Strategy-Specific Decision Making: A Guide for Excuting Competitive Strategy

Strategy-Specific Decision Making: A Guide for Executing Competitive Strategy By William Forgang ISBN: 0-7656-1288-7 INTRODUCTION Overview of the Book This relatively inexpensive textbook's unique strength is that it presents the author's theoretical approach to strategic decisionmaking, but does so in such a way that helps students understand the theoretical and integrative features of the simulation. This is not one of the expensive color-laden, hardback texts that cost students dearly. It is a plain print, paperback. The conceptual and pedagogical approaches are what distinguishes this book, and more than makes up for the lack of color that is so fashionable, but expensive. In a nutshell, this textbook facilitates the teaching of practical theory that nicely complements a strategic management simulation used in some schools. Forgang presents nine conceptual chapters. The opening chapter is preceded by an opening or "Cohesion case" (Gelle's Building Products). Parts of this short case are then used throughout the chapters to illustrate specific conceptual material. Students are asked to evaluate the opening case at the beginning of the course and to save their written evaluation. Then, at the end of the course, (Appendix I) students are again asked to evaluate the case so they can see for themselves just how differently they now view the case. This method provides some idea about how this important textbook encourages integrative, pragmatic thinking, but there is also much more. For example, in Appendix II, the "Instructor's and Student's Simulation Guide", lists eighteen sets of questions organized into two groups; "Pre-Simulation Activities" and "Post-Simulation Activities", with an introductory explanation preparing students for the simulated experience. Each question area contains from two to six subordinate questions which are keyed to specific, previous in-text exercise application problems which can either be used in class as group exercises, or required as written-up homework. In addition, there are seven short - most are two pages - case studies each with an end-of-case exercise. These questions and cases are intended to illustrate specific concepts present in previous chapters. One of the main differences, however, is that Forgang's cases and exercises are much more acutely focused than the average text, hence the term "strategy-specific". Chapter-by-Chapter Highlights Forgang begins with an expose of his modelof "Strategy-Specific Decision Making" which is not very different from so many stage-models in the strategic management literature. But then, Forgang gets into one of the emphases of his book. His notion of strategy-specific decision making brings in two important concepts: First, his "Strategic Lens" concept and second, the importance the author places on decision priorities. Forgang defines the important role of the strategic lens as "to evaluate decision options, to make consistent and complete decisions, and to explain the logic behind one's actions" (p. 9). In placing the emphasis upon strategic priorities, Forgang sets the stage for a good discussion of how actual decisions are made in business. Regarding priorities, Forgang states there must be clear priorities because trade-offs are often necessary. Chapter 2 is a thorough explanation of the nature of competitive strategy. The most important and useful contribution by Forgang in this chapter is the notion of his theme-based weighted value proposition (p. 23). This important concept is missing in most other texts. Forgang describes this as an operational procedure of identifying important values and assigning weights to each of them. Weights help to clarify the mission statement to improve organizational focus and manage priorities, thus, better enabling the design and implementation of specific strategic decisions. The beauty in his scheme is the refreshing operational clarity it provides. …