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The first question that potential readers might be tempted to ask is, why another book on strategy? Strategic Innovation: New Game Strategies for Competitive Advantage has many of the same features that existing textbooks have. It draws on the latest research in strategic management and innovation, it is peppered with the latest examples from key business cases, it is easy to read, and so on. However, it has six distinctive features that give it a unique position vis-à-vis existing strategy and innovation books.
First, Strategic Innovation: New Game Strategies for Competitive Advantage is about change. While existing textbooks acknowledge the importance of change, especially in an ever-changing world, they devote very little or no attention to the subject of change. All the chapters in New Game Strategies are about change and strategic management—about how to create and appropriate value in the face of new games. Second, existing strategic management texts tend to have very few or no numerical examples. This lack of numerical examples does little to reinforce the growing consensus that strategy is about winning but rather, it might be promoting the “anything goes in strategy” attitude that is not uncommon to students who are new to the field of strategic management. Nine of the thirteen chapters in the book have numerical examples that link elements of the balance sheet to components of the income statement. Of course, the book is also full of case examples. Third, while other texts are more descriptive than analytical, this book is more analytical than descriptive. It is largely about the why and how of things, and less about the what of things. Fourth, the book includes a detailed framework for assessing the profitability potential of a strategy, resource, business unit, brand, product, etc. Called the AVAC (activities, value, appropriability, and change), the framework is distinctive in that it includes not only both firm-specific and industry-specific factors that impact firm profitability, but also a change component. Fifth, the book’s emphasis is on those activities that can be linked to the determinants of profitability; that is, the book focuses on those aspects of strategy that can be logically linked to elements of the balance sheet and income statement. Sixth, the book summarizes the major strategic management frameworks that are otherwise scattered in other texts. This is a useful one-stop reference for many students. |
