This book aims at providing a broader picture of such a dense landscape through examining strategy’s major constituents.
We identify the principal building blocks of strategy in business that have shaped its emergence as a field: reasoning
based on analytic thinking, an emphasis on outside factors, and a focus over incremental improvement.Over time these building
blocks have been complemented by some upgrades (a synthetic thinking mode, an inside-out view, and a focus on business
reconfiguration). These building blocks and upgrades create a three-dimensional space that provide an opportunity to
look at some of the most popular concepts, theories, and approaches that have enriched the field of strategy while adopting
a perspective of complementarities rather than clear-cut separation and contrasts.Many issues contained in this book, particularly the many
dimensions of strategy and the nature of strategy innovation have originated from conversations with Professor Giuseppe Volpato, to whom this book is dedicated. In this regard, I would like to share just a couple of his many fine arguments. The first
relates to bridging the gap between analytic and synthetic thinking since behind any successful strategy there is always a good
theory, even if it is merely implicit. The second relates to strategy innovation: There is no such thing as a mature industry but
only an industry with obsolete strategies.
.
