美国运通（American Express）成立于1850年，被《福布斯》（Forbes）评为2017年全球第23大最有价值品牌（《福布斯》（Forbes），2019年）。它以其信用卡和旅行服务而闻名。从案例中看，似乎像美国运通这样的大公司也正在努力解决创新问题。我认为，美国运通缺乏创新的三个主要因素可能是内部文化问题，无法顺应当前趋势以及缺乏预算。首先，不同的公司具有自己的内部文化。像美国运通这样的大公司通常由内部的多个部门组成。由于内部结构复杂，很难就每个提案或变更达成一致，也很难考虑和满足每个人的需求。与一家初创公司相比，试图影响一家已建立公司的文化要困难得多，而所有新想法和提议总是受到开放性欢迎和讨论（Mohnen，2002）。在历史悠久的老牌公司中，几乎所有新想法或变更都会引起强烈的反应和激烈的讨论，从而导致流程缓慢。这也导致了我的第二点，那就是无法跟随趋势。由于很难在公司内部实施新想法或进行任何更改，因此将严重挫败员工提出在公司内部提出更改建议的动力。缓慢的过程可能会拖延公司对市场变化做出反应的时间。作为市场上最大的技术公司之一，及时保持当前趋势和客户需求的能力是保持竞争力的关键（Roldan等，2018）。但是，由于变革的想法并没有冲突，仅通过重复旧的规则，公司就会失去寻找创新产品的客户。第三，研发是影响企业内部创新能力的主要因素（Koukkari，2010）。案例阅读中提到，美国运通失去了与好市多（Costco）的联名合作关系，后者是美国运通（American Express）的主要合作伙伴之一，它每年创造了其总收入的8％。而且，美国运通公司也失去了重要的法院诉讼，这不仅损害了公司的财务，也损害了公司的声誉。此外，这表明自从美国运通公司近年来裁员4000多名员工以来，它在财务上一直处于困境。这样，可以合理地预测，美国运通在忙于处理公司内部的其他一些重要问题时，可能没有在其研发团队中投入过多的资金。
American Express was founded in 1850 and was ranked by Forbes as the 23^rd most valuable brand in the world in 2017 (Forbes, 2019). It is known for its credit card and traveling services. From the case reading, it seems like even a big, established company like the American Express is struggling with innovation issues. From my perspective, three main factors may lie behind the lack of innovation of American Express are internal culture issues, inability to follow current trends, and the lack of budget. First of all, different companies have their own internal cultures. A big firm like American Express normally is consisted of a variety of departments inside. It is not easy to agree on every single proposal or change due to the complicated internal structure and it is hard to consider and satisfy the needs of everyone. Trying to influence the culture in an established company is a lot harder compared to a start-up company, while all new ideas and proposals are always welcomed and discussed with open arms (Mohnen, 2002). At an established company with long history, almost all new ideas or changes will provoke a strong reaction and a heated discussion, which leads to a slow process. This also leads to my second point, which is the inability to follow trends. Because of the difficultly to carry through a new idea or any changes within the company, it is going to severely discourage employee’s motivation to bring up proposal for change within the company. And the slow process may drag down the time the firm reacts to the changes in the market. As one of the biggest technology companies in the market, the ability to keep up with current trends and customer needs in a timely manner is the key to stay competitive (Roldan et al, 2018). However, since there is no collision of ideas for change, just by repeating the old rules, the company will lose its customers who are looking for innovative products. Thirdly, research and development are the main factors to impact the ability of innovation within a firm (Koukkari, 2010). The case reading mentioned that American Express lost its co-branded partnership with Costco, which was one of the major partnerships that American Express had, and it generated eight percent of its total revenue annually. Moreover, American express lost an important court case as well, which harmed the company not only financially but also on its reputation. In addition, it shows that American Express is struggling financially since the company laid off over 4,000 employees in recent years. In this way, it is fair to predict that American Express may not have devoted as much money into its research and development team while it is busying handling some other important issues within the company. American Express was founded in 1850 and was ranked by Forbes as the 23^rd most valuable brand in the world in 2017 (Forbes, 2019). It is known for its credit card and traveling services. From the case reading, it seems like even a big, established company like the American Express is struggling with innovation issues. From my perspective, three main factors may lie behind the lack of innovation of American Express are internal culture issues, inability to follow current trends, and the lack of budget. First of all, different companies have their own internal cultures. A big firm like American Express normally is consisted of a variety of departments inside. It is not easy to agree on every single proposal or change due to the complicated internal structure and it is hard to consider and satisfy the needs of everyone. Trying to influence the culture in an established company is a lot harder compared to a start-up company, while all new ideas and proposals are always welcomed and discussed with open arms (Mohnen, 2002). At an established company with long history, almost all new ideas or changes will provoke a strong reaction and a heated discussion, which leads to a slow process. This also leads to my second point, which is the inability to follow trends. Because of the difficultly to carry through a new idea or any changes within the company, it is going to severely discourage employee’s motivation to bring up proposal for change within the company. And the slow process may drag down the time the firm reacts to the changes in the market. As one of the biggest technology companies in the market, the ability to keep up with current trends and customer needs in a timely manner is the key to stay competitive (Roldan et al, 2018). However, since there is no collision of ideas for change, just by repeating the old rules, the company will lose its customers who are looking for innovative products. Thirdly, research and development are the main factors to impact the ability of innovation within a firm (Koukkari, 2010). The case reading mentioned that American Express lost its co-branded partnership with Costco, which was one of the major partnerships that American Express had, and it generated eight percent of its total revenue annually. Moreover, American express lost an important court case as well, which harmed the company not only financially but also on its reputation. In addition, it shows that American Express is struggling financially since the company laid off over 4,000 employees in recent years. In this way, it is fair to predict that American Express may not have devoted as much money into its research and development team while it is busying handling some other important issues within the company. 
美国运通应专注于使其服务与其他竞争对手区分开来，或者以较低的成本提供相同的服务。正如阅读中提到的那样，美国运通（American Express）失去客户的主要原因之一是因为其他卡提供商提供了更好的交易。客户忠诚度意味着客户不会基于简单的市场变化而转向其他产品或公司。客户留在公司，是因为他们相信公司的价值和使命。需要花费时间来建立客户忠诚度，以帮助企业在发生变化时平稳过渡（Mundt等，2006）。在这种情况下，除了提供较低价格和更高质量的服务外，美国运通还应着重于发展其对未来客户的忠诚度，这样人们就不会像现在这样，因为价格便宜和更好的服务而放弃他们。同时，美国运通（American Express）应该努力采用更多自主策略行为。如本文稍后所述，美国运通公司目前开展的大多数创新活动都是由公司高管做出的诱发性战略行为。有时，基层的员工也有基于自己的第一手经验而值得思考的变革想法。美国运通应修改其内部系统，以使内部声音可以听到有关潜在的创新和变化的信息，并鼓励其员工大声疾呼并提供自己的见解。
American Express should focus on differentiating its service to other competitors or offer the same service but at a lower cost. As mentioned in the reading, one of the main reasons that American Express are losing its customers is because other card providers offer better deals. Customer loyalty means that customers would not turn to other products or companies based on simple changes in the market. Customers stay with a company because they believe in the value and mission of this company. Time needs to be invested to build customer loyalty, so that it helps an enterprise to transition smoothly when its going through changes (Mundt et al., 2006). In this case, besides offering lower priced and higher-quality services, American Express should focus on developing its customer loyalty for the future, so that way people do not abandon them for cheaper and better service like this time. At the same time, American Express should work on to adopt more of autonomous strategic behaviors. As will be mentioned later in this paper, most of the current undertaking innovations within American Express are induced strategic behaviors which are made by the executives of the firm. Sometimes employees within the primary levels also have ideas for changes that worth looking into based on their first-hand experience. American Express should modify its internal system to allow internal voice to be heard about potential innovation and changes, as well as encouraging its employees to speak up and offer their insights. 

In order to build an entrepreneur mindset within the company, American Express should devote in the following aspects. First of all, American Express should make bigger investment into its research and development team. It serves as the foundation for all potential innovations. There is difference between basic research and development compared to deep research and development. Only the later one can ensure that the company have a comprehensive idea about what is going on in the market and therefore offer the best constructive reaction (Engel et al., 2015). Second of all, the whole company should set up a clear corporate innovation goal and objective. All departments should follow this goal by supporting necessary changes needed within the company. In this way, it will overcome the trouble due to hubris or inertia from different departments mentioned before. Thirdly, American Express should adopt the cross-functional product development teams. In order to gain an overall view of the market and customer needs, collaborating with various functional departments help bring things together (Irvine and Baker, 1995). By doing this, the process of new product development can be streamlined and completed more quickly.   
I believe that the descriptions in the mini case reading about American Express’ recent innovations are mostly induced strategic behavior. The main difference between the autonomous and induced strategic behaviors lies in the initial idea on whether they are formed from the bottom-up or top-down process. In the reading, it looks like that most of the decision regarding to the recent innovations are made by the executives of the firm and the employees just follow up on what to do. The strategy is also consistent with American Express’ current business strategy and internal structure without major changes. In this case, there is no product champion who is bringing up a new product idea that is different from the company’s current strategy, and no new ways of creating value are introduced. In this way, I believe the recent innovations within American Express are mostly induced strategic behaviors.
References:
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Engel, K., Dirlea, V., Dyer, S. and Graff, J. (2015), “How to build the permanently innovative
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