Is strategy a coherent plan conceived at the top by a visionary leader, or is it formed by a series of individual commitments, not always reflecting what top management has in mind? If it is a series of commitments, how can they be managed? To answer these questions, Joseph L. Bower and Clark G. Gilbert present research that examines how strategy is actually made by company managers across several levels of an organization. The research penetrates the "black box" of strategy formulation and shows that a company's realized strategy emerges less from the formal statements of corporate strategy, but often out of the pattern of resource commitments that originate across every level of the firm.
Drawing on over thirty yeas of research on resource allocation, including studies from Harvard Business School, Stanford, London Business School, and INSEAD, the book's five sections detail the structural characteristics of the resource allocation process, how the process can lead to breakdowns in strategic outcomes, and where top management can intervene to shape desired results. And while the organizing authors connect over three decades of research on resource allocation, they have also included assessments of this work by thought leaders in the fields of economics, competitive strategy, organizational behavior, and strategic management.
The processes described represent the complex reality of strategy formulation in large organizations, but the ideas are presented in a way that enables the reader to access and understand the implications of these complexities. The findings should inform the research of economists, strategists, and behavioural scientists. Thoughtful executives and those who consult with them will also find the book provocative and instructive.
En ojämn men men delvis djup guide till strategi som svar på oförutsägbarhet. Jag är inte målgruppen, men kan en del, och kan konstatera att dess undersökning är ganska välunderbyggd, trots ett smalt urval av undersökta situationer och företag. Boken diskuterar olika lösningar, utifrån postulatet att strategi tenderar att formas av personer nära marknaden, och att den formas av de lösningar som finns. Boken gifter sig utmärkt med Effectuation, som jag läste förra året, med stor behållning. Jag rekommenderar den varmt, för berörda.
As Bower and Gilbert reveal in the book's Preface, "Our intention in writing this book is threefold: First, we hope to communicate the unique character of the resource allocation process and its link to strategy through the development of a formal model. Second, we hope to show how this model has evolved over 30 years of research development. Finally, we hope to better connect the research on resource allocation to the field of strategy as a whole." They brilliantly achieve all three objectives.
Co-editors Bower and give us a much clearer "picture" of how large organizations manage their resources. As they note, "Without exception, these activities are distributed more widely across the organization than is usually imagined. More challenging for both descriptive and normative theories of decision making, activities whose consequences are interdependent will typically proceed independently and simultaneously, posing huge problems where coherence is a central requisite for efficiency and effectiveness."