Essential Strategic Management. From Modernism to Pragma-

tism. Paul Joyce and Adrian Woods, Butterworth-Heinemann,Oxford, 1996, ISBN 0-7506-2383-7, 285 pp, price £12.99 (paper-back).

Any reviewer worth their salt is going to come at a new book fromtwo related perspectives. The ®rst perspective, which I'll come tolater, is the extent to which the book meets the promises it makesto its readers, and aligned with that, the extent to which the book®lls any implied gap in its target market. The second perspective ismuch more subjective, and is concerned with the extent to whichthe book adds value to the reviewer's understandings of theparticular subject matter, in this case `strategic management', andwhether, through style and substance one likes the booksuf®ciently to recommend it to others. This second perspectiveis the one which will be uppermost in this review.

Having seen the initial publicity for the book, and found thebook in my university bookshop, I was anxious to skim readEssential Strategic Management. On the back cover the bookclaims that it will be

especially useful to students taking strategic management orbusiness policy courses and graduate students taking strategicmanagement courses as part of MBA and DMS programmes. Itwill be useful to increasing numbers of managers at variousstages in their managerial careers who want to build on theirexperience and develop their knowledge and skills in strategicmanagement.

I breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that at last that I had found abook I could use on my in-company DMS and MBA programmes;and I parted with £12.99 looking forward to a longer read.

On getting the book home, and spending more time ¯ippingthrough the chapters, I became disappointed. It is certainly`complete', covering many different issues in strategic manage-ment, but in its completion, I remain disappointed. May be mytests aren't fair but

Strategic Change, Vol. 6, 367±370 (1997)

Book reviews

& 1997 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

* ®rst, the book doesn't provide me with a one-off substitute forany of the major strategy textbooks which my students and Iare forced to use;

* and secondly, the book fails to emphasize fully, or fails tocapture fully, the quality and subtlety of what I consider to bethe three major debates about strategic management: strategyas `®t' `versus' strategy as `stretch'; (Hamel and Prahalad,1989; Stacey, 1993); planning `versus' strategy, (Mintzberg,1994); and the problem of strategic implementation (Hussey,1996).

In reading and re-reading particular chapters, while I continue tosustain this disappointment, I keep sensing that the book as awhole, and particular chapters, are a sort of preÂcis of a longer,more scholarly piece of work which I, for one would welcome.Some of the subtleties and complexities of strategic managementare reduced to inserts or bullet points, and I start to wonder how Imight use the book (or to be more precise, particular chapters) inmy thinking and in my teaching.

Indeed, in places I ®nd I'm reading a curate's egg. The section onMichael Porter's work, for example, provides both a sort of criticalreview, but also fully outlines Porter's 5-forces model. And again, Ibegin to wonder who the book's been written for: is it for peoplewho don't know about Porter (1985)? (if so it's insuf®cient), or is itfor people who know about Porter's model, but need (a) to have itpositioned within the developing thinking and strategy literature,and (b) be seen within a critical perspective?

As I continue to leaf through the book, I begin to emerge ananswer. Chapter 1 on `Themes and Issues', and chapter 2 on`Paradigms', I enjoy and like. Here, readers can gain a compellingoverview of the methodological issues which face the writers anddoers of strategy. It is here that I sense it is written for those whoalready have some grounding in the literature and practice ofstrategic management, and would value a book (or chapters in abook) which would describe some of the historical andmethodological contexts of strategic management.

At this stage in my reading some of my disappointment begins towear off. I convince myself that I should read the book on its

terms, rather than mine. And may be I should feel a little lesscritical and more generous? So I return to the book and test eachchapter against my criteria: does it meet readers' needs? Does ittouch adequately on current debates?

Overall, I continue to have doubts about the adequacy of thebook to meet my tests and my students' needs. As the authorssuggest (p. xiii), I can see the book being used by managers andstudents to supplement existing literature, and as a referencesource for further reading. And yes, I shall recommend and refer tothe text in my book lists. And yes, I'm sure the book will sell. Andno, I don't really regret parting with £12.99. But I have this naggingdoubt about the book; I continue to have a nagging sense of a lost

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368 Book reviews

opportunity; of a different and more valuable critical review of thevast literature on strategic management: a review which,incidentally, is long overdue (Alvesson and Willmott, 1996).1

For those of you who are interested in the details of the book,Essential Strategic Management is 285 pages and arranged over11 chapters. In order of appearance, the chapters are:

1. Themes and issues2. Paradigms3. The strategic planning process4. Techniques and models for analysis5. The strategic environment6. Evaluating company performance and activities7. Corporate and competitive activities8. Internationalization9. Ethical aspects of strategic management

10. Managing strategic change11. The strategic manager

At the end of the book there's an Appendix: Appendix: strategic

planning worksheets.

And ®nally, the $64,000 question: now that I've bought the bookwill I continue to use it? Yes!

Peter FranklinNottingham Business School

References

Alvesson, Mats and Willmott, Hugh (1996). Making Sense of Manage-

ment, Sage, London.Hamel, Gary and Prahalad, C. K. (1994). Competing for the Future,

Harvard Business School.Hussey, David (ed.) (1996). The Implementation Challenge, Wiley,

Chichester.Mintzberg, Henry (1994). The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning,

Prentice Hall, Hemel Hempstead.Porter, Michael E. (1985). Competitive Advantage, The Free Press, New

York.Stacey, Ralph D. (1993). Strategy as order emerging from chaos, Long

Range Planning, 26, February, pp. 10±17.

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Book reviews 369

1Alvesson and Willmott (1996, p. 134) write: `one could argue that not onlydifferent talk about strategy is needed, but also less talk.'