Book Review – What is Strategy, and Does it Matter?
 This is the question Richard Whittington seeks to answer in his short but information-packed book aimed to enlighten both MBA students and business professionals alike.
Whittington sets up to explore four different approaches to strategy: classical, evolutionary, processual and systemic. He delves into each model's strengths and weaknesses, as well as their appropriateness to different business situations.
He pits the models against each other while further exploring strategy in relation to business topics such as leadership, growth and corporate decision making.
Strengths
In the first section, Whittington breaks down and defines each model using interesting real world examples, such as the internet investment bubble. He also explores the models' relation to cultural differences, comparing how Americans and Europeans approach strategy.
As Whittington himself points out in his introduction, each model presents a different answer to the question asked in the title. Each has a different idea of what strategy is and why it should matter.
Weaknesses
One of the difficulties with Whittington's presentation of the four theories in such a way is that it can be a bit misleading for the reader. It suggests that these models can and do exist independently of each other. That is, that businesses always approach strategy from the perspective of a processualist or a classicist. The fact that in practice these models are often garbled does not come across much in this book.
In the later chapters of the book Whittington applies the models to a variety of situations and uses business examples to discuss the results and effects. This way of describing central business concepts such as leadership and company growth serves to flesh out the models presented and give the reader a better grasp of how essential they are in a variety of business situations.
In the end, the answer to the question of what strategy is, is in the reader's hands. So if you are looking for a clear and easy answer, you will not find it here. Based on Whittington's descriptions of the models, most readers will most likely align closely with one of the perspectives early on in the text, and that allegiance probably will not shift during the course of reading this book.
As Whittington points out, many of the models are often linked to cultural background, and thus an American and a European, with varying world views, have varying views on strategy.
Why read this book?
But regardless of which model or school of thought you subscribe to, there is no denying that strategy matters a great deal. And as it is such an important matter, this book is a great starting point to begin examining how businesses are currently working with strategy and how they can improve. It can also provide greater understanding for different approaches and the idea that different is not always better or worse, it is just different.
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- Does Work Experience Matter for an MBA?
- Why Distance-Learning MBAs Matter
- Ashford University Review
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