Friday, September 27, 2013

Strategic Management, 1st Edition, Garth Saloner




About the Author
Garth Saloner is the Jeffrey S. Skoll Professor of Electronic Commerce, Strategic Management and Economics at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University where he has headed the Strategic Management group since 1990. He has taught strategic management, competitive strategy and e-commerce courses for MBAs and in executive education. He served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Director of Research and Curriculum Development from 1993-1996. He has served as a Co-Editor of the Rand Journal of Economics and on the editorial boards of the Strategic Management Journal, the International Journal of Industrial Organization, and Economics of Innovation and New Technology. He has also served as a member of the Steering Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research Program in Industrial Organization and is a Research Associate in that program. Professor Saloner has a Ph.D. in Economics, Business, and Public Policy from Stanford.

Andrea Shepard is an Associate Professor of Strategic Management and Economics at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Professor Shepard has taught strategic management, technology strategy and competitive strategy courses for MBA's and in executive education. She has served as a Co-Editor of the Journal of Industrial Economics, the Journal of Economics and Management, and as an Associate Editor for Business Policy at Management Science. She is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and has served on the Program Committee for the Econometric Society. Prior to joining Stanford's GSB, she was a member of the Economics Department faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Shepard has a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University.

Joel Podolny is the William R. Timken Professor of Organizational Behavior and Strategic Management at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He has taught MBA, executive, and Ph.D. courses in the areas of organizational behavior, organizational design, strategy, and global management. He is currently the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. He served as consulting editor for the American Journal of Sociology. His articles have appeared in the Strategic Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, American Journal of Sociology, and American Sociological Review. Professor Podolny has a Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University.

As a practicing general manager, I found this book to be one of the most useful I have read on the subject of strategic management. The text is clearly written and illustrated with numerous current examples. Unlike many other books on strategy, this one does an excellent job of integrating internal organizational issues with considerations of market competition. Most importantly for me, perhaps, is that the treatment of how strategy is actually carried out in large organizations rings true, giving me a high level of comfort with the relevance of the material. The book gave me numerous strategic insights and left me with a much improved integrated framework of strategy. I highly recommend it to any general manager wishing to improve his strategic thinking.

I am an MBA student at MIT. We use this textbook in our Strategy course.

My opinion is that this textbook is very valuable. I have ready it very carefully, and it has had a tremendous impact on the way that I approach strategic issues. However, the book is poorly organized and the writing is opaque at times. This means that the benefits of the book become apparent only after careful and repeated readings.

The most important content of the book consists of the frameworks it provides. But these frameworks are not consistently labeled, numbered, or organized -- so the reader has to go to get great effort to pull them out and categorize them. Once found and understood, these frameworks are very valuable. I hope that future editions of the book will do a better job of explicitly enumerating and organizing these frameworks.

In summary, if you are willing to put in the time to carefully read and digest this book, it is highly valuable. But a superficial reading will be of little benefit.

As a final note, this textbook is much enhanced if it is read in conjunction with the many business school cases it references (such as EMI and CT scanners, or Disney and diversified acquisitions). The book itself provides only a few examples.

This is a very accessible introduction to strategic management. The book has very good coverage, is current, and has lots of examples to illustrate the concepts. Easily one of the best management books I have read in a while. It can be approached at multiple levels. You can browse through for the main concepts, but it also has lots to make you really think about if you want. You won't regret buying it!

Product Details :

  • Hardcover: 464 pages
  • Publisher: Wiley; 1st edition (2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0470009470
  • ISBN-13: 978-0470009475
  • Product Dimensions: 0.9 x 7.6 x 9.4 inches


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