Making Strategy: Mapping Out Strategic Success

Fran Ackermann, Colin Eden

SAGE, Aug 24, 2011 - Business & Economics - 376 pages

′Demystifies strategy making while at the same time deepening our understanding of what the process entails. Their work is a marvellous guide for those striving to make sense of complexity′ -

Karl E. Weick, Rensis Likert Distinguished University Professor of Organizational Behavior and Psychology, University of Michigan

′This book is at the very cutting edge of strategic management theory and yet also of immense practical use. It is truly a rare and stunning achievement′ -

John M Bryson, McKnight Presidential Professor of Planning and Public Affairs, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota

′Using this book enabled me to facilitate a multicultural team of seven managers so that they very quickly got to grips with the challenges and opportunities facing the organization and developed a realistic workable strategy, whilst at the same time building a real sense of team cohesion and the feeling that individuals had been listened to′ -

Alison Devine, Director, British Council, Taipai

This lucid and highly-accessible text addresses the challenges of how to build a robust and implementable strategy. Strategy making is seen as something relevant to managers of departments, divisions, SME′s, as well as the top management teams of public and for-profit organizations.

Four key routes to creating a strategy are discussed. These routes, when taken together, provide a powerful means for agreeing a negotiated strategy, and comprise: strategic issue management, agreeing organizational purpose, competitiveness from the exploitation and protection of distinctiveness, and the strategic management of stakeholders. The designs have been used extensively, in a wide range of countries, by management teams in all types of organisations.

Contents

• The Structure and Design of the Book How to Read the Book: 1
• 1 Strategy as Focus: 5
• 2 Strategic Management is a Social Process: 14
• 3 Strategy as the Prioritisation and Management of Key Issues: 39
• 4 The Issue Management Forum: 65
• Agreeing Goals and Aspirations for the Organisation: 109
• 6 The Strategy as Purpose Forum: 147
• 7 Strategy as Competitive Advantage: 177
• 8 Strategy as Competitive Advantage Forum: 207
• 9 Strategy as Stakeholder Management: 230
• 10 The Stakeholder Management Forum: 253
• 11 Facilitating Groups in Strategy Making: 273
• 12 The Continuation and Closure of the Strategy Making Journey: 287
• Decision Explorer: 315
• Bibliography: 331
• Index: 345
• Author Index: 349
• How to access Decision Explorer and Additional Resources: 355

About the author

Fran Ackermann is Professor and Head of Department of Management Science at Strathclyde Business School, and an adjunct Professor at Curtin Graduate School of Business. She has written widely, publishing 4 books, over 20 book chapters and 150+ articles (ranging from strategy, stakeholder management, competency mapping to problem structuring, disruption and delay and risk management). She has been an adjunct professor at University of Georgia, Grenoble Business School and Bordeaux Business School. She is a member of the British Academy of Management, the Operational Research Society and is active at the Academy of Management (having served on one of the divisional executive committees). She is currently on the British Academy of Management Council. Fran has also been an ESRC Post-doctoral Fellowship Assessor and a Commonwealth Grant Advisor.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Making Strategy: Mapping Out Strategic Success
• Authors: Fran Ackermann, Colin Eden
• Edition: 2, unabridged
• Publisher: SAGE, 2011
• ISBN: 1446259919, 9781446259917
• Length: 376 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Management; Business & Economics / Strategic Planning