Economics of Strategy

By David BesankoScott ShaeferDavid Dranove, et al.

Book Overview

Discover the art of strategic thinking Revised and updated to reflect the cutting edge of academic thinking about business strategy, the Fourth Edition of Besanko, Dranove, Shanley, and Schaefer's highly acclaimed text offers a solid economic foundation for strategic analysis. By presenting basic concepts of economic theory with ideas in modern strategy literature, the book provides an economic lens for viewing the broad sweep of the strategic activities of the firm. The book begins by focusing on the boundaries of the firm and examines competitive strategy from the perspective of industrial organization (IO) economics, particularly Porter's Five Forces. It then explores strategic positioning and dynamics as well as topics associated with internal organization, including personnel economics, organization structure, and strategic fit. Features of the Fourth Edition * Chapters on human resources management, entry, positioning, dynamics, technological change, and organizational structure are substantially revised. * An updated chapter on business history covers the recent dot-com bubble. * Presents economic principles without overemphasizing the math. * Rigorous treatment of organizational topics such as structure and culture enables you to experience the full scope of strategic thinking. * The authors use Porter's Five Forces as a tool for organizing industry analysis, building on the coverage of industrial organization and game theory. The text also considers the Value Net, another tool for organizing industry analysis. * Includes coverage of make or buy decisions (Chapters 2-4) and benefit and cost advantage and sustaining advantage (Chapters 11-13). * Fascinating examples, including many new to this edition, bring the economic models to life. Many of the examples involve businesses outside of the United States.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471679453
• ISBN13: 9780471679455
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Length: 606 Pages
• Weight: 2.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 8.4" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

A book that reasons the strategies

Many business books provide models of competition, innovation, etc. without adequately reasoning how the models were reached. Whereas they provide solutions to a problem - they do not provide the understanding of how the solution is reached. However, this book provides a sound reasoning for every model on the basis of microeconomics. Even apparently abstract concepts like organization structure are explained on the basis of economics. I personally feel that the concepts covered in this book have been ingrained in my mind.

Strategy is more than blah, blah, blah

This book offers a very modern approach on strategy, including economics foundations and numeric solving of the different strategic concepts analyzed. The book is not for everyone, you need to have basic knowledge on business management, economics and math. As an MBA manager and academic, the book gave me new vision and a strong base on the strategy concepts. I recommend this book for every MBA student and manager.

Very comprehensive overview

This is the best overview of the economics behind firm strategy you can find. The coverage of the book is impressive. All economic principles are discussed in an accessible way, although you should have some understanding of basic microeconomics. Compared to a standard textbook in industrial organization the advantage of this text is a focus on real world issues and a vast amount of case studies. If you're in strategy and you like the views of Porter, Ghemawat and Nalebuff, this is the book for you.

Theory and Practice of Competitive Strategy

This is the definitive review of strategic analysis concepts: their basis in economic theory and application in the real world of business. Economics of Strategy is thee core textbook for strategy courses at the University of Chicago, but, ironically, it was written by members of the Northwestern University faculty. A great marriage of left and right brained strategic thinkers!Well worth the time to understand and digest its many lessons on competitive strategy.

Fantastic!

Well beyond the touchy-feely strategy approach, this book explores the details behind the economic reasoning of strategic decisions of the firm. Many examples, and theory that really forms the backbone of strategy. Excelent chapters on dinamics of pricing rivalry, isolating mechanisms of competitive advantage, vertical and horizontal integration, strategic positioning and more. Cover the basics and the advaced strategy knowledge in a well written manner. Very good MBA textbook.