Strategy: Process, Content, Context

by Ron Meyer and Bob de Wit

Book Overview

A combined reader and casebook for introductory strategic management courses. Offers a balanced coverage of the main themes of strategic management and a broad representation of the different... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1861529643
• ISBN13: 9781861529640
• Release Date: December 2003
• Publisher: Cengage Learning
• Length: 957 Pages
• Weight: 3.60 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Intelligent, fresh, ground breaking...

For my work, I do change, leadership and strategy research for a number of consulting firms so it would be an understatement to say that I've read a lot. Regardless of the domain, I find most work to be highly derivative, unoriginal and based on limited mindsets and thinking. Rarely do I find anything that challenges conventional ways of thinking and is also highly useful and not just another voice shouting out sensationalist ideas so that they can be noticed in a very crowded marketplace. Recently I signed on to do some volunteer teaching in Cambodia and as is my usual process, I hit the internet, libraries, online databases and do a broad sweep of what's happening in the domains that I'm interested in. I expect that most of what I read will be based on outdated worldviews and limited perspectives so I'm usually happy to dig out the few nuggets of gold in a chapter of a book, an article or left of centre cuff thinking and patch it together into something that opens possibility, provokes thought and powerful mindsets and perspectives. This book though was an unexpected find and a total gem. Why? If you're a student or a teacher you'll have looked at many books on strategy, and basically they all follow a very similar approach. They treat strategy as something that's fixed, logical, linear, formulaic and relatively simplistic (follow the steps or recipe and you're assured of success). As one of my mentors so often says... it's a nice idea... pity it doesn't work in the real world. If it did and people weren't so unsatisfied with how poorly most current approaches to strategic planning perform, we wouldn't have so many `new' books on strategy coming out each year. Books that are groundbreaking and challenge conventional paradigms are difficult to write... and the authors have done a first class job of this one and are to be commended for the result. It's organized into a series of paradoxes, which cover the major issues of strategy formulation and execution. If you can check out the introduction and first chapter you'll have a good sense of whether the book was for you. The table of contents alone sold me, and after reading their conceptual frame and introduction I was excited to read more. To use some of the comments from the preface of the book to illustrate its structure and value, they discuss how most books on strategic management follow a recipe type approach. They present a limited number of perspectives and theories as accepted knowledge from which prescriptions can easily be described. If you've looked at more than 3 books on strategic management you'll know this to be true. The next use a simple step by step strategic planning approach as the books basic structure. They rework original material into the author's own words to create a consistent and easily digestible piece of text. The choice of perspectives, theories and examples is weighted towards the author's own domestic context (and then, slight adjustments are

quick delivery and good quality, thanks

It arrived in a short time, a good seller, I would like to do the deal with the seller again.

''The Debates and the Book''

This book may not ''obliterates'' what is known about strategy but definitely is not just an additional ''improvement''. It is focused on strategy (theory) but also gives many interesting examples and cases of/for real/mental implementation. It builds a ''network'' of thoughts giving the possibility to visualize the individual ''capabilities'' in the searching of a personal ''core competence''. I think it acts like a ''strong'' or ''weak'' force for a ''continuous learning''; depends on the ''motivation''.