Exploring Corporate Strategy

Gerry Johnson
Kevan Scholes
Richard Whittington

It is now twenty-one years since the first edition of Exploring Corporate Strategy was published.
Both the world of business and the public services have seen vast changes over
that time. There have also been major changes in the subject of corporate strategy.
Central to this has been a widespread recognition of the importance of the subject of
strategy to practising managers in both the public and private sectors. This has been
reflected in the inclusion of strategy as a subject in educational programmes at undergraduate,
postgraduate and professional levels as well as its adoption in short courses
and consultancy assignments. It is now accepted that an understanding of the principles
and practice of strategy is not just the concern of top managers, but essential for
different levels of management – though clearly emphases within the subject will vary.
We have consistently argued the importance of this wider interest in strategy, so these
are changes that we welcome.
The combined sales of our first six editions exceeded 650,000. This seventh edition
marks a significant point in the book’s development with the addition of Richard
Whittington to the author team. Richard will be known to many readers through his
own work and publications. Significantly Richard was known to both Gerry Johnson
and Kevan Scholes as an MBA student at Aston during the development work on the
first edition!
This new edition is being published at a time when most organisations are feeling
the combined impact of globalisation, information technology and rapid changes in
their business environment. More sectors of the economy of most countries are becoming
‘knowledge based’. On the negative side there has been an increasing focus on
some spectacular failures – such as Enron and WorldCom – leading to changes in corporate
governance and a questioning of the motives and ethical standards of some
managers and company directors. Whereas the structure of the book remains broadly
the same we have tried to give more prominence to these issues.
The seventh edition also marks a step forward in terms of text layout and design.
This has been made possible by the use of more colours and the incorporation of
photographic materials to complement more traditional graphics and tables. The
purposes of these changes are to improve clarity and ‘navigation’ and make reading
the book an enjoyable experience. Each chapter has clear learning outcomes and a
summary. Important ‘definitions’ are highlighted in the margins – there has been
particular attention given to illustrations and case studies. The vast majority of these
are new in this edition and the choice of examples reflects the issues mentioned above.
All the 84 illustrations have questions, which allows them to be used as mini-cases
by tutors and for students to check out their own progress on understanding the text.
The case examples at the end of each chapter allow a reflection back on the range of
separate issues within the chapter and help students see how they connect. We have
also provided some new integrative work assignments to reinforce the connections
between topics and chapters.