Eastman Kodak is in most certainty the story of an organization that has failed to correctly manage and implement change. The company which was enjoying sales of around US$10 billion in 1981 has a net income of only US$139 million in 2005. Kodak’s brand value also slipped down dramatically. An estimated US$2.6 billion was lost owing to the decrease in organization’s brand value. A number of factors played an important role in Eastman Kodak’s tragic decline. The most important factor that contributed to Kodak’s demise was the rigid thinking on part of its management that stopped them from taking timely initiative towards adoption of digital technology in digital communications segment of the company. Another important letdown related to change implementation occurred when Kodak’s management failed to realize that it needs to continuously monitor the changes occurring in the environment and then take small continuous steps towards complete adoption of a particular change if analysis reveals that it is good for the overall organizational well being. In the ensuing paragraphs a detailed discussion will be carried out examining what went wrong at Eastman Kodak and what are the possible remedial steps that can be taken.

Problem 1: Kodak missing the information age

The biggest strategic blunder committed by the management of Eastman Kodak was that it failed to correctly anticipate the needs of changing time. While the competitors around them were constantly innovating and coming up with new products in line with the changing needs of the market, the management at Kodak was happy being stuck with the old products and ways of thinking. A big factor contributing to the amazing collapse of Kodak was management’s approach towards finding solutions to strategic problems being faced by the organization. The Rational Thinking Perspective (RTP) was successfully utilized by Kodak in its infancy when RTP was the main perspective being used by leading businesses around the globe but, as time passed and fierce competition started emerging Kodak ignored the need to change its core business technology from silver-halide film technology to the digital technology. This failure to foresee change and sticking to RTP was a huge strategic blunder on part of Kodak’s management and could well have been avoided had the management at Eastman Kodak used Generative Thinking Perspective (GTP) to solve the strategic problems being faced by the organization.

Rational Thinking Perspective (RTP) versus Generative Thinking Perspective (GTP)

The followers of Rational Thinking Perspective (RTP) notably Kenneth Andrews argue that the strategy analysis and formulation stages should be carried out with due diligence and with extreme care (Erasmus & Schenk, 2008). The proponents of RTP believe that the issues being faced by organizations are adequately clear and a thorough analysis of relevant data will reveal the future course of direction that should be chosen (Oliver, 2009). The RTP can easily be broken down into four main stages starting from data analysis and setting of strategic objectives followed by planning stage to carrying out the implementation of the defined objectives (Wit & Meyer, 2010). The followers of generative perspective school of thought (GTP) reject the RTP by saying that in the fast paced world of today the rational and systematic logic cannot be used for decision making (Paauwe, 2004). GTP argues that enterprise problems can only be solved by interactive actions. GTP believes that strategy making is a process of reflecting, envisioning, experimenting and learning that can never be neatly organized, programmed or conceptualized (Hoogervorst, 2009).

Strategies to resolve the problem

Kodak totally depended on the strictly logical Rational Thinking perspective (RTP) in the production and sales of cameras and films which allowed competitors to slowly snatch the market share of Eastman Kodak in the camera industry it previously domina