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"He is very much in touch with real-world situations,"
said Wharton professorial colleague and former
dean Tom Gerrity. "He likes to get out and around,
knowing not just the data, but the texture of firms.
That is where he differs. Lots of people collect data.
Raffi tries to feel out what is really going on in companies
and with entrepreneurs."
Another one of Amit's students from his University
of British Columbia days, Christoph Zott, now an
assistant professor of entrepreneurship at INSEAD,
the management school in Fontainebleau, France,
is doing research with Amit on entrepreneurship
and strategy.
"From the first day I was his PhD student, he treated
me like a colleague and peer," said Zott. "He also
addresses issues in a frank and direct manner. There is
no beating around the bush with him. He gets to the
'bottom line,' one of his favorite expressions, very fast."
"At the same time, he's flexible and leaves room to
adapt and change," said Zott.
Amit was born and did his early schooling in Israel,
obtaining bachelor's and master's degrees in economics
there. He came to the United States to earn
his PhD at the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of
Management at Northwestern University. He taught at
Northwestern and the University of British Columbia
before coming to Wharton.
But Amit also likes to practice, not just study, business.
From 1996 to 2001, he was the non-executive
chairman of the board of Creo Products, Inc., a NASDAQ-
listed imaging equipment company.
"Wharton is an exciting place, in part because it is
such an entrepreneurial organization that embraces
innovation," said Amit, relaxing a bit in his office chair
just after spring semester and before a trip to Wharton
West. "Very few people have been given the opportunity
and the time to think about profound issues that
affect business and society and then given the resources
to gain a deeper understanding of these issues through
research. I feel very fortunate. "
Amit's current research is expansive and varied. He
is doing the entrepreneurship and strategy research on
business models with Zott and another project on
bankruptcy with Thornhill. He is also doing research
on digital transformation with his Wharton colleagues
Morris Cohen and Jerry Wind in a unique collaboration
with McKinsey & Co. Amit has recently initiated
a new project that centers on NASDAQ-listed
companies from around the world.
"It's not just how they survive, but whether NASDAQ
companies survive at all," he said. "I'm just starting
to collect data, and that can be wearing. But data
is where it all starts.
"I love data-driven analysis," said Amit. "First of all,
data really does tell a story. In its best form, it is not
just numbers, but a story, in this case, of how a company
works. Second, when you have enough of it, you
can develop and test hypotheses and theories that are
grounded in reality."
One of those theories that Amit is unafraid to posit,
despite the dire wailings of those who have been bitten
badly by the dot-com collapse, is that e-enabled
organizations are a prerequisite for realizing long-term
superior financial performance in most industries, old
and new.
"I remember not long ago talking to the chief information
officer of a utility company," said Amit. "He
compared what we are going through with e-business
to the end of the nineteenth century, when the utility
grid provided universal electric power and changed
society in a profound way.
"I do believe we live in a truly unique time," he said.
"Computing power still doubles every 18 months,
making communication and information technology
cheap, reliable, and fast. The digital transformation has
already started, but it will continue to cause a profound
architectural change in our lives. And it was
brought about largely by entrepreneurs. We are at the
tip of the iceberg."
One of the reasons Amit thinks the last four years
of hype of the Internet is mere prologue is that it was
primarily technologists who were doing the touting. It
is only in more recent months that CEOs and top
managers of incumbent firms realized the enormous
potential to drive performance improvements through
digitizing core organizational processes.
"Senior managers were resistant at first," he said.
"The demise of many dot-coms has turned off a number
of executives." Only recently, CEOs and top executives have realized the real benefit that can be captured
through the digitization of many of the firm's processes.
"You see them all with their personal desk assistants
and their Blackberries, monitoring and guiding their
diverse companies. The tech guys may have pushed
this business, but real change still has to be driven from
the top. Unless the top management drives digital
transformation, it won't become part of company culture
and fabric," he said.
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