This easy-to-read volume provides a helpful overview of key strategy issues that managers should analyze in their own firms to ensure global competitiveness.
As professors of global strategy at Thunderbird, The Garvin School of International Management, the authors bring a total of thirty years of teaching and research to the table. They wrote Global Strategy for students and managers alike in an effort to address what they believe to be gaps in the global, regional, and domestic strategy literature. The result is neither textbook nor pure theory, and Inkpen and Ramaswamy admit taking steps beyond contemporary theory to examine the practical realities that have yet to garner deep academic interest.
The first chapter, drawing on examples from the diamond, sushi, and trash industries—fields not typically acknowledged as global—explores the meaning of globalization and how it differs from international business. This leads to a discussion of the importance of global strategy and expansion, and allows the authors to lay the foundation for the rest of the book.
Subsequent chapters discuss organizational structure, strategic alliances, knowledge management, emerging markets, corporate governance, and ethics as they relate to global strategy development. Mini case studies included throughout highlight businesses such as gourmet Belgian chocolates, Whirlpool appliances, and CD piracy, to name a few.
This depth and breadth of information, in combination with the additional reading suggestions, should help ambitious managers get up to speed.
- Cynthia D. Churchwell