Strategic Management

This is the first strategic management text to provide students and executives with a fully integrated guide combining strategy content with strategy design and execution. Based on courses taught at Wharton and other top international business schools, the English-language text is redesigned and revised from a highly successful German-language text first published in 2001 and now in its 2nd edition. The text is designed for use primarily at MBA and executive MBA levels. It offers a comprehensive framework for understanding and implementing strategic management to meet a growing need for effective strategic action at all levels of organizations. The text is accompanied by electronic teaching materials and power points and is linked to an on-line course and a web portal, which facilitate multi-channel delivery of the material and will open up additional demand for the printed text. Numerous case examples, summaries and review questions throughout the text help to reinforce key messages of the book. An integrated four-stage framework helps students and executives understand and apply strategic management lessons.
In the second chapter of the book the authors discuss several approaches on how firms shape their strategies and generate strategic initiatives, while the fifth chapter deals with the topic of strategic change. Commenting on the positioning of this text in relation to Grant, Raffi Amit explained that "Strategic Management" complements and extends the content - centered strategy formulation approach of Grant, as it integrates strategy process and content with formulation and implementation. It embraces strategy process as an essential part of a comprehensive framework, rather than stand alone chapters on process and implementation. 'From discussions with hundreds of MBAs and practicing executives we know that this integrated view of strategy is highly valued, as the practice of strategy contains both content and process work'. For this reason the textbook fits well with the needs of MBA- and EMBA-students. Based upon their teaching and consulting experience the authors have found that in most North American B-schools, these two topics are either treated separately or that strategy process is not taught at all.
Their approach helps to bridge this gap by providing a coherent framework for strategy making. For example they have just completed teaching a Global MBA with the University of Toronto where the approach was exceptionally well received by the MBA students. All the authors have been called upon for comment by major business news media and have significant visibility in the field via strategy journals and conferences. In addition their universities offer direct opportunities for promotion, including publications such as Knowledge@Wharton and executive education programs. They travel and speak extensively around the world.