Summary Strategy & Organization Articles
UvA pre-master Business Administration
Table of Contents
Week 1 – Competitive Strategy ......................................................................................................................................... 3
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Stoelhorst, J.W. (2008), Thinking about Strategy, Teaching note, 3 edition, Amsterdam Business
School, University of Amsterdam. ............................................................................................................ 3
Porter, M. (1979), How competitive forces shape strategy, Harvard Business Review, (March-April), pp.
137-145. ....................................................................................................................................................... 8
Baden-Fuller, C. and J. Stopford (1992), The firm matters, not the industry, Section 8.2 from B. de Wit
and R. Meyer, Strategy: Process, Content, Context, pp. 610-617. .......................................................... 11
Barney, J. (1991), Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage, Journal of Management, 17(1),
pp. 99-120. .............................................................................................................................................. 13
Christensen, C.M. Raynor, M.E., and McDonald, R. (2015). What is disruptive innovation? Harvard
Business Review (December), pp. 44-53. ................................................................................................ 17
Week 2 – Corporate Strategy .......................................................................................................................................... 20
Hedley, B. (1977), Strategy and the “business portfolio”, Long Range Planning, 10(1), pp. 9-15. ........ 20
Porter, M. (1987), From competitive advantage to corporate strategy, Harvard Business Review, (May-
June), pp. 43-59. ..................................................................................................................................... 23
Prahalad, C.K. and G. Hamel (1990), The core competence of the corporation, Harvard Business Review,
(May-June), pp. 79-91. ............................................................................................................................ 27
Lorenzoni, G. and C. Baden-Fuller (1995), Creating a strategic center to manage a web of partners,
California Management Review, 37(3), pp. 146- 163. ............................................................................ 30
Campbell, A., M. Goold and M. Alexander (1995), Corporate strategy: The quest for parenting
advantage, Harvard Business Review, (March-April), pp. 120-132. .......................................................... 32
Week 3 – Strategic decision making ............................................................................................................................... 35
Eisenhardt, K.M. and M.J. Zbaracki (1992), Strategic decision making, Strategic Management Journal,
13(Winter Special Issue), pp. 17-37. ....................................................................................................... 35
Hambrick, D.C. and P.A. Mason (1984), The organization as a reflection of its top managers, Academy of
Management Review, 9(2), pp. 193-206. ................................................................................................. 41
Eisenhardt, K.M. and D.N. Sull (2001), Strategy as simple rules, Harvard Business Review, (January-
February), pp. 107-116. .......................................................................................................................... 45
Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D. and S. Sibony. (2011). Before you make that big decision, Harvard Business
Review, (June), pp. 51-60. ....................................................................................................................... 48
Rosenzweig, P.. 2013. What makes strategic decision making different. Harvard Business Review,
(January-February), pp. 87-93. ................................................................................................................ 52
Week 4 – Strategic planning and possible alternatives to it........................................................................................... 53
Hax and Majluf (1991), A formal strategic planning process, Chapter 2 from The Strategy Concept and
Process, pp. 15-25. ................................................................................................................................. 53
Mintzberg, H. (1994), The fall and rise of strategic planning, Harvard Business Review, (January-
February), pp. 107-114. .......................................................................................................................... 58
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,Goold, M. and A. Campbell (1987), Many best ways to make strategy, Harvard Business Review, (March-
April), pp. 70-76. ..................................................................................................................................... 61
Cornelius, P., A. van de Putte and M. Romani (2005), Three decades of scenario planning in Shell,
California Management Review, 48(1), pp. 92-109. ............................................................................... 64
Hamel, G. and C.K. Prahalad (1989), Strategic intent, Harvard Business Review, (May- June), pp. 63-76.
................................................................................................................................................................... 69
Week 5 – Strategy implementation and organizational change .................................................................................... 74
Miles, R.E., C.C. Snow, A.D. Meyer and H.J. Coleman Jr. (1978) Organizational strategy, structure, and
process, Academy of Management Review, 3(July), pp. 546-562. .............................................................. 74
Mintzberg, H. (1979, 1983), The structuring of organizations, Reading 8.1 from The Strategy Process, pp.
209-226 ...................................................................................................................................................... 79
Burgelman, R.A. (1983), Corporate entrepreneurship and strategic management: Insights from a process
study, Management Science, 29(12), pp. 1349-1364. ................................................................................ 84
Romanelli, E. and M.L. Tushman (1994), Organizational transformation as punctuated equilibrium: An
empirical test, Academy of Management Journal, 37(5), pp. 1141-1166. ................................................. 87
Bartlett, C.A. and S. Ghoshal (1993), Beyond the M-form: Toward a managerial theory of the firm,
Strategic Management Journal, 14 (Winter Special Issue), pp. 23-46. ...................................................... 91
Week 6 – Organization and context ................................................................................................................................ 95
Prahalad, C.K. and Y. Doz (1987), Mapping the characteristics of a business, Chapter 2 from The
Multinational Mission: Balancing Local Demands and Global Vision, pp. 13-30. ................................... 95
Slangen, A.H.L. and S. Beugelsdijk (2010), The impact of institutional hazards on foreign multinational
activity: A contingency perspective, Journal of International Business Studies, 41, pp. 980-995............. 98
Birkinshaw, J., and Hood, N. (1998). Multinational subsidiary evolution: Capability and charter change in
foreign-owned subsidiary companies. Academy of management review, 23, pp. 773-795. ................... 101
Zahra, S. A., and Garvis, D. M. (2000). International corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance:
The moderating effect of international environmental hostility. Journal of business venturing, 15(5), 469-
492. .......................................................................................................................................................... 104
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,Week 1 – Competitive Strategy
rd
Stoelhorst, J.W. (2008), Thinking about Strategy, Teaching note, 3 edition, Amsterdam Business School,
University of Amsterdam.
Strategy can be approached in many different ways.
Three aspects of strategic management:
- The process: Where do strategies come from? How do firms actually develop strategies and how could they
do so more effectively?
- The content: What are good strategies? Which types of strategy are there, and which strategies can give
firms a competitive advantage?
- The context of strategy: How do specific organizational or environmental context affect the process or
content of strategy? Do different types of organizations and different types of industries require different
strategies and/or different ways of developing these strategies?
The ‘Standard Model’ of Strategy
- Formulating organizational objectives
- Analytical phase: internal & external analysis
o Understand the CSF’s in the firm’s industry and the firm’s distinctive competence
o Identify the strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities and threats
- SWOT analysis: identify the strategic issues that the firm faces
- Generate strategic options; possible strategies to deal with the strategic issues
- Choosing among the strategic options, considering:
o Suitability: Does the strategy deal with the strategic issues?
o Acceptability: Is the strategy acceptable to the firm’s stakeholders?
o Feasibility: Will the firm be able to execute the strategy?
- Implementation of the strategy
Five schools of thought
Prescriptive
- The design school (1960s)
- The planning school (1970s)
o The standard model of strategy is the joint product of these two prescriptive schools of thought
within the field of strategic management.
- The positioning school (1980s)
- The resource-based school (1990s)
o These two prescriptive schools of thought have added substance to the way in which internal and
external analyses should be executed.
Descriptive
- The process school (1980s)
Strategy is not only about rational analysis and top-down implementation. The process school is primarily descriptive
in nature: rather than telling managers what to do, authors in the process school tend to observe how strategy
actually takes shape in the everyday practice of firms.
The Design School: strategy as a conceptual process
1. Strategy formulation should be a deliberate process of conscious thought
Developing strategies is not an intuitive or natural skill, but must be learned formally.
2. Responsibility for that control and consciousness must rest with the CEO.
3. The model of strategy formation must be kept simple and informal.
4. Strategies should be one of a kind.
Strategies do not result from a system of general variables but are tailored to the specific situation of the firm.
5. The design process is complete when strategies appear fully formulated as perspective.
6. These strategies should be explicit and simple
7. Only after strategies have been formulated can they be implemented.
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, It has introduced important concepts such as environmental fit and distinctive competence to the literature.
Critique of the design school:
- It underplays the importance of hands-on learning.
- It assumes that these strengths and weaknesses are generally known.
- Strategy formulation and strategy implementation is separated.
- There are a number of assumptions that may limit its effectiveness in guiding complex organizations.
The Planning School: strategy as a formal process
The main difference between the design school and the planning school is that the latter advocates a formal and
very elaborate system for the development of strategy. This is in contrast to the informal and simple system
advocated by the design school.
1. Strategies result from a controlled, conscious process of formal planning, decomposed into distinct steps,
each delineated by checklists and supported by techniques.
2. Responsibility for that overall process rests with the CEO in principle; responsibility for its execution rests
with staff planners in practice.
3. Strategies appear from this process full blown, to be made explicit so that they can be implemented through
detailed attention to objectives, budgets, programs, and operating plans of various kinds.
Critique of the planning school:
- It does not work due to the inflexibility and detached nature of a formal strategy process.
- Development of strategy is not a matter of synthesizing information.
The Rise of The Consultants: selling powerful oversimplifications
One of Ansoff’s (1965) best-known models is his 2x2 matrix that classifies growth strategies:
Products
Existing New
Existing Market penetration Product development
Markets
New Market development Diversification
According to the model, the change of success is highest for market penetration and lowest for diversification,
especially if such diversification is unrelated to the technologies that underlie the firm’s current activities.
In contrast to the process focus of the design and planning school, portfolio models were very much about the
content of strategy and were meant to specify what a good strategy was.
Good strategies are not just based on experience and intuition, the focus of BCG was to discover meaningful
quantitative relationships and to sell powerful oversimplifications.
The most influential oversimplification was the growth-share matrix that classified business units:
A firm should have enough cash-cows and stars, dogs need to be divested, and the cash flows generated by the
cash cows need to be used to turn question marks into stars and stars into cash-cows. This formula is based on
three underlying ideas:
- Experience curve: if the costs incurred by the firm are strongly correlated with cumulative output, then it is
a logical consequence that relative market share is the main driver of competitive advantage.
- Product life cycle: gaining market share in the growth phase requires investments that can pay off when
the firm is able to gain a dominant position when the market matures.
- Portfolio management: firms should balance the short term and long term ‘risk and return’ of their
activities.
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