Description
Module 14: Trends in Strategic Management: Concluding Thoughts
As we have learned throughout this course, strategy planning is a process that can be applied to all types of organizations. In this module, we will focus on current trends, theories, models, and best practices as we study the future of strategic management. The business environment is in a state of constant change, and strategic management is an evolving subject that is still in its early stages of development. New strategies and approaches will be needed for evolving circumstances. Implementing these strategies will take on a new form
Discussion Question
Question Requirements:
Trends in Strategic Management
During this course you have learned that the business environment is in a state of constant change and new circumstances will require new strategies and new approaches to implementing those strategies. Apply what you have learned as you discuss the following questions.
- Discuss the global business environment that is likely to develop in the next ten years.
- Considering what you learned in the article, Sociocognitive Perspectives in Strategic Management in this week’s required reading, which of the three topics areas identified in the article do you think is most influential to strategic management in KSA and why?
Directions:
- Discuss the concepts, principles, and theories from your textbook. Cite your textbooks and cite any other sources.
- Write a discussion that includes an introduction paragraph, the essay’s body, and a conclusion paragraph to address the assignment’s guide questions.
- Your initial post should address all components of the question with a 600 word limit.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify the responsibilities of business ethics and social programs in the context of globalization.
- Evaluate the key changes taking place in the business environment.
- Analyze the new directions in strategic management in the KSA.
Readings
Required:
- Chapter 14 in Contemporary Strategy Analysis
- Chapter PowerPoint slides in Contemporary Strategy Analysis
- Pfarrer, M. D., Devers, C. E., Corley, K., Cornelissen, J. P., Lange, D., Makadok, R., Mayer, K., & Weber, L. (2019). Sociocognitive Perspectives in Strategic Management. Academy of Management Review, 44(4), 767–774. (assignment) (seminal)
Recommended:
14
Current Trends in
Strategic Management
In any field of human endeavor you reach a point where you can’t solve new problems using
the old principles. We’ve reached that point in the evolution of management.
-GARY HAMEL, MANAGEMENTTHINKER
The truth is you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing
is guaranteed.
– EMINEM, MUSICIAN AND SONGWRITER
The future ain’t what it used to be.
– YOGI BERRA, BASEBALL PLAYER AND COACH
OUTLINE
Introduction
•
St rategy in a Dig ital World
The New Environment of Business
•
Managing Options
•
Technology
Redesigning Organizations
•
Competit ion
•
Informal Organization
•
Systemic Risk
•
Self-Organization
•
Social Forces and t he Crisis of Capitalism
•
The Changing Role of Managers
New Directions in Strategic Thinking
•
Summary
•
Reorienting Corporate Objectives
•
Notes
•
Complexity and Integrat ion in t he Quest for
Competit ive Adva ntage
CHAPTER 14
CURRENT TRENDS IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
Introduction
In 2021, the business world was being reshaped by powerfu l forces: the w idespread adoption of artificia l
intelligence and machine learning, the rise of nationalism, cha llenges to social and political norms, and
the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this chapter we shal l examine these forces that are reshaping the business environment, assess their implications for strategic management, and consider what
new ideas and tools managers can draw upon to meet the cha llenges ahead.
We are in poorly charted waters and, unlike the other chapters of this book, this chapter w ill not
equ ip you w ith proven tools and frameworks that you can deploy directly in case analysis or in your own
companies. However, in meeting the cha llenges of this demanding era, we can draw upon concepts
and ideas that are influencing current thinking about strategy and the lessons offered by leading-edge
companies.
The New Environment of Business
The forces impacting the business environment echo those at work 100 years ago.
Today’s technological revolution is driven by digitization; 100 years ago it was electricity,
the telephone, and the automobile. Political extremism, rising nationalism, and the
decline of liberalism were features of both eras. And both periods were overshadowed
by deadly pandemics- COVID-19 today; Spanish flu a century ago. Let us focus upon
four key drivers of change in the 21st century.
Technology
The invention of the integrated circuit in 1958 marked the beginning of the wave of
digitization that has become referred to as the “Third Industrial Revolution.” However,
during the past decade, the combination of sensors, big data, artificial intelligence
(AI), and 5G communication is ushering in a new wave of disruption referred to as
the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” 1 Sectors such as financial services, healthcare, and
transportation will be transformed. Even more disruptive will be the substitution of
machine intelligence for human intelligence. As Brian Arthur has observed: “Business
and engineering and financial processes can now draw on huge libraries of intelligent
2
functions and bit by bit render human activities obsolete.”
Technology is also shifting the boundaries between firms and markets: technologies have slashed transaction costs, facilitating the growth of the “sharing economy”
involving both peer-to-peer sharing and “gig economy” freelance services.3 The diffusion of blockchain technology will reinforce these trends. 4
Competition
As we observed in Chapter 11 (p. 253), the entry into world markets by companies
from emerging-market countries has added considerably to competitive pressures in
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328 PART IV CORPORATE STRATEGY
many manufacturing industries. In wireless handsets, 67 new companies entered the
industry between 2000 and 2009, 34 of them from China and Taiwan. Many of these
new suppliers began as OEM suppliers and then went on to develop their own brands,
thereby competing with their former customers. 5
Digital innovation is a potent source of new competition. Across a broad range of
industries, established market leaders are threatened by digital upstarts: TV broadcasting and cable companies by video streaming companies such as Netflix, banks by
fintech companies such as Ant Financial and Stripe, hotel chains by Airbnb, universities
by Coursera.
New competition, whether from digital start-ups or from low-cost, emerging-market
firms, means that competitive advantage has become increasingly fleeting. As we shall
see later, one consequence of this is that firms must develop multiple sources of competitive advantage.
However, the threat of new competition has been counteracted by the efforts of
established companies to consolidate their positions of market leadership. Horizontal
mergers among market leaders have turned many mature industries into global oligopolies. At the same time the technology sector features a growing dominance by
a few diversified digital giants, of which Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Alibaba, and Tencent are the most prominent. Each of these companies holds a quasimonopoly position in one or more markets (e.g., Alphabet has a 90% share of global
web search and 73% share of smartphone operating systems; Amazon has a 48%
share of all book sales).
Systemic Risk
A feature of the global economy and human society in general is increasing interconnectedness. Systems theory predicts that increasing levels of interconnectedness within
a complex, nonlinear system increase the tendency for small initial movements to be
amplified in unpredictable ways. As a result, “black swan events”- rare occurrences
6
with extreme impact-may become increasingly common. The financial crisis of 2009,
the “me-too” movement of 2018, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, and the “black lives
7
matter” protests attest to the global impact of local events.
Not all global systemic threats are unpredictable. The greatest threat to the stability of
the business environment, indeed to the survival of the human race, is climate change (a
8
“gray rhino” rather than a “black swan” ). Although the threat posed by the greenhouse
effect has been recognized since the First World Climate Conference in 1979, our failure
to address the problem points to the difficulties of global coordination in a multipolar
world where international organizations have lost legitimacy and authority. 9
Social Forces and the Crisis of Capitalism
For organizations to survive and prosper requires that they adapt to the values and
expectations of society- what organizational sociologists refer to as legitimacy. One
fall-out from recent and current global crises- the financial crash of 2009, climate
change and environmental degradation, and the rising tide of inequality- is a loss of
legitimacy suffered by business enterprises and, indeed, the entire capitalist system.
The notion that the business enterprise is a social institution that must identify with
the goals and aspirations of society has been endorsed by many management thinkers,
10
including Peter Drucker, Charles Handy, and Sumantra Ghoshal. The implication is
that, when the values and attitudes of society are changing, so must the strategies
CHAPTER 14
CURRENT TRENDS IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
and behaviors of companies. During the past two decades, antibusiness sentiment has
moved from the fringes of the political spectrum into mainstream public opinion.
Increasing inequality is an especially potent force in the fraying legitimacy of market
capitalism fueling both the political extremism apparent in populist movements 11 and
the “disappearing center” in US and European politics.12
The rise of China has reinforced doubts about the efficacy of both market capitalism
and constitutional democracy. Between 2000 and 2020, the number of Chinese companies among the Global Fortune 500 grew from 10 to 124-most of them stateowned enterprises. In terms of political governance, European and North American
management of the COVID-19 crisis has compared poorly to that of China.
New Directions in Strategic Thinking
These features of the 21st century business environment have created challenging
conditions under which to formulate and implement business strategy. The result
has been a reorientation of corporate objectives, new approaches to competitive
advantage, learning to compete in digital markets, and placing greater emphasis on the
management of strategic options.
Reorienting Corporate Objectives
As companies come under increasing pressure to respond to the challenges of human
rights, inequality, corruption , and environmental degradation , they must broaden their
goals and expand the range of external variables they take account of in their strategic
planning. At the same time, reconciling broader societal responsibilities with creating
shareholder value has been facilitated by the recognition that, first, corporate social
responsibility is essential for firms to maintain their “licence to operate” and, second, a
broadening of goals to open up new avenues for value creation- the central theme of
Porter and Kramer’s notion of shared value. 13
Reinforcing this convergence, the doctrine of shareholder value creation has also
evolved away from its preoccupation with stock market valuation toward a refocusing
of top management priorities upon the fundamental drivers of enterprise value. This
reflects a recognition that management cannot create stock market value: its focus
should be the strategic factors that drive profits.
We should also acknowledge that there is a risk that preoccupation with the appropriate goals for a company may deflect us from the central concerns of strategy. Richard
Rumelt views strategy as a response to a problem- whether it is Volkswagen adapting to
the likely obsolescence of the internal combustion engine or Alibaba’s rebuilding of relationships with the Chinese Communist Party. In these situations, resolving the problem
takes precedence over whose interests are being served. Thus, for Richard Rumelt the
14
kernel of a good strategy begins with “an explanation of the nature of the challenge.”
Complexity and Integration in the Quest
for Competitive Advantage
Intensifying competition, disruptive technologies, and new digital start-ups mean that
competitive advantages are difficult to sustain. According to Rita McGrath, firms need to
“constantly start new strategic initiatives, building and exploiting many transient competitive advantages at once .”15 Complex competitive advantages are more sustainable
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330 PART IV CORPORATE STRATEGY
than simple advantages. Companies that have maintained both profitability and market
leadership over many decades-such as Toyota, Walmart, 3M, Robert Bosch, Intel,
and Samsung Electronics-typically rely on multiple layers of competitive advantage,
including cost efficiency, differentiation, innovation, responsiveness, and adaptability.
This pursuit of multiple capabilities, in contrast to building a single core capability,
recalls Isaiah Berlin’s classification of intellectuals into foxes and hedgehogs: “The fox
knows many things; the hedgehog knows one big thing.”16 Despite Jim Collins’ praise
for companies that exploit a single penetrating insight into the sources of value in their
chosen sectors, the fate of companies such as Toys “R” Us with big-box retailing, Dell
with its direct sales model, and Nokia’s consumer-oriented market segmentation, points
to the weakness of a single dominant logic in a complex, changing world.17
The quest for more complex sources of competitive advantage may involve strategies that look beyond industry boundaries to exploit linkages across firm’s broader
ecosystems. As we shall explore below, the competitive advantages built by Apple,
Google, and Amazon are the result of business models that exploit sources of value
across entire ecosystems of linked businesses. 18
The pursuit of a wider array of goals is also a potent source of strategic complexity.
Reconciling commercial and financial goals with environmental responsibility has encouraged a number of firms to embrace the principles of “the circular economy”: an industrial
19
system that is restorative or regenerative by intention and design. Circular business
models typically involve a life-cycle approach to product development and management.
Volvo Cars’ circular economy initiative involves designing cars to permit reuse of 95% of
the materials used in their manufacture, eliminating waste, and reducing users’ production of carbon dioxide through electrification and shared ownership schemes.20
However, strategies that embrace complexity and multiple dimensions of competitive advantage must not come at the expense of integration. Throughout this book I
have emphasized the point that strategic fit is not only about strategy’s consistency with
the external and internal environments of the firm but also about strategy’s internal
consistency: the components must fit together. The application of design thinking to
strategy emphasizes the integration of strategy around the customer experience. 21
Apple exemplifies the application of design thinking to strategy. Under Steve Jobs’
leadership, the integration of technology development, design aesthetics, marketing,
retail distribution, and customer experience has been achieved through a relentless
concentration on the overall user experience.
Peloton Interactive also demonstrates how an envisaged user experience- “to bring
fantastic, high-energy, instructor-led group fitness into the home”- can provide the
focus for a strategy that integrates hardware, streamed classes, social media, and customer support into an “engaging-to-the-point-of-addition” experience. 22
Strategy in a Digital World
Of all the forces transforming business in recent decades, digital technology has been
the most pervasive. A major consequence of digital technologies has been to add complexity to industry structures transforming sequential value chains into ecosystems
comprising suppliers of a variety of complementary goods and services. For example,
the smartphone sector comprises the suppliers of handsets, operating systems, applications, components, contract manufacturing services, and wireless communication.
Such industries offer potential for complex business models. A key source of value
appropriation in such markets is a firm’s ability to own a platform that yields network
externalities- a critical factor that explains the gargantuan market valuations of companies such as Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Tencent. In the
absence of such network externalities, digital industries tend to be fragmented and
CHAPTER 14 CURRENT TRENDS IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
intensely price competitive-for example, the markets for Android smartphones, mobile games, and cloud storage .
Because digital technologies are ultimately based upon bina1y codes, digital
resources tend to be fungible: a software development team can create software for a
wide variety of applications. Hence, digital technologies dissolve industry boundaries.
Alphabet, whose businesses include web search, video and audio streaming, mapping,
operating systems, home automation, and healthcare, appears highly diversifiedyet all these businesses are based upon developing and deploying algorithms. Fungibility also extends to digital process technology: 3D printing is a generic technology
with the potential to transform much of manufacturing industty. 23
These strategic characteristics of digital industries are summarized in Figure 14.1.
As digital technologies continue to transform more and more established industries, so
these features will become increasingly general.
Managing Options
Uncertainty and unpredictability reinforce the importance of creating and managing
strategic options. During turbulent times, real options- growth options, abandonment
options, and flexibility options-become increasingly valuable.
Viewing strategy as the management of a portfolio of options shifts the emphasis
of strategy formulation from making resource commitments to creating opportunities.
Strategic alliances are especially useful in creating growth options while allowing firms
to focus on a narrow set of capabilities.
The adoption of options thinking also has far-reaching implications for our tools and
frameworks of strategy analysis. For example:
• Industry analysis has conventionally viewed industry attractiveness in terms of
its profit potential. As industry strnctures become less stable, industry attractiveness will depend more on the range of strategic options it offers. Industries
that produce different products, comprise multiple segments, and utilize different technologies- such as computer software, packaging, and investment
banking- tend to offer a richer array of options than airlines or steel production
or car rental.
FIGURE 14.1
The strategic characteristics of digital industries
Industry
structure
Competitive
advantage
Strategic characteristics
Q
Importance of
complementary product s
Opportunities for market dominance
(in winner-take-all market s)
Complex industry
structures (“ecosystems”)
Potential for complex and innovative
business models
Network externalities
Fast cycle innovation and
product development
Swift erosion of competitive
advantage (unless supported by
network dominance)- hence need
for speed
Ease of imitation of
successful strategies
Critical importance of timing:
strategic windows of short duration
Fungibility of IT resources
Facilitat es diversification across
industry boundaries
trategy implication~
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332 PART IV CORPORATE STRATEGY
• Similarly, the application of options thinking to the analysis of resources and
capabilities emphasizes their versatility. A breakthrough in nanotechnology is
likely to offer greater option value than a new process that increases the energy
efficiency of blast furnaces. A relationship with a rising politician is a resource
that has more option value than a coalmine . Dynamic capabilities are fertile
sources of options because they “are the organizational and strategic routines
by which firms achieve new resource combinations as markets emerge, collide,
split, evolve, and die .”24
However, applying real options thinking goes beyond modest extensions to our
strategic analysis. Real options theory offers a comprehensive approach to analyzing
the firm’s strategic decision-making under uncertainty whose potential has yet to be
realized. 25
Redesigning Organizations
A more complex, more competitive business environment requires that companies perform at higher levels with broader repertoires of capabilities. Building multiple capabilities and pursuing multiple performance dimensions presents challenging dilemmas: how
to achieve cost efficiency while continually innovating; how to take advantage of the
benefits of corporate scale while maintaining the entrepreneurial flair of a small start-up?
In Chapter 8, we addressed one of these dilemmas: the challenge of a m bidexterityoptimizing efficiency and effectiveness for today while adapting to the needs of tomorrow
(see pp. 187-188). In today’s business environment, the problem of reconciling incompatible strategic goals is much broader: reconciling multiple dilemmas requires multidexterity.
Implementing complex strategies with conflicting performance objectives takes us
to the frontiers of organizational design. We know how to devise structures and systems that drive cost efficiency; we know the organizational conditions conducive to
innovation; we can recognize the characteristics of high-reliability organizations; we
are familiar with the sources of entrepreneurship . But how on earth do we achieve all
of these simultaneously?
Organizational capabilities, we have learned (Chapter 5), need to be embodied in
processes and housed within organizational units that facilitate coordination between
the individuals involved. The traditional matrix organization allows capabilities to be
developed in relation to the different dimensions of corporate scope. Inevitably, the
more capabilities an organization develops, the more complex its organizational structure becomes.
How can firms build multilayered capabilities while avoiding the costs, rigidities, and
loss of dynamism that result from increasing organizational complexity?
Informal Organization
For organizations to perform a wider variety of increasingly complex functions while
maintaining agility and efficiency requires a shift from formal to informal structures and
systems. These structures and systems need to be configured for coordination rather
than for compliance and control. Flexible coordination requires modular structures
with each module organized as an informal, team-based structure, with integration
between modules through standardized interfaces, mutual adjustment, and horizontal
collaboration (as discussed in pp. 125- 126).
CHAPTER 14
CURRENT TRENDS IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
The scope for team-based structures to reconcile complex patterns of coordination
with flexibility and responsiveness is enhanced by the move toward project-based
organizations. While construction companies and consulting firms have always been
structured around projects, a wide range of companies are finding that project-based
structures featuring cross-functional teams charged with clear objectives and a specified time horizon are more able to achieve innovation , adaptability, and rapid learning
than more traditional structures. W. L. Gore, the supplier of Gore-Tex and other hi-tech
fabric products, is an example of a team-based, project-focused structure that integrates
a broad range of highly sophisticated capabilities despite an organizational structure
that is almost wholly informal. There are no formal job titles, and leaders are selected
by peers. Employees (“associates”) may apply to join particular teams, and it is up to
the team members to choose new members. The teams are self-managed, and team
goals are self-determined. 26
Reducing complexity at the formal level can foster greater variety and sophisticated
coordination at the informal level. In general, the greater the potential for reordering existing resources and capabilities in complex new combinations, the greater the
advantages of consensus-based hierarchies, which emphasize horizontal communication, over authority-based hierarchies, which emphasize vertical communication.27
Self-Organization
Complexity science- especially in its applications to evolutionary biology and social
28
systems- points to self-organization as an emergent property of complex systems.
For self-organization to substitute for formal management processes, three conditions
need to be present:
• Organizational identity: A collective view of what is distinctive and enduring
about the character of an organization can offer organizational members a
stable bearing in navigating the cross-currents of the 21st-century business environment.29 Coherence at the core allows an organization to face the world with
30
greater confidence. Of course, organizational identity, because of its permanence, can impede rather than facilitate change. The challenge for organizational leaders is to reinterpret organizational identity in a way that can support
and legitimate change. Bob Iger at Disney, Kazuo Hirai and Kenichiro Yoshida
at Sony, and Marco Bizzarri at Gucci all initiated major strategic changes, but
within the constancy of their companies’ identities.
• Information.- The information and communication revolution of the past two
decades has transformed society’s capacity for self-organization, as evident from
the role of social media in political movements ranging from the “Arab Spring”
of 2011 to “Black Lives Matter” in 2020. Within companies, information and
communication networks support spontaneous patterns of complex coordination
with little or no hierarchical direction.
• Relationships.- According to Wheatley and Kellner-Rogers: “Relationships are the
pathways to the intelligence of the system. Through relationships, information
is created and transformed, the organization’s identity expands to include more
stakeholders, and the enterprise becomes wiser. The more access people have
to one another, the more possibilities there are. Without connections, nothing
happens . .. In self-organizing systems, people need access to everyone; they
31
need to be free to reach anywhere in the organization to accomplish work.”
There is increasing evidence that a major part of the work of organizations is
achieved through informal social networks .32
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334 PART IV CORPORATE STRATEGY
For organizations to respond spontaneously to the changes occurring around them,
they require mechanisms that facilitate automated, real-time organizational responses
to new data-without requiring human decisions. BCG consultants, Martin Reeves and
colleagues, envisage a “self-tuning enterprise” where organizational algorithms guide
adaptation. They view the Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba, as exemplifying many
33
self-tuning
characteristics.
of these
Achieving adaptability and flexibility in developing new capabilities requires firms
to be more open to what is occurring outside their boundaries. More permeable corporate boundaries imply less distinction between what happens within the firm and what
happens outside it. Firms’ efforts to broaden their access to knowledge need to extend
from open innovation initiatives to a broader engagement with ideas and influences
from the world beyond.34
The Changing Role of Managers
Changing external conditions, new strategic priorities, and different types of organization call for new approaches to management and leadership. In the emerging
21st century organization, the traditional role of the CEO as peak decision-maker may no
longer be feasible, let alone desirable. As organizations and their environments become
increasingly complex, the CEO can no longer access or synthesize the information
necessary to be effective as a peak decision-maker. Gary Hamel argues that leaders
“need to become social architects, constitution writers, and entrepreneurs of meaning.
In this new model, the leader’s job is to create an environment where every employee
has the chance to collaborate, innovate, and excel.”35
Jim Collins and Jerry Porras also emphasize that leadership is less about decisionmaking and more about cultivating identity and purpose:
If strategy is founde d in organizational identity and common purpose, and if organizational culture is the be drock of capability, then a key role of top management
is to clarify, nurture and communicate the company’s purpose, he ritage, personality,
values, and norms. To unify and inspire the efforts of organizational members, leadership requires providing meaning to people’s own aspirations. Ultimately this requires
attention to the emo tional climate of the organization. 36
As big data and algorithms increasingly substitute for managers’ operational
decision-making, attention shifts toward the distinctly human characteristics of
business leaders. In terms of strategic decisions, this emphasizes decision-making
capabilities that machines cannot replicate: intuition, creativity, and ethical judgment.
In terms of fostering collaboration and motivation, it highlights the role of leaders
in cultivating the social and emotional climate of their organizations. These changes
imply that managers must draw upon a different basis of knowledge than in the past.
Research using competency modeling methodology points to the key role of personality attributes that Daniel Goleman refers to as emotional intelligence. 37 These attributes comprise: self-awareness, the ability to understand oneself and one’s emotions;
self-management, control, integrity, conscientiousness, and initiative; social awareness, particularly the capacity to sense others’ emotions (empathy); and social skills,
communication , collaboration, and relationship building. Personal qualities are also
the focus of Jim Collins’ concept of “Level 5 Leadership,” which combines personal
humility with intense resolve.38
CHAPTER 14
CURRENT TRENDS IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
Summary
The dynamism and unpredictabil ity of today’s business environment present difficu lt cha llenges for
business leaders responsible for formulating and implementing t hei r companies’ strategies. Not least,
because businesses need to compete at a higher level along a broader front.
In responding to these cha llenges, business leaders are supported by two developments. The first
comprises emerging concepts and theories that offer both insight and the basis for new management
tools. Key developments include complexity th eory, the principles of self-organ ization, real option analys is, organ izational identity, network ana lysis, and new thinking concerning innovat ion, know ledge
management, and leadership.
A second area is the innovation and learning that results from adaptation and experimentation
by compan ies. Long-established companies such as IBM and P&G have embraced open innovation;
technology-based compan ies such as Google, Tencent, Microsoft, and Facebook have introduced
radica lly new approaches to project management, human resource management, and strategy formulation. In emerging-market countries we observe novel approaches to government involvement
in business (China), new initiatives in managing integ ration in multibusiness corporations (Samsung),
new approaches to managing ambidexterity (Netflix), and new approaches to employee engagement
(Haier).
At the same time, it is important not to overemphasize either the obsolescence of existing principles or t he need for rad ically new approaches to strategic management. Many of the features of today’s
business environment are extensio ns of we ll-est ablished trends rather than fund amental discontinuit ies. Indeed, our strategy analysis wi ll need to be adapted and augmented in order to take account
of new circumstances; however, the basic tools of analysis- industry analysis, resource and capability
analysis, the applications of economies of scope t o corporate strategy d ecisions- remain relevant and
robust. One of the most importa nt lessons to draw from t he major corporate fa ilures that have scarred
the 21st century- from Enron and WorldCom to Wirecard and WeWork- has been the realization that
the rigorous application of the tools of strategy analysis outlined in thi s book might have helped these
firm s to avoid their misdirected odysseys.
1. logyreview.com/2020/ ll/ 19/ 1012165/
the-promise-of-the-fourth-industrial-revolutio n/, accessed
January 17, 2021.
2. W. B. Arthur, “Where Is Technology Taking the Econo my?”
McKinsey Quarterly (O cto ber 201 7).
3. ledgep rob lem .com/2019/07/25/adam-smitha nd-the-digital-economy-connected ness-and-gains-fromtrade, accessed January 9, 2021.
4. Deloitte, “Blockchain: Inspiring an Evolution in
Commerce” (2019).
5 J. Alcele r and J. Oxley, “Learning by Supplying ,” Strategic
Ma nagement j ou rnal 35 (2014): 204- 223.
6. N. . Taleb, The Black Swa n: The Impact (
