Resource-Based and Evolutionary Theories of the Firm


Book Description

Resource-Based and Evolutionary Theories of the Firm: Towards a Synthesis explores the intersection of evolutionary theories of the firm with an emergent body of research in the field of strategic management that has been broadly referred to as the `resource-based view of the firm'. The volume approaches strategic questions from several vantage points, thereby fostering a useful cross-fertilization of ideas. The views presented spring from a variety of sources, namely the principles of strategic management, organisation economics, and population ecology.




Strategy-Making and Organizational Evolution


Book Description

This Element presents several frameworks of strategy-making that serve to analyze organizational evolution processes within and beyond the firm. These frameworks form an integrated evolutionary ecological lens to examine the dynamics of strategy-making in organizational evolution. They highlight the role of the internal selection environment for analyzing processes and practices at various managerial levels (top, middle, and operational) within the organization. The Element also explains the role of the CEO in maintaining and updating the internal selection environment and contributing to organizational evolution, as well as making. fundamental decisions about organizational splits of the firm's business models as an ecosystem evolves.




Commitment


Book Description

To create a competitive advantage, a company must commit itself to developing a set of capabilities superior to its competitors; But such commitments tend to be costly and hard to reverse. How then, should a company decide which broad path, or strategy, to commit itself to? And how are competition and uncertainty to be accounted for in that decision? In this brilliant reassessment of how companies gain and sustain competitive advantage, Pankaj Ghemawat consolidates contemporary research in economics and other disciplines into a comprehensive yet practical framework for comparing commitments to strategically distinct options. This framework will help managers address specific strategic choices such as entry, exit, vertical/horizontal integration, capacity expansion, and innovation, as well as choices of generic strategy. Step by systematic step, Ghemawat provides managers with the tools and techniques they need to improve the quality of the choices that they make. Specifically, Ghemawat discusses: * how to identify the choices that are truly strategic -- that involve commitment -- before rather than after the fact * how to analyze the short-run and long-run competitive positions implied by a particular strategic option * how to assess the sustainability of superior competitive positions over time * how to account for the flexibility afforded by a particular option in dealing with future uncertainties * how to deal with both honest mistakes and deliberate distortions in the process of choice This pathbreaking book will help managers invest in the future. Its logic applies to choices involving disinvestment as well as those involving investment -- and to choices that embody elements of both. Its logic can be used for diagnostic purposes, such as the valuation of business, and most broadly, it win force managers to think about important issues that they may have tended to ignore. Ghemawat's discussion of these important ideas is concise, studded with detailed examples, based on rigorous research and, above all, practical. It will become required reading for thoughtful practitioners as well as practitionersto-be in the 1990s.




The Oxford Handbook of Strategy


Book Description

This two-volume handbook presents an authoritative and up-to-date analysis of how thinking on strategy has evolved and what are the likely developments in the near future. All the contributors are experts in their area, and bring to the topic an understanding informed by many years' experience of research, teaching, and practice. Volume One focuses on two major areas: first, the various different approaches to strategy, and secondly, the development of competitive or business unit strategy, where the pursuit of sustainable competitive advantage is the key objective.




Strategy Is Destiny


Book Description

How did a pioneering company in the semiconductor industry not only survive but thrive in the face of the explosive change and upheavals that forced it to transform itself twice in the course of its thirty-year history? The answer lies in the quality of its strategy-making process, contends leading strategic management scholar Robert A. Burgelman in this extraordinary book based on an exhaustive twelve-year study he conducted inside Intel Corporation. At once a history of strategy-making at Intel as well as a strategy-making field manual that any high-technology manager will need to consult frequently, Strategy Is Destiny truly describes strategy-in-action as the way of life of senior executives in the corporation of the future.




From Resource Allocation to Strategy


Book Description

Joseph L. Bower and Clark G. Gilbert have collected together some of the leading experts on strategy to examine how strategy is actually made by company managers across the several levels of an organization. Is strategy a coherent plan conceived at the top by a visionary leader, or is it formed by a series of smaller decisions, not always reflecting what top management has in mind? Often it is by examining how options for using resources are developed and selected, that we can see how a company's competitive position gets shaped. On the basis of this understanding, we can see better how these processes can be managed. The book's five sections examine how the resource allocation process works, how the way it works can lead a company into serious problems, how top management can intervene to fix these problem, and where the most recent thinking on these problems is headed. A fifth section contains assessments of this work by thought leaders in the fields of economics, competitive strategy, organizational behavior, and strategic management. The implications for those who study firms are considerable. Activity that is normally thought about in terms of substantive outcomes such as market share and revenue growth, or present value and internal rate of return, is seen to be inextricably related to organizational and administrative questions. The findings presented here should inform the research of economists, strategists, and behavioral scientists. Thoughtful executives and those who consult with them will also find the book provocative. The processes described are complex, but clear enough so that the way toward effective management is apparent. The models developed provide a basis for building the systems and organization necessary for today's competitive world.




Organizations Evolving


Book Description

`Howard Aldrich and Martin Ruef's tour de force shows us how the evolutionary approach can explain change not only in organizational populations, but within sectors and within organizations. Aldrich and Ruef display an astonishing command of the management literature, using vivid illustrations from cutting edge research to show how the processes of variation, selection, retention, and struggle operate within organizations and across them. A lucid and engaging book that should appeal both to the newcomer to organization theory and to the old pro' - Frank Dobbin, Harvard University A keenly anticipated Second Edition of an award winning classic, Organizations Evolving presents a sophisticated evolutionary view of key organizational paradigms that will give readers a unified understanding of modern organizations. This Second Edition is an up-to-date survey of the literature, as well as an overview of the new developments across organization studies. It contains new sections on organizational forms, community evolution and methods for studying organizations at multiple levels. The field of organization studies contains many contending paradigms that often puzzle and perplex students. This book is a stunning synthesis of the major organizational paradigms under the umbrella of organizational theory. Scholars and students will find it an excellent guide to the strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches, as well as an outstanding review of the best recent empirical research on organizations. The book includes many helpful features, such as: - Review questions and exercises that will consolidate reader's learning - A methodological appendix that assesses common research methods - Engaging cases that bring principles and concepts to life This Second Edition is a rich resource for study, discussion and debate amongst organizational scholars and postgraduate students of organizations.




Strategic Change


Book Description

Managing major or strategic change now demands the ability to visualise the future, to see what might happen, and to estimate how the organization might respond. Through a selection of key articles on strategic change from authors such as Senge, Handy, Argyris and Prahalad and Doz, Carnall examines how we can understand the process of change and how we can use this knowledge to create the future. These articles look at: *networked organizations *market induced changes for internal and external markets *culture change *learning organization *globalisation This book also includes new material on how to create programmes of change to maximise learning as well as topical approaches such as process re-engineering, time-based management and corporate bench-marking. Students on MBA and other post-graduate business courses, and practitioners in the field of strategic change will find this book essential reading. Colin Carnall is Professor of Management Studies and Director of Programmes at Henley Management College. Top-flight editor from one of the best British Business Schools Includes articles from leading authors -Senge, Handy, Argyris and Prahalad and Doz to name a few Includes new material on how to create programmes of change to maximise learning




Repositioning Organization Theory


Book Description

Repositioning Organization Theory studies the political positioning of organization theory. The book argues that there are two main projects in organization theory: the hegemonic project of positioning and postmodern project of depositioning. To critique the theoretical and political limits of these two projects, Böhm employs a range of critical and post-structural philosophies. Having conceptualized the need for a 'political event', the book is a passionate call for repositioning and repoliticizing organization theory. This book discusses the impossibilities of, and strategies for, such a project.




Corporate Co-Evolution


Book Description

WINNER OF THE GEORGE R. TERRY ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT BOOK AWARD 2009 "This superb study of a Brazilian state company's transition to private ownership is marvellously comprehensive in its coverage of the firm's entire life span and the full spectrum of its interactions with all aspects of its environment. The outstanding quality of this volume's contribution to co-evolutionary thinking and institutional and political theory has invaluable implications for culture, politics, identity, learning, and adaptation, making it an absolute 'must read' for all organization, management and strategy scholars." —Christine Oliver, Professor and Henry J. Knowles Chair in Organizational Strategy, Schulich School of Business, York University "This book by Suzanna B. Rodrigues and John Child is destined to become a classic study for several reasons. It is an exemplary study of co-evolutionary case study research, it is one of a very few longitudinal studies that focus on the interdependencies between firm evolution and the macro political and institutional environment and it provides a comprehensive and integrated state of the art framiing of current co-evolutionary theories and empirical research, It is a must read for scholars in Organization Science." —Arei Y. Lewin, Duke University, Fuqua School of Business, Durham NC "Corporate Co-evolution is a valuable contribution to the small but precious collection of studies of long-term change in business organizations. Tracking the evolution of a telecommunications company in Brazil over a 27 year period, Rodrigues and Child perform a delicate balancing act, according equal attention to the constraining/empowering effects of a changing institutional environment and to the strategic decisions and actions of the company's leaders." —W. Richard Scott, Stanford University Corporate Co-Evolution is a work of major scholarship that develops broad macro-economic principles of corporate strategy by examining and analyzing the history and growth of Telemig, a major Brazilian telecommunications company. Analyzes the different domains of the corporate environment - economic, social, cultural and political - that impact on the evolution of companies Traces the multi-level changes in a major Brazilian telecommunications company, uncovering the dynamics of change over the course of 30 years Develops a broader contextual and historical perspective that enriches our understanding of today’s international corporate environment Includes a general introduction to the complex political factors in the corporate environment that impact the growth of companies Co-authored by internationally-renowned author and business consultant, John Child