Making Strategy and Organization Compatible

This book argues that for many companies organisation is designed to achieve operational optimization and may be in conflict with strategic objectives. Managers may not share similar decision criteria and this may facilitate or hinder the fulfilment of certain strategies. The role of top managers is to shape to a large extent the ability of the organisational system to implement and achieve strategic objectives. This book provides breakthrough thinking on these issues by two leading academic thinkers.

Preface In Praise of Complexity Building Bridges Between Management and Strategy The Organizational System Cognition as a Major Asset of the Firm AGRO: A Company in Transition Managerial Fine-Tuning The Role of General Management Cosmorphar, or Excellence in Tacit Accumulation Where Management and Strategy Strengthen One Another Appendices

CLAUDE MICHAUD is Professor of Economics at INSEAD, and Director General of CEDEP at Fontainebleau, France. He is a leading expert in designing management programmes for executive education. He and Jean-Claude Thoenig cover issues such as how companies may sustain development in hyper-competitive economies, and how headquarters as well as their CEOs should govern firms that are structured around business units.

JEAN-CLAUDE THOENIG is Professor of Sociology of Organizations and former dean at INSEAD, Fontainebleau. He is also Senior Research Fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (GAPP-Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan), France. He is a co-founder and the first chairperson of EGOS, the European Group for Organizational Studies, and has long term consulting relationships with multinational companies.

General management has to create the conditons for strategic uniqueness. Increasing the level of common knowledge, and getting the organization to share the same language for action taking, together provide a unique set of solutions to achieve strategic objectives. Managers are accountable for cognitive excellence. They may build or destroy valuable intangible assets. This book provides breakthrough contributions, fundamental as well as applied, on issues that are often negletted