functional relations within the meaning of inversing unpredictability into adaptiveness.
The conclusion sets out to describe the benefits of the mutual influence of local forces – adaptations, and global forces – standardisations, to the establishment of a balance between change and stability in the process of global organizing.
The topic of changing processes in local markets is the focus of this empirical research about the changing consumption styles of Italian consumers under condition of legislative and market uncertainty. It is here explained, in Luhmann’s terms, the self-regulative interrelations between social actors, legislative system and distribution system.
Talks by Ivana Modena
Corporations are affected by the implications of doing business in unpredictable, complex environments. In order for organisations to survive and succeed, they have to constantly move through mergers and acquisitions. The case of a merger between two consumer products companies, ‘Procter & Gamble’ and ‘The Gillette Company’ has been chosen as an example of successful integration. In 2008 started the post-merger implementation which is the most difficult phase of the acquisition process because it is the reconstruction of an organisational stability where people and brands should finally be integrated. The corporate values of both companies have to be negotiated to model a corporate culture which fit in the P&G people as well as the Gillette people.
Corporate communications play a crucial role in the construction of new corporate realities as a result of the negotiations of different organisational routines of merging enterprises.
It is here proposed to identify an appropriate global corporate training design to allow the universal recognition and acceptance of the newly created organisational reality.
Can personnel worldwide identify with the five core values? How can value based stories be translated cross-culturally? Would identifying with the core values and participating in training sessions increase employee commitment to the brand contract, and to the company?
Our effort is to propose the appropriate communication tools to overcome resistance to change. It is in work environments characterised by massive workforce expansion that different interpretations of corporate values develop and cause conflicting practices inside organisations and loss of credibility externally.
The practical importance of this investigation relates to the implications of learning new skills for managers active in innovating. Survival strategies are necessary to overcome the problem of control in uncertain work environments due to rapid expansion.
Keywords: Survival Strategies, Communication Effectiveness, Expansion, Hotel Industry.
Uncertainties exist because of the unpredictability of future events and of unshared interpretations of communicative appeals. So far, the need for predictability urged human beings to construct pretended reality patterns to cope with the anxiety over the unknown future or with the contingent experiences concerned with different possibilities of problem-solving.
This paper will give a practical example of the uncertainty reduction in the processes of globalization through the construction of glocal realities in the global marketplace, empirically measured through an international survey, my dissertation work. The glocal solutions are result of the negotiation between global players and local players to face up with the difference local/global. Local adaptations to cultural sensitivities and global institutional codifications are pretended realities of organizational consensus which simultaneously co-exist, since they are equally possible and mutually constitutive.
The fictitious reference to a common understanding of the organizational knowledge renders uncertainty invisible but it is also generated, observed and evaluated through reflexivity. The paper addresses the following research questions: To what extent do operative fictions reduce uncertainty? To what extent are the glocal solutions a reflexive communicative operation? The gain to be made in constructing invisible realities, such as the operative fictions, lies in the necessity of the illusion of consensus, in other words “in the necessity of fostering interaction and communication instead of all contingencies” (Schmidt 2007).
My new contribution to the studies of Communication lies in the support of empirical evidence to the theories of Communication Uncertainty.
FRI 15 OCT 12:45-13:30 ROOM VMP8 FOYER
Ivana Modena, International University in Geneva, Switzerland
The aim of this paper is to raise awareness on organisational challenges
and to highlight the crucial role played by communication to
overcome the problem of uncertainties in organisations. Theory will
be applied to empirical research to demonstrate how dynamic
organisations survive in the tension between stability and change.
Small, medium-sized or big corporations are affected by the implications
of doing business in unpredictable, complex environments.
In order for organisations to survive and succeed, they have to
constantly move through changes and adaptations but the organisational
stability (or coherence) is at risk.
Leaders need to be aware that both stability and change are necessary
and constitutive elements of the organisational reality. Stability
(or organisational coherence) is, of course, important to reassure all
company’s stakeholders, but on the other hand it is a fiction because
it cannot guarantee long-term survival. To what extent is the
fiction of stability reducing complexity? What are the appropriate
communication strategies that help leaders live in the paradox of
combining coherence with chaos?
On a macro level of analysis, one can suggest that uncertainties (or
contingencies) in organisations are due to the tension between the
organisational pressures toward stability – useful to guarantee
coherence, and the environmental pressures toward change – crucial
to gain competitive advantage. On a micro level of analysis, one
is aware that leaders have to manage this tension and overcome
resistance to change and perceptions of risks of employees and
managers. Thus, contingency in organisations can be described
through a meso-level of analysis because organisational forces –
macro level, mesh with human activity of decision agents – micro
level.
Corporate communications play a crucial role in the construction of
new corporate realities as a result of the mediation between stability
and change. It is here proposed a “trade-off model of communication”
to help organisations keep up with this latent paradox. This
model is a solution to the problem of fictions and uncertainties in
organisations as it suggests appropriate communication strategies
to reconcile stability (organisational coherence, shared values,
routinised procedures) with change (organisational chaos, unshared
values, perceptions of risks). Effective communication is necessary
when corporate values have to be adapted because of emerging
environmental pressures or when leaders communicate change to
employees and search for consensus upon the new organisational
realities. Similarly, the negotiations in teams of merging corporations,
in multicultural teams or between HQ (headquarter) managers
and subsidiary managers lead to risks of inter-group conflicts
that can be avoided through effective communication.
The “trade-off model of communication” is based on applications in
relevant areas in the field of organisational communication which
were derived from real case studies of corporations facing significant
moments of change in their company life.
Thus, organisations have to live in the paradox of promoting change
and guarantee organisational coherence at the same time. Leaders
have to consider the organisational coherence as an evolving adaptation
step rather than an endpoint. It is the best one can do based
on what one knows.
What does it happen when products/brands become global? Economisation of cultures or culturalisation of global markets? In concrete terms one might be primarily concerned with what influence cultural characteristics exercise on the international brand policy of companies operating world-wide. When products/brands are exported, their original meaning and the way they are used are often lost or misunderstood, since consumers belonging to different cultures shape and interpret differently the foreign products. There is an increased awareness of most multinational companies to adapt their products/brands to local sensitivities. This trend speaks in favour of a growing relevance of cultural diversity in the global markets.
In terms of a global expansion of products one can note an increase in contrasting social phenomena such as “Brand-Idolization” and “Brand-Aversion”. The constitution of fanclubs or the purchase of idolisation objects vs the protests of no-global activists or the consumer choice of no-name products are collective realities of our globalised society.
The aim of this theoretical paper is to stress the importance to understand contingencies in inter-organisational collaborations as non-linear and process-system oriented communications. When multinational corporations seek new ways to expand their businesses, they have to cope with the risks of failures as to avoid crisis. So far, from the perspective of the system- and process-oriented theory of communication alliances, joint-ventures, mergers and acquisitions, headquarter-subsidiaries relationships can be defined as self organising systems that seek to create order through a systems-specific processi.
Due to reflexivity as the basic mechanism of communication, and due to the cognitive autonomy of agents (Schmidt 1994), communication processes can be described as enabling conditions which, at the best, trigger a sequence of activities in self-organising systems whose modes, results and efficiencies can normally not be precisely predicted. For this reason inherent uncertainties or complexity due to inter-organisational collaborations cannot be avoided.
This study can serve as a starting point for further investigations and research applications aiming to understand how inter-organisational collaborations can cope with contingencies by using a process-system model of communication which on the one hand admits the necessary awareness accordant with non-linear processes in the sphere of system/environment couplings and on the other hand can be useful as the basal step towards an orientating schematisation of managing uncertainty in social-functional relations within the meaning of inversing unpredictability into adaptiveness.
The conclusion sets out to describe the benefits of the mutual influence of local forces – adaptations, and global forces – standardisations, to the establishment of a balance between change and stability in the process of global organizing.
The topic of changing processes in local markets is the focus of this empirical research about the changing consumption styles of Italian consumers under condition of legislative and market uncertainty. It is here explained, in Luhmann’s terms, the self-regulative interrelations between social actors, legislative system and distribution system.
Corporations are affected by the implications of doing business in unpredictable, complex environments. In order for organisations to survive and succeed, they have to constantly move through mergers and acquisitions. The case of a merger between two consumer products companies, ‘Procter & Gamble’ and ‘The Gillette Company’ has been chosen as an example of successful integration. In 2008 started the post-merger implementation which is the most difficult phase of the acquisition process because it is the reconstruction of an organisational stability where people and brands should finally be integrated. The corporate values of both companies have to be negotiated to model a corporate culture which fit in the P&G people as well as the Gillette people.
Corporate communications play a crucial role in the construction of new corporate realities as a result of the negotiations of different organisational routines of merging enterprises.
It is here proposed to identify an appropriate global corporate training design to allow the universal recognition and acceptance of the newly created organisational reality.
Can personnel worldwide identify with the five core values? How can value based stories be translated cross-culturally? Would identifying with the core values and participating in training sessions increase employee commitment to the brand contract, and to the company?
Our effort is to propose the appropriate communication tools to overcome resistance to change. It is in work environments characterised by massive workforce expansion that different interpretations of corporate values develop and cause conflicting practices inside organisations and loss of credibility externally.
The practical importance of this investigation relates to the implications of learning new skills for managers active in innovating. Survival strategies are necessary to overcome the problem of control in uncertain work environments due to rapid expansion.
Keywords: Survival Strategies, Communication Effectiveness, Expansion, Hotel Industry.
Uncertainties exist because of the unpredictability of future events and of unshared interpretations of communicative appeals. So far, the need for predictability urged human beings to construct pretended reality patterns to cope with the anxiety over the unknown future or with the contingent experiences concerned with different possibilities of problem-solving.
This paper will give a practical example of the uncertainty reduction in the processes of globalization through the construction of glocal realities in the global marketplace, empirically measured through an international survey, my dissertation work. The glocal solutions are result of the negotiation between global players and local players to face up with the difference local/global. Local adaptations to cultural sensitivities and global institutional codifications are pretended realities of organizational consensus which simultaneously co-exist, since they are equally possible and mutually constitutive.
The fictitious reference to a common understanding of the organizational knowledge renders uncertainty invisible but it is also generated, observed and evaluated through reflexivity. The paper addresses the following research questions: To what extent do operative fictions reduce uncertainty? To what extent are the glocal solutions a reflexive communicative operation? The gain to be made in constructing invisible realities, such as the operative fictions, lies in the necessity of the illusion of consensus, in other words “in the necessity of fostering interaction and communication instead of all contingencies” (Schmidt 2007).
My new contribution to the studies of Communication lies in the support of empirical evidence to the theories of Communication Uncertainty.
FRI 15 OCT 12:45-13:30 ROOM VMP8 FOYER
Ivana Modena, International University in Geneva, Switzerland
The aim of this paper is to raise awareness on organisational challenges
and to highlight the crucial role played by communication to
overcome the problem of uncertainties in organisations. Theory will
be applied to empirical research to demonstrate how dynamic
organisations survive in the tension between stability and change.
Small, medium-sized or big corporations are affected by the implications
of doing business in unpredictable, complex environments.
In order for organisations to survive and succeed, they have to
constantly move through changes and adaptations but the organisational
stability (or coherence) is at risk.
Leaders need to be aware that both stability and change are necessary
and constitutive elements of the organisational reality. Stability
(or organisational coherence) is, of course, important to reassure all
company’s stakeholders, but on the other hand it is a fiction because
it cannot guarantee long-term survival. To what extent is the
fiction of stability reducing complexity? What are the appropriate
communication strategies that help leaders live in the paradox of
combining coherence with chaos?
On a macro level of analysis, one can suggest that uncertainties (or
contingencies) in organisations are due to the tension between the
organisational pressures toward stability – useful to guarantee
coherence, and the environmental pressures toward change – crucial
to gain competitive advantage. On a micro level of analysis, one
is aware that leaders have to manage this tension and overcome
resistance to change and perceptions of risks of employees and
managers. Thus, contingency in organisations can be described
through a meso-level of analysis because organisational forces –
macro level, mesh with human activity of decision agents – micro
level.
Corporate communications play a crucial role in the construction of
new corporate realities as a result of the mediation between stability
and change. It is here proposed a “trade-off model of communication”
to help organisations keep up with this latent paradox. This
model is a solution to the problem of fictions and uncertainties in
organisations as it suggests appropriate communication strategies
to reconcile stability (organisational coherence, shared values,
routinised procedures) with change (organisational chaos, unshared
values, perceptions of risks). Effective communication is necessary
when corporate values have to be adapted because of emerging
environmental pressures or when leaders communicate change to
employees and search for consensus upon the new organisational
realities. Similarly, the negotiations in teams of merging corporations,
in multicultural teams or between HQ (headquarter) managers
and subsidiary managers lead to risks of inter-group conflicts
that can be avoided through effective communication.
The “trade-off model of communication” is based on applications in
relevant areas in the field of organisational communication which
were derived from real case studies of corporations facing significant
moments of change in their company life.
Thus, organisations have to live in the paradox of promoting change
and guarantee organisational coherence at the same time. Leaders
have to consider the organisational coherence as an evolving adaptation
step rather than an endpoint. It is the best one can do based
on what one knows.