Strategic Thinking: Explorations around Conflict and Cooperation - Softcover

Saha, Biswatosh; Banerjee, Parthasarathi; Kakani, Ram Kumar

Softcover

ISBN 10: 8132106903 ISBN 13: 9788132106906

Publisher: SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd, 2011

Synopsis

The Strategist Actor, in order to seek a ′win′ and search for power, engages in acts of cooperation, contests and conflicts, shaping organizations, institutions and practices.

Strategic Action seeks to secure a governance to preserve or subvert the balance of power in inter-organizational and intra-organizational state of affairs.

The conventional portrayal of strategy refers to strategy of a firm or an organization. This book opposes this stance as being seriously limiting and non-reflective of the expanding inter-organizational space for strategic acts. One needs to move away from viewing the firm as the unit of analysis for understanding of strategy.

Strategic Thinking provides an interpretation of strategy around an ′actor′ rather than an organization. It views strategic action as being executed in a ′milieu′ populated by power holders, where the individual strategist actor holds centre stage, and where pursuits are obstructed by the countervailing threats of other power holders. The authors explain that the strategic ′milieu′ is an intensely governed set-up where the relations and transactions between the power holders controlling key assets are under the governance of the current set of rules and institutions.

The book shows how one can appreciate several contemporary business practices, especially under ′increasing returns′, by focusing on the relation between the ′economics′ and the ′governance′ of an asset. Cooperation, as opposed to deterrence, informs such strategic acts under increasing returns.

About this title

About the Authors

Biswatosh Saha has been involved in research on innovation, strategy and studies of power, especially in the area of knowledge generation and pedagogy. He has been working with Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Kolkata, India, for the last four years. He has published several papers in international journals.

Parthasarathi Banerjee has been involved in research on business policy, innovation, and science and technology policy and related areas for the last two and a half decades, and has been working with National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research), New Delhi, where he is currently the Director. He has published eight books and several journal/book papers; his latest book was on biomedical innovation.

Dr. Ram Kumar Kakani is on the faculty at the IIM Kozhikode and has been on the faculty at IIM Calcutta, SPJIMR Mumbai and XLRI Jamshedpur. Outside India, he has worked as residential academic scholar in Denmark, Nigeria, Singapore, and the U.A.E. He is also associated with India’s apex public administration training institute, LBSNAA Mussoorie, as a leadership coach, facilitator and trainer for civil service officers. His areas of interest include business analysis and public administration leadership. 

Edition details

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 8132106903
• ISBN 13: 9788132106906
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 380