Wharton on Dynamic Competitive Strategy

Rating:
Summary: A well-chosen set of essays
Review: A well-chosen set of essays is compiled, based on a 4-level framework: i)Analyze the competitive environment, ii)Anticipate competitor's actions & reactions, iii) Formulate Dynamic Strategies, iv) Choose among alternative strategies. The book provides a great way to update one's strategy knowledge.
But I find 'Mastering Strategy: The Complete MBA Companion in Strategy' by Financial Times Editors to be a better book with greater depth and broader spectrum.

Rating:
Summary: A well-chosen set of essays
Review: A well-chosen set of essays is compiled, based on a 4-level framework: i)Analyze the competitive environment, ii)Anticipate competitor's actions & reactions, iii) Formulate Dynamic Strategies, iv) Choose among alternative strategies. The book provides a great way to update one's strategy knowledge.
But I find 'Mastering Strategy: The Complete MBA Companion in Strategy' by Financial Times Editors to be a better book with greater depth and broader spectrum.

Rating:
Summary: Wish there were more like this
Review: Although not a very fluid reading, this book covers some very hard to understand topics in a simple way and makes you find them understandable. The book could prove to be your port of entry to some very interesting topics like game theory, scenario planning and simulation. Definitely a good one from Wharton, I sincerely hope there would be more coming from where this one came from.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent collection of articles
Review: An excellent collection of articles regarding business strategy. Also includes a paper on public policy (regulatory) effects - a topic that is usually ignored in strategy formulation. Complements Prof. Sharon Oster's book on Competition analysis which gives a more cohesive understanding on strategy.

Rating:
Summary: Strategy research from the world's top business school
Review: Both editors are marketing professors at The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania), which is the world's leading business school (BusinessWeek and Financial Times). George Day is well-known for his market-driven strategy, while David Reibstein is one of the leading scholars in the field of competitive marketing strategy. The book is split in 4 parts, each consisting of 3-to-5 stand-alone chapters.

Part I - Understanding Advantages in a Changing Competitive Environment - discusses competitive arenas, competitor analysis, and competitive advantage. The first two chapters expand largely on Michael Porter's (Harvard Business School) frameworks, whereby the other two chapters introduce approaches to include policy and technology trends into the strategic planning process.

The aim of Part II - Anticipating Competitors' Actions - is to get inside the heads of competitors. Chapters 5 and 6 explain the possible use of the game theory within competitive strate!gy and strategic decision making. Chapter 7 builds on these chapters to integrate the economic frame (chapter 5), the behavioral frame (chapter 6), with an coevolution frame. The final chapters of this part introduce frameworks and approaches to understanding competitor response and competitive relationships.

Part III - Formulating Dynamic Competitive Strategies - builds on the first two parts and introduces approaches to designing strategies. It introduces reactive strategies, preemptive strategies, signaling opportunities and uses, competitive positioning, and antitrust constraints (which is increasingly important to companies).

In Part IV - Choosing Among Alternative Competitive Strategies - the three chapters introduce methods and frameworks for choosing the right strategy. Chapter 15, in which conjoint analysis is combined with scenario analysis, is perhaps the most complicated chapter of the book. Part IV also introduces the possibilities to use simulation !tests for analyzing and testing strategies.

Although this book is named "Wharton on Dynamic Competitive Strategy", there are various chapters from other academic institutions. Each chapter is an excellent piece of work and can be read on a stand-alone basis. For beginners in the strategic field I recommend chapters 1 and 2 highly. The book is written in business US-English.

Rating:
Summary: comprehensive review on strategy
Review: It is a good book for everyone who want to have a further understanding and comprehensive scope on strategy. However, it maybe a hard one for somebody, who recently study this subject!

Rating:
Summary: must read
Review: Must read and must have for every MBA and every consultant

Rating:
Summary: Fundamental presentation in case study.
Review: My understanding of dynamic strategies is crystal clear for reading chapter to another. This book will not give you the framework nor general ideas about strategics; but the compilation of significant works in stregies, particulary, the dynamic compettition. While the technology may be obsolate, the fundamental always remains. This book serves the later purpose very well and I don't feel bored whenever I read it over and over. Well done.

Rating:
Summary: Fundamental presentation in case study.
Review: My understanding of dynamic strategies is crystal clear for reading chapter to another. This book will not give you the framework nor general ideas about strategics; but the compilation of significant works in stregies, particulary, the dynamic compettition. While the technology may be obsolate, the fundamental always remains. This book serves the later purpose very well and I don't feel bored whenever I read it over and over. Well done.

Rating:
Summary: Very interesting but don't expect as much as the title says
Review: The book is a collection of various articles from academics. Some articles are excellent like Clemons that describes the "killer app" (although the term was not coined at the writing) principle and its relations with pricing and customer base. Most articles are well written but the treatment is MBA oriented rather that for practitionner. Also, most authors have a marketing backgroung with gives a bias toward "market oriented strategies" rather than "ressource based" , alas, in most case the truth is in the middle ...