Blackwell Reference Online

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This book is the volume in the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management devoted to the subject of strategic management. This relatively recent area of study in management stems from the 1970s, but its origins go much deeper. The literature of the subject builds upon the early pioneers of management thought, such as Urwick, Fayol, Taylor, Simon, Barnard, Chandler, and the like. Notice that nearly all of these names are from the USA. The list could be broadened to include others from Europe, such as Crozier, Woodward, Edwards, and Townsend. The field has also drawn somewhat on writers on military strategy, such as Clauzwitz, Liddell Hart, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, and Mao Tse Tung. Not all of these conceptual thinkers are represented in this book; nor are the writers in decision theory, game theory, and such like. Regrettably, there is a finite length to any volume. The concept of strategic management in its present form developed in the 1960s with the emergence of two very different approaches – which ultimately became complementary – at the Harvard Business School and at Carnegie Mellon. At Harvard, by recognizing that something “different” occurred at the top management level of the large corporation, and based on many of the behavioral studies by practitioners and academics such as Barnard, Drucker, Selznick, Fayol, and Urwick, case‐based material was developed which attempted to explain ... log in or subscribe to read full text