There are many strategy books available in the marketplace for today’s student or business professional; most of them view strategy from the 10,000 foot level, while Strategic Thinking looks at this important business topic through a different lens. Written from the perspective of a manager, this book builds on theories of managerial and organizational cognition that have had a powerful influence on many business fields over the last two decades. As other books on business policy ...

Is your company spending too much time on strategy development—with too little to show for it?If you read nothing else on strategy, read these 10 articles (featuring “What Is Strategy?” by Michael E. Porter). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you catalyze your organization's strategy development and execution.HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy will i...

Understand the next level of marketingThe new model for marketing-Marketing 3.0-treats customers not as mere consumers but as the complex, multi-dimensional human beings that they are. Customers, in turn, are choosing companies and products that satisfy deeper needs for participation, creativity, community, and idealism.In Marketing 3.0, world-leading marketing guru Philip Kotler explains why the future of marketing lies in creating produc...

Now beyond its eleventh printing and translated into twelve languages, Michael Porter’s The Competitive Advantage of Nations has changed completely our conception of how prosperity is created and sustained in the modern global economy. Porter’s groundbreaking study of international competitiveness has shaped national policy in countries around the world. It has also transformed thinking and action in states, cities, companies, and even entire regions such as Central Americ...

Competitive advantage. The value chain. Five forces. Industry structure. Differentiation. Relative cost. If you want to understand how companies achieve and sustain competitive success, Michael Porter’s frameworks are the foundation. But while everyone in business may know Porter’s name, many managers misunderstand and misuse his concepts.Understanding Michael Porter sets the record straight, providing the first concise, accessible summary of Porter’s revolutionar...

International expert and consultant David Maister offers a brilliant and accessible guide to every management issue at play in professional firms.Professional firms differ from other business enterprises in two distinct ways: first, they provide highly customized services and thus cannot apply many of the management principles developed for product-based industries. Second, professional services are highly personalized, involving the skills of individuals. Such fir...

The secret of achieving and sustaining organizational excellence revealedIn an ever-changing world where only a third of excellent organizations stay that way over the long term, and where even fewer are able to implement successful change programs, leaders are in need of big ideas and new tools to thrive. In Beyond Performance, McKinsey & Company's Scott Keller and Colin Price give you everything you need to build an organization that can execute in the s...

Is your company's top talent jumping ship as good replacements become harder to get?If you need the best practices and ideas for winning the race for talent--but don't have time to find them--this book is for you. Here are 11 inspiring and useful perspectives, all in one place.This collection of HBR articles will help you:- Look for good people in all the right places- Interview more effectively- Make--and keep--compelling promises to candidates and ...

There’s a bewildering array of management tools out there. And they all promise to help you excel at the toughest parts of your job: defining your organization’s strategic direction, managing customers and costs, and boosting workforce performance.But just 30 percent of these tools deliver as intended. Why? As Jeremy Hope and Steve Player reveal in Beyond Performance Management, while many tools are sound in theory, they’re misused by most organizations. For example, execu...

In a world of contracting markets and diminished consumer demand, The Cambridge Group founder Rick Kash and Nielsen Company CEO David Calhoun show companies how to find new customers and bigger profits. How Companies Win makes The Cambridge Group’s proprietary demand model—a strategy which multi-million dollar corporations pay premium rates to access—available to the general public for the first time. Taking the reigns from Larry Bossidy’s Execution, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne’s Blue ...

The traditional annual budgeting process--characterized by fixed targets and performance incentives--is time consuming, overcentralized, and outdated. Worse, it often causes dysfunctional and unethical managerial behavior. Based on an intensive, international study into pioneering companies, Beyond Budgeting offers an alternative, coherent management model that overcomes the limitations of traditional budgeting. Focused around achieving sustained improvement relative to competitors, it pro...

Human resources management is critical to the success of any organization, particularly in today's complex business environment. More and more often, managers and business owners, in addition to HR personnel, are charged with aspects of human resources management: recruitment, training and development, job analysis, corporate restructuring, compensation, and morale, to name a few. Lack of expertise can result in the loss of key staff, diminished productivity and profitability, or a lawsuit...