Book Description
The leading authority on system dynamics explains this approach to organizational problem solving, emphasizing simulation models to understand issues such as fluctuating sales, market growth and stagnation, the reliability of forecasts and the rationality of business decision-making. The CD includes modeling software from Vensim, ithink, and PowerSim.
Customer Reviews:
Excelent book.......2007-10-17
This book is really impressive. Is an eye opener. Must read for Industrial Engineering Students, must have for professors and great addition for a professional looking for new ideas.
One of the best SD books with connection to practical work.......2007-10-06
"Business Dynamics" is a great book leading the newcomer -as myself- into the field of SD and the experienced system dynamicist can use it as a knowledge pool.
Even though the book is rather expensinve -and heavy alike- it covers great wisdom of John Sterman (he is by the way a scholar of the founder of the field, Jay W. Forrester) and is more than worthwhile buying if you are strongly interested in the field.
I was lucky to meet John and Jay this summer during a specific SD workshop at MIT and the yearly System Dynamics Society Conference and could chat with both of them (they are both very practicably using SD with a strong academic background). Learning and getting more experienced in System Dynamics and the use for daily problem solving is a dynamic and evolving process of wisdom with lots of feedback ("Business Dynamics" can help a lot in getting deeper insights.
Best regards
Ralf
Excellent.......2007-08-29
Excellent guide to systems thinking, clear examples, clear thinking and very interesting conclusions reached. highly recommended
buen libro.......2007-02-22
como parte de la materia lo llevo, me salio mas barato que en mexico y me es util para mi carrera
Amazing.......2007-01-12
The definitive book on Business dynamics !
It may look dificult to follow, but it isn`t really easy to read and follow !
The cd brings good examples.
Book Description
There are two very contrasting approaches to reading this book and learning about organizational design. The more traditional approach is to read the book, and then use the OrgCon on cases and applications. The second approach is to begin with the OrgCon software and only examine the book as you find it helpful. Which approach is better? It is your choice, not ours. In our experience, students in organizational design prefer to start with the OrgCon and a case, rather than with the book itself. Readers who have more background in organization theory and design usually examine the book first.
There are numerous changes in the third edition. The literature review in each chapter has been updated. The information processing approach is strengthened and applied more comprehensively as the theoretical underpinnings. Throughout we have rewritten the text beyond normal editing in an attempt to make the presentation clearer and easier to read.
Book Description
Offshoring and outsourcing have generated substantial savings and often controversial news coverage for many companies. But these technologies aren’t even close to being the real story. Two of business’ leading strategy thinkers argue that the only sustainable advantage will come not from using technology to cut costs—but to get better faster than rivals. The authors identity two key forces—dynamic specialisation and productive friction that will dramatically reshape the competitive landscape and show what firms must do to understand, build and exploit these forces before their competitors do.
Customer Reviews:
Analyses and Prescriptions for Bringing More Actionable Knowledge into Your Organization.......2007-10-18
Around 1990, business reached one of those tipping points that change everything: You could now add knowledge, expertise, and capability better and more cheaply by involving those outside your organization than you could by building up your organization internally.
Authors John Hagel III and John Seely Brown focus on a few elements of this change as it had developed into management practices by 1995, outline the benefits of going in this direction, and describe what to do in broad outlines.
They build the book around five big themes:
1. Process outsourcing and offshoring provide access to specialization that you cannot otherwise match.
2. Flexible connections with suppliers, customers, and distributors allow you to make the most of these relationships.
3. Letting outsiders help establish the plan and agenda allows you to go in more productive directions than if your organization calls all of the shots.
4. Strategy development has to shift towards building capabilities from these dimensions. Prior approaches to strategy development are largely obsolete.
5. Shifting IT architecture and software to permit rapid flexibility in adding connections to other organizations.
The book will remind you of a shorter version of Michael Porter's books on competitive advantage and competitive strategy, except with a changed focus on developing capabilities. The book also shares Porter's affinity for using abstractions and general language that makes it hard to follow the arguments in the book. Also like Porter, you won't find very many examples.
What I found most inexplicable about the book is the authors that ignored the broader topic of continuing business model innovation (the issues presented here are just a subset of those opportunities) and the newer ways that companies are accessing new knowledge and capabilities (such as through the worldwide contests conducted by Goldcorp and Procter & Gamble). Indeed, I was shocked to see none of the most successful business model innovators cited in the book. Instead, there are lots of references to narrow studies that describe obsolete practices for strategy and implementation.
But if you want to learn how to rapidly throw together a global sourcing and distribution network for a large company that can be flexibly changed as the needs arise, this book is an excellent resource.
Good introduction to some important global trends.......2006-12-01
I recently heard John Hagel present on this book. In the book John and his co-author John Seely Brown discuss how recent changes in the world will force, indeed are forcing, companies to change how they think about offshoring and outsourcing, innovation and even their core business processes. They describe how a combination of "Converging forces generate margin squeeze" where those forces are digital technology (driving down interaction costs) and public policy (deregulation, trade and market liberalization and globalization). These trends are certainly real and visibly changing our world as we watch. Not only can "Customers can access more information about more vendors, negotiate more effectively with still more vendors, and switch from one vendor to another whenever they find greater value" but companies have more options for how to piece together the resources they need to do business. These new conditions and options, though, require companies to change the way they plan, operate and turn a profit and it is these changes that the book mostly discusses. The authors argue that these trends and opportunities are actually changing what it means to be a company. Redefining the role of the firm from economizing on market transactions, the original raison d'etre of most companies, to one of accelerating knowledge and capability growth.
The book does a good job of showing how some companies are competing in ways that would be unimaginable just a few years ago and the authors lay out a compelling case that companies who do not respond to these new threats and opportunities are taking an enormous risk. Whether or not you believe the change will be as widespread as the book implies, the changes are real and will impact your business to at least some degree and this makes the book worth reading.
board implications for sustainable advantage........2006-02-19
John Hagel is a Senior Advisor at McKinsey & Company. For two decades, John Seely Brown was Executive Director of the legendary Palo Alto Research Center. The authors argue that the only sustainable edge is to generate shareholder value through constant innovation. Current approaches to strategic thinking are inadequate to the task.
The book has one irritating quality and one large value for Board members.
This is a small booked packed with lots of ideas. I was distracted by the use of "new words" to describe old concepts. It is almost as though the authors are trying to invent a new vocabulary using concepts that could be best explained in plain English. Examples of this business psychobabble include "radical incrementalism," "performance fabrics," "process networks," and "productive friction." These are really not new concepts but they have invented new words. I want to read a business book that would help me improve my company's effectiveness. I didn't sign up to learn a new language.
The good news is that Boards and CEOs ought to carefully consider their matrixed approach to talking about strategy. They call this matrixed approach "dynamic specialization."
The current fad is to talk about business models organized along industry lines. The authors argue that industry focus is insufficient for a proper conversation about strategy. Within that industry-focused model, there needs to be a second strategic focus.
They see this new strategic focus along three dimensions:
Infrastructure Management. Financial services, pharmaceuticals, and the computer industry are already structured in significant ways along these lines. State Street Corporation is an example of a company that services the financial services industry but its value clearly revolves around infrastructure management. UPS revolves around infrastructure management of logistics. An infrastructure management theme works well for relatively routine, high volume business activities.
Product Innovation. Specialized biotech companies are taking on more of R&D activities so that large pharmaceutical companies can focus on scale intensive manufacturing and distribution. There are specialty design shops that serve the fashion industry. There are specialty semiconductor design shops that serve the electronics industry.
Customer Relationship. These firms concentrate on identifying target customer segments, getting to know that segment very well, and using its resources to mobilize third party products and services to address the needs of their customers. Physicians who practice general medicine, financial planners, real estate agents, and attorneys all provide this framework. Accenture is a company with this type of framework.
From a strategic perspective, most companies today like to say that they do all three types of services within their walls. But each approach requires different economics, different skills, and different cultures. When Boards accept the CEOs notion that all three models are appropriate in the strategic mix, the inevitable implication is sub optimization of one or all of these strategies.
This sub optimization increases company vulnerability to its more focused competitors.
Laurence J. Stybel
Boardoptions.com
lstybel@boardoptions.com
Difficult to read.......2006-01-22
The book is extremely poorly written. Very difficult to read. The ideas are not new. Don't buy it.
Good analysis but limited examples.......2005-11-14
Not being a specialist in business strategy I thought there was a lot of great material with excellent insights and analysis in this book, but I would have liked to see more examples or case studies that supported their views. I was suprised that after a slow start the sections on dynamic specialization and productive friction were brilliant and I think even surpass Clayton Christenson's anaylsis of the mechanisms of innovation inside corporate cultures.
In the early parts of the book, particularly the acknowledgements, it appeared that this might be another treatise on how great outsourcing is, but no matter where one stands on the issue it's established that it's a fact of life for corporate america and that the business strategy to leverage specialization outside your core competencies is going to determine future success. To take Paul Graham's analogy a bit further" "Companies are going to learn about outsourcing and specialization the same way a gene pool learns about new environmental conditions."
There's a lot of great insight to take away from The Sustainable Edge, though I wish there were more examples that illustrate their ideas.
Average customer rating:
|
Collective Beings (Contemporary Systems Thinking)
Gianfranco Minati , and
Eliano Pessa
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Systems & Planning
| Management & Leadership
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Ethics & Morality
| Philosophy
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Philosophy
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
All Amazon Upgrade
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
Business & Investing
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
Nonfiction
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
ASIN: 0387355413 |
Book Description
With collective behaviors playing a fundamental role in many scientific and technical disciplines, the book, after an overview on the background to systemics, introduces the concept of COLLECTIVE BEING as a Multiple System established by processes of emergence and self-organization of the same agents simultaneously or dynamically interacting in different ways. The general principles underlying this approach are grounded on the theoretical role of the observer. This extended view allows to model in a more suitable way complex systems, such as in physics, biology and economics. The Dynamical Usage of Models (DYSAM) is the related modelling methodology. This innovating approach is applied to artificial and natural systems equipped with cognitive systems, such as autonomous robots and social systems. The authors discuss in two different chapters both traditional (i.e. based on dynamical systems and dissipative structures) and non-traditional (i.e. based on theory of phase transitions, Synergetics and connectionistic models) models of emergence. The book also introduces an innovative methodology for detecting the establishment of processes of emergence based on changes of ergodicity.
After a theoretical introduction of the concepts, the authors discuss the application to social systems and cognitive systems. Applications to social systems deal with issues such as representing and distinguishing growth and development, sustainable development, ethics and its crucial role to induce and maintain emergence of social systems, virtual systems, knowledge management and organizational learning. Applications to cognitive systems deal with approaches going beyond computationalism, theories of consciousness and embodied cognition.
Two conclusive appendices on (1) Some systemic properties and (2) Some questions and answers about Systemics, help the reader to have a synthesized view of the book.
Book Description
Today, many companies operate within a complex network of firms that all depend on each other for success
In this book, authors Marco Iansiti and Roy Levien use the powerful example of biological ecosystems to show how companies can leverage these emerging business networks for long-term success. The book’s title, The Keystone Advantage, is taken directly from biology—it refers to “keystone species”, which proactively maintain the healthy functioning of their entire ecosystem for a simple reason: their own survival depends on it.
In the same way, say the authors, companies can protect and ensure their own success by deliberately fostering the combined health of the network they operate in.
Customer Reviews:
Thought provoking use of ecological metaphors.......2006-11-05
The book gets high marks for creativity, but I'm left wondering if the analogies between business and ecology bear up under scrutiny. They sound great, but are they informative or simply comforting?
The authors use many familiar terms ecology, niche, evolution, ecosystem, etc. To this they add a variety of terms less common to the ecological literature platform, landlord, dominator, etc. Additionally, they omit several commonly used terms species, predator, prey, energy balance, carbon cycles, etc. Other terms have been modified to sound more genteel: 'competition between species' has become 'competition between ecologies', 'food chain' has become 'supply chain'.
If one surveys ecological literature for the first time, they might be surprised by the difficulty of the subject. Descriptive studies can be overwhelmingly detailed without establishing any comprehensive principles. Computer models of ecological systems are generally too mathematical and abstract for the non-professional. When principles are elaborated, they can become controversial (is there any 'intelligence' in the 'ecosystem'? Do plants 'collaborate'? etc.)
Drawing analogies between 'business communities' and 'a rain forest' may turn out to explain economic change and technological innovation, but the book itself fails to engage the reader at its most important level understanding ecology itself. It seems to assume 'ecology' is simple and we can easily draw upon well known ecological principles. If you are looking for some inspiration to learn more about ecology, there couldn't be a better book. If you want definitive answers, you may be disappointed.
A New Strategic Dynamic.......2005-01-12
The authors highlight the importance of these networks in the strategy creation process. Their discussion provides organizations with a roadmap that points out the importance and pitfalls of networks the tactics they will need to successfully navigate their futures.
Harvard Business School Professor Marco Iansiti and business leader Roy Levien employ the analogy of biological systems to describe the inner workings of business networks. Using 10 years of research and practical experience in a range of industries they identify three roles firms play within business systems:
1. Keystones. These companies improve system health and increase their own operational performance.
2. Landlords and Dominators. Firms with these operating strategies occupy a network hub.
3. Niche Players. Organizations that do not occupy a network hub.
Business networks and biological networks, the authors explain, are governed by a common fate. They base predictions on features that enable stability, longevity and productivity. The authors offer three predictions:
1. Expect more robustness in the face of external shocks. Although damage is accompanied by widespread collapse, most problems will be absorbed.
2. Expect networks to develop a capacity for creativity.
3. Expect a heterogeneous structure, with each individual organization playing a unique, dramatic role.
The authors view this evolving network as a renewal source, not an external threat.
A good book -- but could go further.......2004-12-08
The Keystone Advantage is a good book. It uses a biological metaphor to discuss and explain the success of various companies within a larger business 'ecosystem'.
But if you want to understand the fundamentals of WHY this metaphor works, and HOW to choose which strategy will be best for your particular business, you need to read "The Escher Cycle".
Marco Iansiti and Roy Levien describe examples of how companies have used different strategies to achieve success in the modern business ecosystem. "The Escher Cycle" explains from first principles (not just a metaphor) HOW that ecosystem came into being.
Iansiti and Levien focus on the impact that Information Technology (IT) can have on business performance. But IT is just one of the ways in which performance can be improved.
"The Escher Cycle" identifies the key activities that deliver strategic success. It shows layer upon layer how to improve skill at carrying out those activities (one means of which is through IT). And it shows how different businesses interact together to form the ecosystem that Iansiti and Levien describe.
Finally, "The Escher Cycle" shows how a business can imitate the natural flows of information and capability that circulate within the business ecosystem. It shows how a business can accelerate its own 'Evolution' within that system, and so create the ultimate competitive advantage.
Describing a Trend in Modern Business.......2004-10-29
As no man is an island, businesses do not operate in a vacuum. There are suppliers, customers, employees and of course the government. More and more, these outside influences are banning together in a perhaps unofficial but no less real ecosystem.
In the computer industry, which everyone reading this must have some at least sideline awareness, there are two principle 'keystone' players: Microsoft and Intel. Around these companies there are literally thousands of other companies somehow creating a business around their core technologies. This works pretty well, so long as you are very careful. If you sleep next to an elephant, you'd best sleep with one eye open, just in case he decides to roll over. Just ask Netscape.
These authors have attempted to provide a framework for analyzing such business ecosystems, drawing on examples from biology where such systems have been studied for many years.
Most of the examples used in the book are from the American market. Next, I'd like to see the authors do a book comparing the American and the Japanese systems. It appears that the Japanese started this philosophy but that we have taken it into new and different directions, certainly less formal (the Japanese methods would be illegal here) but seemingly headed in much the same direction.
The foundational book for modern business networks.......2004-09-22
Business networks represent the future for many organizations as capabilities and competition move beyond the individual firm. While many have heralded the rise of these networks, few have applied any discipline for figuring out how these new organizations work and are structured.
Iansiti and Levien's categorization of keystone, landloard,dominators, niche players etc is helpful in understanding the different ways and types of networks that exist. They are also careful not to push the ecology applied to business angle too much -- a welcome thing in this day of quick fixes and simple models that are supposed to be universally applied.
The focus on the foundations of competition are helpful and point up the value or architecture, platforms, and innovation. My one concern is that much of the book reads like a prescription for technologically advanced industries -- even though the authors use some low tech examples. This makes it seem more descriptive than advancing a theory from which I can understand what is going on and taking action.
This book forms the first real examination of business networks without the hype of the internet or the determination that everything will be connected to everything else. A solid foundation seeing business networks for what they are, and their dynamics.
Book Description
Key Benefit-Carpenter/Sanders is the first book built around a dynamic perspective on strategy
Key Topics-Three themes constitute the dynamic perspective on strategy: (1) changing strategies for changing times, (2) the integration of formulation and implementation, and (3) strategic leadership. Crafting Business Strategy for Dynamic Contexts
- chapter 6 is the aggregate of much of the current research on dynamic strategies, including:
Competitive Dynamics,
Technological Changes, and Hypercompetition . After reading the chapter, students will learn models that guide them through formulating and implementing a strategy in a dynamic, or changing, environment.
Strategy Diamond: The strategy diamond outlines five key elements necessary for creating a complete strategy: arenas, vehicles, differentiators, staging, and economic logic
. The Strategy Diamond gives students a concrete model for considering all aspects of a strategy in order to create and implement a complete strategy. The arenas and staging elements deal specifically with the dynamic aspect of strategy.
How Would You Do That” exercises- There are two of these robust exercises in each chapter, immersing students in the implementation challenges real companies face. The exercises allow implementation to remain in the forefront of the student’s minds even in the formulation chapters.
Market- For undergraduate/MBA strategic management courses.
Customer Reviews:
Strategic Management: A Dynamic Perspective, Concepts and Cases.......2007-01-15
The book is very good. I'm fully satisfied.
Book Description
Marketing: Principles and Perspectives is a cutting edge text. In the first edition, we demonstrated this leading coverage with our strong integration of Integrated Marketing Communication and Direct Marketing. In the second edition we continued our modern coverage by integrating cross-functional teams, customer loyalty, and the Internet / technology. The third edition includes an E-Commerce chapter and continues to fully integrate the Internet throughout. The authors not only talk about what marketing is, but prepare the students to be marketers by involving them in interactive exercises which strengthen decision making skills. Marketing, Third Edition offers the latest coverage, quality professor supplements, and an interactive student web tool and still it is approximately $20 less than most principles of marketing competitors.
Book Description
Creating, adapting to, and exploiting change is inherently entrepreneurial. To survive and prosper under conditions of change, firms must develop the ldquo;dynamic capabilitiesrdquo; to create, extend, and modify the ways in which they operate. The capacity of an organization to create, extend, or modify its resource base is vital. Since the concept of dynamic capabilities was first introduced, much research has elaborated the initial idea. This important book by Constance Helfat and her team of leading scholars provides a timely focus on in-depth examples of corporate dynamic capabilities. Testing these in the different contexts of alliances, acquisitions, and management, the book gives students and researchers a succinct, up-to-date definition of dynamic capabilities and the strategic management theories around them.
Customer Reviews:
A critical book to read if you want to understand the underpinnings of strategy.......2007-08-31
I may be the only person to write a review for this book, as its price is a little steep for the casual business book reader and this is not a casual business book.
Dynamic Capabilities is an academically based book, a collection of co-coordinated articles about the nature of capabilities in general and the capabilities that change capabilities (aka dynamic capabilities). As an academic book it is very strong with the authors tackling many of the major economic and corporate strategy issues involving why enterprises are designed and work in a particular way. From this perspective it is theory that is well researched, carefully and clearly explained.
Capabilities in general and dynamic capabilities in particular are critical for enterprises in devising and realizing their strategies and performance goals. In this regard, this book is a must read for corporate strategists and corporate development processionals who need to understand how to organize and structure the enterprise for success.
The articles in this book lay down the rational and logic for your leaders should view and organize their resources to achieve their strategies. I will admit that the language and the structure of the chapter/articles are geared more for researchers and students, but taking the time to read, understand and reflect on the implications of these research pieces is well worth the effort.
Book Description
This book offers a practical, fact-based approach to explain how enterprises deliver performance over time. Rigorous methods explain how to quantify the growth, decline and interdependence within the organisation's resources and capabilities as well as the continuous interactions with competitors and other external factors. These methods create clear and practical pictures of the strategic architecture driving earnings and other performance outcomes, not just for commercial firms, but for non-profit cases too. Management is then well-equipped to answer three crucial questions in their strategy development : why has the business performed as it has to date? where is performance headed in the future if we carry on as now? and how can we alter this future for the better? The book provides the basis for an entire course on the time-based perspective on competitive strategy, connecting strongly to established static frameworks. Alternatively it offers a vital missing component for existing courses in strategy and general management, as well as a key reference text for professionals in corporate development, consulting and business analysis.
Download Description
"The complexity and dynamism of modern industries and businesses has exposed shortcomings in the strategy tools currently in widespread use. Senior management is in urgent need of a practical, fact-based, but rigorous approach for understanding how their organizations function, interact with competitors and their market place, and deliver performance over time. The Strategy Dynamics approach offers a means for accomplishing this task, and building a more confident and prosperous path into the future. Kim Warren provides a very clear and accessible introduction to the Strategy Dynamics approach in Competitive Strategy Dynamics. He offers powerful but usable frameworks to explain and deliver the key concern of senior managers and investors - business performance through time. In addition to tangible factors such as customers and staff, he shows how to deal with the unavoidable influence of 'soft' factors such as morale, quality, reputation and capabilities. He also explains how the Strategy Dynamics approach is relevant and applicable to all contexts - new venture development, rapid growth, maturity, decline, rivalry, market entry and so on. Competitive Strategy Dynamics has been written for MBA and Executive Education courses in strategic management, business policy and international management, but the concepts are relevant, too, in other subjects, such as marketing, organizational behavior and new venture development. It is also an important tool for strategy consultants and practising managers, whether in large or small firms, manufacturing or service sectors, public service or not-for-profit organizations."
Customer Reviews:
A good follow on book.....................2003-07-30
This is a good follow on book specifically addressing the strategic management issues. To really understand and apply this book, one must have read "Business Dynamics by Sterman".
Otherwise this is a good book giving a very refreshing approach to strategy management that has strong underlying mathematical foundations. Another plus for this book is by using system dynamics, that has been around for 40+ years and still going strong, as the underlying approach, it has made its shelf life longer (unlike most management theories that end up as "flavor of the week").
A must for anyone interested to read, know about, practice strategic management
A refreshingly new approach to strategy!.......2003-06-13
OK, this is an MBA text book but it is still very readable for any business manager. It is so much more practical than blue sky theoretical, guru-speak. I actually worked out what I should do with my team, which is more help than I've had from a dozen other books by former CEOs!
The basic idea is really simple - performance comes from resources like "customers". We have to not only win customers but not lose them too...understanding why we win and lose customers is all about tracking the changes to business resources over time. The book shows how to "resrouce map" your business and then use the map to work out a way forward. It's got something to say on marketing, rivalry and industry changes. The really interesting part is trying to combine "soft factors" like customer reputation, into a business plan. Definitely worth thinking about if nothing else.
Systems dynamics for top management.......2003-02-01
This is an excellent book for business managers not for expert models developpers. Much has been written on system dynamics that can hardly be applied to the world of business. Warren has translated a complicated theory into a graspable subject with a step-by-step approach that will help senior management integrate system dynamics into their thinking. It is then up to managers to require the help of expert consultants to build the model, the object of most of the litterature on system dynamics.
Excellent approach to strategy.......2002-12-12
The book is an excellent synthesis of the resource based view of strategy with system dynamics. It presents an easy to follow process for implementing strategy dynamics in an organization. The development of a strategic architecture allows companies to cleary identify all resources, both tangible and intangible, and ensure that all inflows and outflows associated with these flows are running smoothly.
This is System Dynamics called differently.......2002-11-06
Warren describes the application of System Dynamics to strategic enterprise policy development and calls it Resource Based View.
Book Description
WHARTON on DYNAMIC COMPETITIVE STRATEGY
"A valuable contribution, this insightful book makes it clear that strategy is not a one-time search for a sustainable competitive advantage, but a continuous monitoring of the environment, consumers, and competitors with the object of making the right moves in a dynamically changing competitive landscape." -Philip Kotler S.C. Johnson & Sons Distinguished Professor of International Marketing J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management Northwestern University.
"An ambitious and welcomed effort at addressing strategy from an interdisciplinary perspective." -Professor Don Lehmann Columbia University Graduate School of Business.
"Wharton on Dynamic Competitive Strategy weaves together an unprecedented interdisciplinary analysis of competitive strategies that any global manager should consider indispensable reading...An impressive book." -Jon M. Huntsman, Sr. Chairman and CEO Huntsman Corporation.
"Provocative and meaningful . . . Provides an excellent framework for formulating strategy." -Sam Morasca Vice President, Marketing Shell Oil Products Company.
"A Rosetta stone for strategy. Read it and keep it by your side!" -Dale Moss Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing USA British Airways, New York
The competitive challenges facing you are more complex and fast-moving than ever. This environment demands dynamic competitive strategies-strategies that anticipate and adjust to competitors' countermoves, shifting customer demands, and changes in the business world.
Wharton on Dynamic Competitive Strategy offers new perspectives on competitive strategy from a distinguished group of faculty at Wharton and other leading business schools around the world. This book presents the best insights from decades of research in key areas such as competitive strategy, simulations, game theory, scenario planning, public policy, and market-driven strategy. It represents the most cohesive collection of insights on strategy ever assembled by a leading school of business.
Developed for the thinking manager, Wharton on Dynamic Competitive Strategy provides deep insights into the true dynamics of competition. In contrast to popular, quick-fix formulas for strategic success, this book provides perspectives that will help you better understand the underlying dynamics of competitive interactions and make better strategic decisions in a rapidly changing and uncertain world.
The insights and approaches presented here are illustrated with real-world examples which demonstrate how these approaches can be applied to your strategic challenges.
These chapters will help you better address key strategic issues such as:
* Anticipating competitors' responses using game theory, simulations, scenario planning, conjoint analysis, and other tools-and designing the best strategy in light of these expected responses
* Planning for multiple rounds of competition in the way that chess players think through multiple moves
* Understanding how changes in technology and public policy or moves by competitors can undermine your current advantages or neutralize future advantages
* Broadening your range of options for reacting to moves by competitors
* Signaling and preempting rivals.
This groundbreaking new book will change your view of strategy and give you the tools you need to succeed in a dynamic and intensely challenging world.
Customer Reviews:
A Rigorous, Comprehensive, and Stunning Achievement.......2006-08-04
This is one of the volumes which comprise a series published by John Wiley & Sons. It was edited by George S. Day and David J. Reibstein with Robert E. Gunther. As they explain in their Introduction, "This book proposes a process for developing dynamic competitive strategies: Assess the context of competitive moves and advantages, understand the potential moves and mind-sets of competitors, formulate strategies, and test these strategies before making irreversible moves in the market." The material is carefully organized within Four Parts:
"Understanding Advantages in a Changing Competitive Environment" (Chapters 1-4): The contributors assert that any approach to competitive strategy must begin with "an understanding of the definition of arenas, sources of advantages, and the forces of change." Hence the provision of tools and insights to increase the reader's understanding of the nature of advantages and how they can change in dynamic competitive environments.
"Anticipating Competitors' Actions" (Chapters 5-9): In these chapters, the contributors rigorously examine a number of challenges from a variety of perspectives, including game theory, behavioral theory, and the view of coevolution. I especially appreciate the insights into the choices and mental models of rivals because they can help readers to anticipate competitors' responses to a given strategy. This is covered in great depth and with uncommon clarity by Venkataraman, Chen, and MacMillan in Chapter 8.
"Formulating Dynamic Competitive Strategies" (Chapters 10-14): This section examines a variety of important factors that should be considered when developing competitive strategies, including reactions, preemptions, signaling, commitment. And antitrust constraints. "While there are many other issues to consider in formulating strategy, these are among the most important considerations in developing dynamic strategies."
"Choosing Among Alternative Competitive Strategies" (Chapters 15-17): For me, the most interesting and valuable section but only because of the other three which precede it. Chapters 1-14 create a context, a frame-of-reference within which all of the essential components are identified, explained, and correlated. Now in this final section, the contributors succeed brilliantly when examining and cross-ranking alternative competitive strategies.
More a quibble than a complaint, I wish the editors had provided one more chapter, perhaps identified as "Conclusion," in which they review central themes and reiterate key points concerning the formulation and implementation of a "dynamic competitive strategy." That said, I think this volume (by no means an "easy read") will generously reward careful readers.
To George S. Day, David J. Reibstein, and Robert E. Gunther, I offer a dynamic "Bravo!"
Those who share my high regard for it are urged to check out Lawrence G. Hrebiniak's Making Strategy Work: Leading Effective Execution and Change, Michael E. Porter`s Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors and Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, Kellogg on Strategy: Concepts, Tools, and Frameworks for Practitioners co-authored by Daniel Dranove and Sonia Marciano, and Mastering Strategy: The Complete MBA Companion in Strategy produced by a collaboration which involved the University of Chicago, INSEAD, University of Michigan Business School, SAID Business School, and Financial Times's Editors.
Very useful reference in the market........2005-12-30
I am working on a strategic analysis report for my company, and this book is very helpful in synthesizing the mainstream strategy theories in the market to bridge the gap between theory and practice. I found the explanation of the usefulness of game theory satisfying but still not much breakthrough on defining a universal framework for formulating strategies even though much attempts on putting together all the theory. Hence, the practical usefulness is still limited. I would say, as another review suggests, Mastering Strategy providing a more practical treatment of overviewing the subject. Nonetheless, Wharton on Dynamic is definitely a good guide to have for bridging theories to practices.
A well-chosen set of essays.......2002-02-19
A well-chosen set of essays is compiled, based on a 4-level framework: i)Analyze the competitive environment, ii)Anticipate competitor's actions & reactions, iii) Formulate Dynamic Strategies, iv) Choose among alternative strategies. 'Wharton on Dynamic Competitive Strategy' provides a great way to update one's strategy knowledge; but I find 'Mastering Strategy: The Complete MBA Companion in Strategy' by Financial Times Editors to be a better book with greater depth and broader spectrum.
Strategy research from the world's top business school.......2001-07-01
Both editors are marketing professors at The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania), which is the world's leading business school (BusinessWeek and Financial Times). George Day is well-known for his market-driven strategy, while David Reibstein is one of the leading scholars in the field of competitive marketing strategy. The book is split in 4 parts, each consisting of 3-to-5 stand-alone chapters.
Part I - Understanding Advantages in a Changing Competitive Environment - discusses competitive arenas, competitor analysis, and competitive advantage. The first two chapters expand largely on Michael Porter's (Harvard Business School) frameworks, whereby the other two chapters introduce approaches to include policy and technology trends into the strategic planning process.
The aim of Part II - Anticipating Competitors' Actions - is to get inside the heads of competitors. Chapters 5 and 6 explain the possible use of the game theory within competitive strate!gy and strategic decision making. Chapter 7 builds on these chapters to integrate the economic frame (chapter 5), the behavioral frame (chapter 6), with an coevolution frame. The final chapters of this part introduce frameworks and approaches to understanding competitor response and competitive relationships.
Part III - Formulating Dynamic Competitive Strategies - builds on the first two parts and introduces approaches to designing strategies. It introduces reactive strategies, preemptive strategies, signaling opportunities and uses, competitive positioning, and antitrust constraints (which is increasingly important to companies).
In Part IV - Choosing Among Alternative Competitive Strategies - the three chapters introduce methods and frameworks for choosing the right strategy. Chapter 15, in which conjoint analysis is combined with scenario analysis, is perhaps the most complicated chapter of the book. Part IV also introduces the possibilities to use simulation !tests for analyzing and testing strategies.
Although this book is named "Wharton on Dynamic Competitive Strategy", there are various chapters from other academic institutions. Each chapter is an excellent piece of work and can be read on a stand-alone basis. For beginners in the strategic field I recommend chapters 1 and 2 highly. The book is written in business US-English.
Essential strategy handbook.......2001-06-24
This book is amazingly well written and goes from the basics of strategy to more complex subjects such as game theory. But the best of it is not the wide variety of strategy subjects or the amount of real world examples it uses but the integration between chapters. One can easily read this book at once or skip to chapters that are more interesting to him/her.
I consider this book essential for MBA students, management consultants and managers in general. Excellent choice!
Books:
- Cars and Trucks and Things That Go (Giant Little Golden Book)
- Civil Procedure: Examples & Explanations 5th edition
- Conversations with God : An Uncommon Dialogue (Book 1)
- Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons
- Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth?
- Cracking the AP Economics Macro and Micro Exams, 2006-2007 Edition (College Test Prep)
- Daddy and Me
- Desert Sons
- Dr. Pitcairn's New Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats
- Dragon of the Red Dawn (A Stepping Stone Book(TM))
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- The Supernatural Ways of Royalty: Discovering Your Rights and Privileges of Being a Son or Daughter
- Mastering the Trade
- Arachidonate Remodeling and Inflammation
- Chemical Fate and Transport in the Environment, Second Edition
- Gardner's Art Through the Ages
- Introduction to Industrial/Organizational Psychology
- Grandma's Favorites: Over 350 Best-Loved Recipes Handed Down through the Generations - From Sunday P
- Turn-of-the-Century Houses, Cottages and Villas: Floor Plans and Line Illustrations for 118 Homes fr
- At the Water's Edge: Muskoka's Boathouses
- Atlas des arbres de France et d'Europe occidentale: Contenant leur histoire, leur description botani
Systems Thinking, Second Edition: Managing Chaos and Complexity: A Platform for Designing Business Architecture
Systems Thinking Basics: From Concepts to Causal Loops
An Introduction to General Systems Thinking (Silver Anniversary Edition)
The Manager's Pocket Guide to Systems Thinking and Learning
Dynamic Modeling for Business Management: An Introduction (Modeling Dynamic Systems)
