Strategic Management and Competitive Advantage ^{6th Ed.}

For these Global Editions, the editorial team at Pearson has collaborated with educators across the world to address a wide range of subjects and requirements, equipping students with the best possible learning tools. This Global Edition preserves the cutting-edge approach and pedagogy of the original, but also features alterations, customization, and adaptation from the North American version.

• Part 1; The Tools of Strategic Analysis
1. What Is Strategy and the Strategic Management Process?
• Go, Pokémon Go
• Strategy and the Strategic Management Process
• Defining Strategy
• The Strategic Management Process
• What Is Competitive Advantage?
• Research Made Relevant: How Sustainable Are Competitive Advantages?
• The Strategic Management Process Revisited
• Measuring Competitive Advantage
• Accounting Measures of Competitive Advantage
• Strategy in Depth: The Business Model Canvas
• Economic Measures of Competitive Advantage
• Ethics and Strategy: Stockholders Versus Stakeholders
• The Relationship Between Economic and Accounting Performance Measures
• Emergent Versus Intended Strategies
• Why you Need to Know About Strategy
• Summary
• Challenge Questions
• Problem Set
• End Notes
2. Evaluating a Firm's External Environment
• How Attractive is the Music Streaming Industry?
• Understanding a Firm's General Environment
• The Structure-Conduct-Performance Model of Firm Performance
• Ethics and Strategy: Is a Firm Gaining a Competitive Advantage Good for Society?
• A Model of Environmental Threats
• Threat from New Competition
• Strategy in Depth: Environmental Threats and the S-C-P Model
• Another Environmental Force: Complements
• Industry Structure and Environmental Opportunities
• Research Made Relevant: The Impact of Industry and Firm Characteristics on Firm Performance
• Strategy in Depth: Network and Empty Core Industries
• Opportunities in Fragmented Industries: Consolidation
• Opportunities in Emerging Industries: First-Mover Advantages
• Opportunities in Mature Industries: Product Refinement, Service, and Process Innovation
• Opportunities in Declining Industries: Leadership, Niche, Harvest, and Divestment
• Summary
• Challenge Questions
• Problem Set
• End Notes
3. Evaluating a Firm's Internal Capabilities
• When a Noun Becomes a Verb
• The Resource-Based View of the Firm
• What Are Resources and Capabilities?
• Critical Assumptions of the Resource-Based View
• Strategy in Depth: Ricardian Economics and the Resource-Based View
• The VRIO Framework
• The Question of Value
• Ethics and Strategy: Externalities and the Broader Consequences of Profit Maximization
• The Question of Rarity
• The Question of Imitability
• The Question of Organization
• Research Made Relevant: Strategic Human Resource Management Research
• Applying the VRIO Framework
• Applying the VRIO Framework to Southwest Airlines
• Southwest's People-Management and Competitive Advantage
• Imitation and Competitive Dynamics in an Industry
• Not Responding to Another Firm's Competitive Advantage
• Changing Tactics in Response to Another Firm's Competitive Advantage
• Changing Strategies in Response to Another Firm's Competitive Advantage
• Implications of the Resource-Based View
• Where Does the Responsibility for Competitive Advantage in a Firm Reside?
• Competitive Parity and Competitive Advantage
• Difficult-to-Implement Strategies
• Socially Complex Resources
• The Role of Organization
• Summary
• Challenge Questions
• Problem Set
• End Notes
• End-of-Part 1 Cases
• Case 1-1: Can SodaStream Disrupt the Carbonated Soft Drink Market?
• Case 1-2: True Religion Jeans: Flash in the Pants or Enduring Brand?
• Case 1-3: Walmart Stores, Inc.
• Case 1-4: Harlequin Enterprises: The Mira Decision
• Part 2: Business-Level Strategies
4. Cost Leadership
• Brathwait: A Transparent Watchmaker
• What is Business-Level Strategy?
• What is Cost Leadership?
• Sources of Cost Advantages
• Strategy in Depth: Determining the Optimal Level of Production in an Industry
• Research Made Relevant: How Valuable Is Market Share — Really?
• Ethics and Strategy: The Race to the Bottom
• The Value of Cost Leadership
• Cost Leadership and Environmental Threats
• Strategy in Depth: The Economics of Cost Leadership
• Cost Leadership and Sustained Competitive Advantage
• The Rarity of Sources of Cost Advantage
• The Imitability of Sources of Cost Advantage
• Organizing to Implement Cost Leadership
• Organizational Structure in Implementing Cost Leadership
• Summary
• Challenge Questions
• Problem Set
• End Notes
5. Product Differentiation
• Who Is Victoria, and What Is Her Secret?
• What is Product Differentiation?
• Bases of Product Differentiation
• Research Made Relevant: Discovering the Bases of Product Differentiation
• Product Differentiation and Creativity
• The Value of Product Differentiation
• Product Differentiation and Environmental Threats
• Strategy in Depth: The Economics of Product Differentiation
• Product Differentiation and Environmental Opportunities
• Ethics and Strategy: Product Claims and the Ethical Dilemmas in Health Care
• Product Differentiation and Sustained Competitive Advantage
• Rare Bases for Product Differentiation
• The Imitability of Product Differentiation
• Organizing to Implement Product Differentiation
• Organizational Structure and Implementing Product Differentiation
• Management Controls and Implementing Product Differentiation
• Strategy in Depth: Going in Search of Blue Oceans
• Compensation Policies and Implementing Product Differentiation Strategies
• Can Firms Implement Product Differentiation and Cost Leadership Simultaneously?
• No: These Strategies Cannot Be Implemented Simultaneously
• Yes: These Strategies Can Be Implemented Simultaneous
• Summary
• Challenge Questions
• Problem Set
• End Notes
6. Flexibility and Real Options
• Why Is Netflix Called Netflix?
• What is Strategic Flexibility?
• Types of Flexibility
• The Value of Strategic Flexibility
• Incorporating Risk in Strategic Decision Making
• Limitations of Risk Based Decision Making Under Uncertainty
• Valuing Flexibility
• Strategy in Depth: The Black-Scholes Model for Valuing Financial Options
• Research Made Relevant: The Value of Real Options Thinking
• Strategic Flexibility and Sustained Competitive Advantage
• Rare and Costly-to-Imitate Flexibility
• Organizing to Implement Strategic Flexibility
• Ethics and Strategy Feature: Treating Employees as Flexible Assets
• Summary
• Challenge Questions
• Problem Set
• End Notes
7. Collusion
• A Gas Station Conundrum
• What is Collusion?
• Ethics and Strategy Feature: The Ethics of Collusion
• The Value of Collusion
• Colluding to Reduce the Threat of New Competitors
• Colluding to Reduce the Threat of Current Competitors
• Strategy in Depth: How Colluding Firms Generate Economic Profits
• Colluding to Reduce Other Competitive Threats
• Collusion and Sustained Competitive Advantage
• Ways Firms Can Cheat on Collusive Agreements
• Explicit and Tacit Collusion
• Industry Attributes and the Threat of Cheating
• Research Made Relevant: Sending Signals to Maintain Collusion
• Rarity and Costly to Imitate Collusion Strategies
• Organizing to Implement Tacit Collusion
• Organizational Efficiency
• Organizational Self-Discpline
• Summary
• Challenge Questions
• Problem Set
• End Notes
• End-of-Part 2 Cases
• Case 2-1: McDonald's Comeback in the U.S. Burger Market?
• Case 2-2: The Levi's Personal Pair Proposal
• Case 2-3: Papa John's International, Inc.: Growth Challenges
• Case 2-4: Ryanair — The Low Fares Airline
• Case 2-5: Torrey Nano, Inc.
• Case 2-6: Collusion in Major League Baseball
• Part 3: Corporate Strategies
8. Vertical Integration
• Outsourcing Services
• What is Corporate Strategy?
• What is Vertical Integration?
• The Value of Vertical Integration
• Strategy in Depth: Measuring Vertical Integration
• Vertical Integration and the Threat of Opportunism
• Vertical Integration and Firm Capabilities
• Vertical Integration and Flexibility
• Applying the Theories to the Management of Call Centers
• Research Made Relevant: Empirical Tests of Theories of Vertical Integration
• Integrating Different Theories of Vertical Integration
• Vertical Integration and Sustained Competitive Advantage
• The Rarity of Vertical Integration
• Ethics and Strategy: The Ethics of Outsourcing
• The Imitability of Vertical Integration
• Organizing to Implement Vertical Integration
• Organizational Structure and Implementing Vertical Integration
• Management Controls and Implementing Vertical Integration
• Compensation in Implementing Vertical Integration Strategies
• Summary
• Challenge Questions
• Problem Set
• End Notes
9. Corporate Diversification
• Diversifying with a Core Mission
• What is Corporate Diversification?
• Types of Corporate Diversification
• Limited Corporate Diversification
• Related Corporate Diversification
• Unrelated Corporate Diversification
• The Value of Corporate Diversification
• What Are Valuable Economies of Scope?
• Research Made Relevant: How Valuable Are Economies of Scope?
• Can Equity Holders Realize These Economies of Scope on Their Own?
• Ethics and Strategy: Globalization and the Threat of the Multinational Firm
• Corporate Diversification and Sustained Competitive Advantage
• The Rarity of Diversification
• Strategy in Depth: Risk-Reducing Diversification and a Firm's Other Stakeholders
• The Imitability of Diversification
• Summary
• Challenge Questions
• Problem Set
• End Notes
10. Organizing to Implement Corporate Diversification
• Is It Soup Yet?
• Organizational Structure and Implementing Corporate Diversification
• The Board of Directors
• Strategy in Depth: Agency Conflicts Between Managers and Equity Holders
• Research Made Relevant: The Effectiveness of Boards of Directors
• Institutional Owners
• The Senior Executive
• Corporate Staff
• Division General Manager
• Shared Activity Managers
• Management Controls and Implementing Corporate Diversification
• Evaluating Divisional Performance
• Allocating Corporate Capital
• Transferring Intermediate Products
• Compensation Policies and Implementing Corporate Diversification
• Ethics and Strategy: Do CEOs get Paid Too Much?
• Summary
• Challenge Questions
• Problem Set
• End Notes
11. Strategic Alliances
• Alliances Between Chinese and U.S. Firms
• What is a Strategic Alliance?
• How do Strategic Alliances Create Value?
• Strategic Alliance Opportunities
• Strategy in Depth: Winning Learning Races
• Research Made Relevant: Do Strategy Alliances Facilitate Tacit Collusion?
• Alliances Threats: Incentives to Cheat on Strategic Alliances
• Adverse Selection
• Moral Hazard
• Holdup
• Ethics and Strategy: When It Comes to Alliances, Do "Cheaters Never Prosper"?
• Strategic Alliances and Sustained Competitive Advantage
• The Rarity of Strategic Alliances
• The Imitability of Strategic Alliances
• Organizing to Implement Strategic Alliances
• Explicit Contracts and Legal Sanctions
• Equity Investments
• Firm Reputations
• Joint Ventures
• Trust
• Summary
• Challenge Questions
• Problem Set
• End Notes
12. Mergers and Acquisitions
• The Travails of Technology Acquisitions
• Ethics and Strategy: Is Greed Good?
• What Are Mergers and Acquisitions?
• The Value of Mergers and Acquisitions
• Mergers and Acquisitions: No Economics of Scope
• Mergers and Acquisitions: When Economies of Scope Exists
• Return to Mergers and Acquisitions: Research results
• Strategy in Depth: Evaluating the Performance Effects of Acquisition
• Why Are There So Many Mergers and Acquisitions?
• Mergers and Acquisitions and Sustained Competitive Advantage
• Valuable, Rare, and Private Economies of Scope
• Valuable, rare, and Costly-to-Imitate Economies of Scope
• Unexpected Valuable Economies of Scope Between Bidding and Target Firms
• Implications for Bidding Firm Managers
• Implications for Target Firm Managers
• Research Made Relevant: The Wealth Effects of Management Responses to Takeover Attempts
• Organizing to Implement a Merger or Acquisition
• Post-Mergers Integration and Implementing a Diversification Strategy
• Special Challenges in Post-Merger Integration
• Summary
• Challenge Questions
• Problem Set
• End Notes
• End-of-Part 3 Cases
• Case 3-1: National Hockey League Enterprises Canada: A Retail Proposal
• Case 3-2: Starbucks: An Alex Poole Strategy Case
• Case 3-3: Rayovac Corporation: International Growth and Diversification Through Acquisitions
• Case 3-4: Aegis Analytical Corporation's Strategic Alliances
• Case 3-5: Activision's Crush on Mobile Gaming
• Appendix: Analyzing Cases and Preparing for Class Discussions

One of the best books on the Resource-based view of the firm! It also goes deep into VRIO and is an excellent overall text on strategy.

Definitely recommended reading.