This book approaches strategy-making in a way that is designed to assist most organizations develop strategy appropriate to their size, purpose and resources.
It provides a much needed guide to the strategy-making process by: elaborating the key concepts and theories of strategic management; illustrating through case vignettes the issues inherent in the process of strategy making; and providing extensive and detailed practical guidelines on the methods, techniques and tools employed in the case vignettes.
These three aims are reflected in the three-part structure of book. All three parts are closely cross-referenced and integrated to each other throughout in a way which allows the reader to dip into any part of the book and be drawn into the fuller aspects of the processes discussed. The integrated whole forms a cycle or `journey' of strategy making, which the reader is introduced to in Part One.
The reader is not expected to take away from the book a recipe for working, but a better understanding of strategy as predominantly process-oriented. Key themes are: the crucial significance of political feasibility; the role of participation; emphasis on stakeholder management; thinking about alternative futures within the overall process of strategy making; and using computer support for strategy making, organizational learning and strategy delivery.
It provides a much needed guide to the strategy-making process by: elaborating the key concepts and theories of strategic management; illustrating through case vignettes the issues inherent in the process of strategy making; and providing extensive and detailed practical guidelines on the methods, techniques and tools employed in the case vignettes.
These three aims are reflected in the three-part structure of book. All three parts are closely cross-referenced and integrated to each other throughout in a way which allows the reader to dip into any part of the book and be drawn into the fuller aspects of the processes discussed. The integrated whole forms a cycle or `journey' of strategy making, which the reader is introduced to in Part One.
The reader is not expected to take away from the book a recipe for working, but a better understanding of strategy as predominantly process-oriented. Key themes are: the crucial significance of political feasibility; the role of participation; emphasis on stakeholder management; thinking about alternative futures within the overall process of strategy making; and using computer support for strategy making, organizational learning and strategy delivery.
`Colin Eden's reputation has, justifiably, been built on his internationally recognised work on cognitive mapping. Viewed in this light this book is best seen as an important, and sometimes fascinating handbook for the range of techniques that he and his team have developed in the area of corporate strategy. As such, it will undoubedtly be an invaluable reference book for facilitators undertaking group work in related fields' - Journal of Marketing Management ` Linking theory to details of practice is practically unprecedented in strategy texts. My guess is that once word gets out every OD department in every corporation, government department and large non-profit organization will want a copy, in part because of the link of theory and practice, but also because mapping is clearly a major wave of the future and they are the first to show people exactly how to do it' - J ohn M Bryson, University of Minnesota `This book is the first on the strategy making process which takes seriously (both theoretically and practically) how people with power in an organization make sense of their world - how cognitive maps and the business of changing them contributes to changing strategic futures' - Karl Weick, University of Michigan `Rarely does a text on strategy formulation so closely link theory with practice. This text is readable-well organized, beautifully written and illustrated-it can serve as a useful guide as well as a long-term reference source' - Gerry DeSanctis, Duke University `In the last few decades we have been led astray by airport books with sound-bite steps to strategic success, and elegant but equally unrealistic simplifications from theoreticians. In practice, strategy making is an on-going, messy, incomplete process - as all who do sustained work in organizations know. I highly recommend Making Strategy because it provides both practical and theoretical insights into this complex reality' - Anne Sigismund Huff, University of Colorado `As a text for use by any lecturer in Strategic Management, it is most accessible with an original and helpful format.' - International Journal of Public-Private Partnerships