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Strategy is becoming more 'open' - more transparent and more inclusive. Opening Strategy tells the story of how corporate strategists and strategy consultants have worked since the middle of the last century to open up the strategy process. First strategic planning, then strategic management, and now 'open strategy' have all brought more people into the strategy process and provided more strategic information, for the benefit of both business and society at large.
Informed by interviews with corporate strategists and consultants at leading firms such as General Electric and McKinsey & Co, and drawing on the historical archives of strategy's pioneers, this book provides vivid insights into the trials and tribulations of practice change in the strategy profession. Above all, it stresses the hard work of the little recognized and sometimes eccentric individuals who have been leaders in practice change. By building on a wide range of illustrations, covering both successes and failures, the book draws out general lessons for practice innovation in strategy. Those studying the topic will be able to set standard strategy techniques in historical and social context and develop new areas for investigation, while practising executives and consultants should gain a sense of how to innovate in strategy - and how not to.
List of contents
- 1: Opening Strategy: Practices and Professionals
- 2: Making Strategy: Theory and Practice
- 3: Corporate Strategists: Surviving the 'Fall'
- 4: Strategy Consultants: Knowledgeable Professionals
- 5: Strategic Planning: Choice and Competition
- 6: Strategic Management: Change and Implementation
- 7: Open Strategy: Transparency and Inclusion
- 8: Changing Strategy - for the Better
- Appendix: Sources and Methods
About the author
Richard Whittington is Professor of Strategic Management at the Saïd Business School and New College, University of Oxford. He has authored, co-authored or contributed to ten books, including the best-selling textbook Exploring Strategy (12th edition, Pearson, 2019) and the Cambridge Handbook of Open Strategy (2019). He is an associate editor of the Strategic Management Journal and has co-edited six special issues in leading journals. He was previously a board member of the Strategic Management Society and past Chair of the Strategizing Activities and Practices interest group at the Academy of Management. His current research focuses on strategy-as-practice and 'open strategy'.
Summary
Through interviews with corporate strategists and eminent consultants at leading companies around the world, this book recounts the origins and development of Strategy as a profession, and explores how strategic management and open strategy have become important practices in contemporary organizations.
Additional text
Opening Strategy is a milestone in the study of the century-old effort to professionalize management. Using a history cum sociology lens, Whittington documents and explains the triumphs and tribulations of Strategys trajectory as a profession since 1960 to today. The book will serve as a valuable reference to all strategy practitioners and researchers.
Report
Opening Strategy is a masterful demonstration for how a frugal choice and rigorous application of theoretical concepts turn a historical narrative into a more generalized argument about practive change in professional fields. Maximillian Heimstädt, Weizenbaum Institute
