Johannes Pennings received his BA and mA at the universities of utrecht and Leiden (Netherlands) and his Ph.D. in 1973 from the university of michigan. Born in the Netherlands, he has resided in the uS since 1970. Prior to his current status as marie and Joseph melone Professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, he was affiliated with Carnegie-Mellon University and Columbia University. He also maintained a part-time affiliation with the Rotterdam School of Management of erasmus university, the Netherlands and, as of 1998, he holds a summer appointment at the Department of economics, tilburg university, Netherlands. his recent visiting teaching assignments were at Bocconi university, milan, the university of New South Wales (AGSm), Sydney, Seoul National university, Korea and universidad Carlos iii, madrid.

Pennings' research has dealt with organizational innovation, organizational mortality and change, technological trajectories, executive compensation and international management. he has published six books and numerous papers which were published in the Academy of management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, American Journal of Sociology, Journal of management Studies, Strategic management Journal, organization Studies, organization Science and numerous other journals. his most recent books are New technology as organizational innovation published in 1988, by Ballinger and innovating Successfully: running Away from the Pack, Kluwer Publishing, 1994. he is currently completing a book, the Strategic Challenge of innovation, published by Blackwell, oxford. his current research includes a project which seeks to identify the emergence of a new market by examining the patterns of joint venturing and patent citations across existing markets in order to answer the question of what firm attributes shape their role in mediating convergence among markets. A second project considers information of firms, products, markets and customers on the rise and fall of technologies as these become bundled around a product, in this case tennis rackets.

Session 1: for Getting (some of) our Past
Getting stuck in your legacy and looking too much into the rear view mirror.
Managers who live in their past are competed out of existence. This will be exemplified by using two cases:
• Kodak' blueprint for a digital transformation
• Gm' two Keys for the Car

Session 2: Between the Past and future
how to implement your future business with the capabilities you have today?
How can firms ready themselves to bust their competition and emerge as winners? A case involving the US
Navy will exemplify the need for staying ahead through innovations:
• Gunfire at Sea

Session 3: BACK to the future
Design options to have an edge over your future competitors.
managers ought to canabalize their products and markets and create their own business for the future, often
with competitors, customers and suppliers.
• hermes System (implementing innovation in a telecom company)
• oticon (Networking in a maker or hearing aids)