Strategic Management: Creating Competitive Advantages

Strategic Management, written by authors Dess, McNamara, Eisner, and Sauerwald continues its tradition of being readable, relevant, and rigorous. Its engaging writing style minimizes jargon to maximize readability. It provides examples from management practice and societal themes including environmental sustainability, ethics, globalization, entrepreneurship, data analytics, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make the content relevant. It draws on the latest research by management scholars and insights from executives to balance accessibility with rigor. 

They provide separate chapters on the role of intellectual assets in value creation (Ch. 4), entrepreneurial strategy and competitive dynamics (Ch. 8), and fostering entrepreneurship in established organizations (Ch. 12). This version includes all the text and 38 cases.

Gregory G. Dess is the Andrew R. Cecil Endowed Chair in Management at the University of Texas at Dallas. His primary research interests are in strategic management, organization environment relationships, and knowledge management. He has published numerous articles on these subjects in both academic and practitioner-oriented journals. He also serves on the editorial boards of a wide range of practitioner-oriented and academic journals. In August 2000, he was inducted into the Academy of Management Journal Hall of Fame as one of its charter members. Professor Dess has conducted executive programs in the United States, Europe, Africa, Hong Kong, and Australia. During 1994 he was a Fulbright Scholar in Oporto, Portugal. In 2009, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bern (Switzerland). He received his PhD in business administration from the University of Washington (Seattle) and a BIE degree from Georgia Tech.

Gerry McNamara is the McConnell Broad Professor of Management at Michigan State University. His research draws on cognitive and behavioral theories to explain strategic phenomena, including strategic decision making, mergers and acquisitions, and environmental assessments. His research has been published in the Academy of Management Journal, the Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, the Journal of Management, and the Journal of International Business Studies. Gerry’s research has also been abstracted in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, New York Times, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the Economist, and Financial Week. He has served as an associate editor for the Strategic Management Journal and the Academy of Management Journal. He received his PhD from the University of Minnesota.

Alan B. Eisner is Dean of the School of Management and Professor of Management at Clark University. He received his PhD in management from the Stern School of Business, New York University. His primary research interests are in strategic management, technology management, organizational learning, and managerial decision making. He has published research articles and cases in journals such as Advances in Strategic Management, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, International Journal of Technology Management, American Business Review, Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management, and Global Journal of Business Pedagogy. He is the former associate editor of the Case Association’s peer-reviewed journal, The CASE Journal.

Steve Sauerwald is an Associate Professor of Strategic Management in the College of Business at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research interests focus on corporate governance, strategic leadership, and stakeholder strategy. He pursues this research program in a global setting by examining how institutions surrounding domestic and international firms shape organizational outcomes. His scholarship has been published in journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management, and Journal of Management Studies. His research has been covered by Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and BBC. He received his MBA and PhD from the University of Texas at Dallas. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Texas at Dallas and a visiting scholar at Free University Berlin.