Strategic Management: Principles and Practice (2nd Edition)

The purpose of Strategic Management: Principles and Practice is twofold: to provide a comprehensive and concise study of the basic principles and essentials for the strategic management of organizations, and to provide an account of developing practice as internal and external organizational environments change. The term, ‘organizations’, includes a wide range of different types including, for example, private, public and non-profit, together with a comprehensive range of sizes and structures of organizations. The scope of the book is international, going beyond examples of American and European experience to the emerging global economies, such as those of the BRICS countries. We have used many examples drawn from our own research. Strategic management is the direction and management of an organization in its entirety, subject to the strategic requirements of long-term purpose, overall objectives, and strategy. The basic principle is that an organization should build its strengths around its resources in ways to help it proactively adapt to change, so that it is able to influence its environment and over the long period be able to control its own destiny subject to the needs of its stakeholders. The management part of strategic management is every bit as important as the strategic or strategy part of strategic management. We have written this book in a way that we hope we have been true to our belief that management matters. The strategic management of organizations should be understood as an entire or whole process, not just as a collection of functional parts. In this sense, strategic management is the most challenging and arguably the most important function in an organization. The book introduces essential theory in ways to engage readers who have little or no business and management experience. Strategy and policy concepts are presented to help understand concisely, and easily, the prescriptive and emergent perspectives current in the subject area