Richard Normann was one of the most profound and sophisticated management thinkers of our time. Sadly, Richard died at the very young age of 60 in 2003. But his achievement will survive him. His ideas had a deep and far-reaching — if too little acknowledged — influence on the theory and practice of management. His influence, it is safe to predict, will stretch long into the future.
Spurning the superficial 'quick fix' approaches typical of so much writing in this field, Richard Normann dared to challenge conventional thinking and ask the deeper, subtler and more probing questions. Normann changed the map of business and, by so doing, its actual landscape as well.
Richard Normann was a deeply European figure — but he left a global footprint. He gained his MBA and doctorate at Lund University, where he later held a professorship. The president of the Scandinavian Institutes for Administrative Research, he went on to found the Service Management Group, and later the applied research company NormannPartners. For the last quarter century Richard lived in Paris and worked mainly in Europe. But the wealth of ideas, frameworks, and approaches — the rich new ways of seeing — contained in his many ground-breaking books spread round the world.
Service Management: Ledning och strategi i tjänsteproduktionen 2nd Ed.