Ari Ahonen[1]

Strategic management studies and the foundation of thought of competitive assessment

Introduction

In competition law, the tools of economic analysis are often borrowed from economics and not the business administration. According to the present view of the assessment of competitiveness of the product market, what is needed are not simplified models and indicators but a holistic and increasingly multidisciplinary foundation of thought, the elements of which may have to be courageously sought for outside the canon of competition law and economics (cf. Koponen — Okko — Virtanen, 2003). One obvious direction is precisely business administration and all of its branches. There is a natural theoretical kinship between the strategic management studies within the field of business administration and the microeconomic competition studies, in particular, for to paraphrase Ohmae (1983), "without competition, no strategies are needed".

Despite the theoretical kinship, there has traditionally been a fairly wide cultural gap between research within business administration and microeconomic research. There are no doubt many reasons for this cultural gap, the most fundamental of which is the juxtaposition of market structure and market behaviour (cf. Scherer — Ross, 1990). Moreover, scholars of business administration have traditionally shunned the strict mathematical formalism of economics, whereas economists have commonly underestimated the normative and even naive checklists and links to the business consultancy and the related "theoretical R&D" constantly producing new management fashions (e.g. Porter, 1980; Kieser, 1997). On the other hand, the major problem in economic thinking is a degree of diversion from the management’s genuine decision-making in all its manifoldness (Foss, 1996). Precisely here e.g. strategic management studies within business administration may, despite its own problems and deficiencies, supplement the fairly caricatured picture of economics.

Porter (1980; 1981) appears to be the first to explicitly reflect upon what the two traditions of thought would have to give to each other. At the same time, Porter was the first to bring structural elements borrowed from industrial economics to the centre of the strategic management studies within the field of business administration. This deviation from the behaviourist main line of strategic management studies in business administration came to a close in Rumelt’s (1991) empirical landmark study, the main thesis of which was that the business effects accounted for more performance variance than the industry stable effects, i.e. the level of strategic market behaviour is more important than the level of market structure.

Following this, strategy scholars have eagerly sought for an explanation for this finding of competitive heterogeneity (Hoopes, et al., 2003). At the same time, strategic management studies have become an increasingly interdisciplinary discussion forum where business economists, game theoreticians, many others — and above all, microeconomists — participate. As a result of this quest and the related "economic turn", the perception about the cornerstones of a sustainable competitive advantage has gradually changed (see Peteraf, 1993; Barney, 1997). In spite of this, many traditional viewpoints of strategic management studies continue to be, albeit in slightly different form, part of the cognitive framework which guides the thinking of managers who have a background in business administration. The main features of the framework should be seen as part of a wider and more versatile foundation of thought of competitive assessment.

Historical background of strategic discourse

Etymologically, the concept of strategy derives from the Greek substantive strategos, leader of the troops, which, in turn, has been born of the meaning ‘army’ and ‘lead’. The ancient Greeks understood strategy to be a skill with which the strategos carried out its management task in the war. The concept of strategy has been used in the military context throughout the history and, to the annoyance of critics, all militarist connections and connotations have still not disappeared. Within military science, according to the famous definition of Carl von Clausewitz (1832), "Tactics teaches the use of armed forces in the engagement; strategy, the use of engagements for the object of the war". Thereinafter, the use of the high-flown concept of strategy has expanded to ennoble all aspects of life to the extent that, according to the analogy used by Mintzberg et consortes (1998), trying to describe strategy is like the blind men trying to describe an elephant: everybody talks about it but nobody has ever seen it.

The first scholars who used the concept of strategy in the context of business were the game theoreticians von Neuman and Morgenstern (1947) in their work Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour. Game theoretically, the basic nature of strategic action can be described as follows: in an interactive situation where single actors seek for their own interest the outcome is not determined by the choice of a single actor but the outcome depends on the simultaneous choices of all actors. The choice of strategy by a single actor is largely determined by his or her expectations and estimates of the choices of the other actors. As the parties do not usually reveal their own intentions and cannot wholly depend on each other, conclusions must be drawn indirectly based on hints from different information sources. With the help of the game theory, it can be examined which choice in a given situation — i.e. when different expectations are fulfilled — is the most rational for a single actor (Dixit — Nalebuff, 1991).

The insightful basic setting of the game theory still interests strategy scholars both in business administration and economics (Rumelt, et al., 1994). On the other hand, game theory presentations have been systematically criticised for their attempts to over-simplify the extremely multi-dimensional nature of social action and choice. Another typical standard critique concerns their strong rationality hypothesis. Both types of critique are fairly old.

For example, Herbert A. Simon (1947) argued in his classical Administrative behavior that the decision-making process is the most important single factor characterising any organisation, through which it can be understood. However, Simon wished to challenge the ideal type of rational choice, typical of economics in general and the traditional theory of the firm in particular. Simon, who later won the Nobel prize in Economics, called his view of human decision-making bounded rationality or intended rational behaviour, according to which humans are intentionally rational. In other words, individuals seek rational choices in principle, but e.g. due to insufficient information, the limits of cognitive capacity and weak human will they make due with reasonable or acceptable outcomes.

Another major specification to the traditional theory of the firm was included in Cyert and March’s (1963) classic Behavioral theory of the firm, and concerns the nature of the firm as a collective actor. According to the central tenet of the work, in spite of certain institutional aspects, the firm as a collective actor cannot have its own goals; instead, in the end, these return to the objectives of the individuals operating in the said organisation, mainly in positions of power, and they may differ from the goals of the firm. Based on the ideas of Simon, Cyert and March took it upon them to examine how organizations make decisions, set goals and shape strategies in practice. From the start, instead of economics, strategic management studies in business administration were more strongly based on the behaviourist thoughts of Cyert, March and Simon, although the tension between rationalism and behaviourism has permeated strategic management studies within business administration as well (Shoemaker, 1993).

Strategic planning school

The social reasons that underlie the birth of the strategic management studies in business administration are obvious. At the start business activity, the overwhelming business type was small one-man firms, where the owner made all the decisions. There was no formal planning and the "strategies" were the owner’s intuitive conceptions of the sources of the competitive advantage and the general development trends of the environment. Gradually, the saturation of the local market led to the expansion of operations. This required that organisations were arranged as departments and units, which were coordinated with operating policies. This produced the concept of company policy which preceded strategy: a more or less explicitly expressed codification of principles which those responsible for the various functions were to follow in their decision-making. The dilemma of company policy thinking was the dismissal of the relationship between the company and the environment. To mend this deficit, the concept of strategy was born (Hofer — Schendel, 1982).

The concept of strategy was brought to the discourse on business administration by Alfred Chandler (1962), H. Igor Ansoff (1965) and Kenneth Andrews (1971). For the classics of the strategic theory, strategy referred to the means to achieve certain ends — and their choice by bounded rationality in the sense referred to by Simon. According to Chandler (1962), formerly an economic historian, strategy defines the fundamental long-range goals and objectives of a company and the choice of the necessary measures and allocation of resources to obtain them. Ansoff, for his part, did not explicitly define strategy. For Ansoff, the core of strategy is formed by a product-market combination chosen as synergetically as possible to achieve the planned goals, whereas the main objectives are return on capital and growth. To achieve these objectives, Ansoff identified four basic choices: market penetration, product development, market development or a combination of the last two i.e. diversification. The choice of strategy shall be based on a careful analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of a company and the opportunities and threats of the environment and their mutual adjustment.

According to Ansoff’s (1965) view, the major problem of companies is precisely decision-making, and strategy is a rule for decision-making. In other words, with the help of a strategy the decision-maker is able to take a decision in situations where the outcomes of different alternatives are very uncertain. Ansoff hence finds strategy to be an operational course of action guiding later decision-making and chosen from different trends. Several models have been presented on strategic planning after Ansoff’s classic work but their contents do not much differ from each other: usually, strategic planning is presented as a decision-making process which proceeds, through analyses and goal setting, to planning, implementation and follow-up to the extent that content-wise, the biggest strategic question is deciding on a product market combination. The major supplement to the otherwise similar planning process models were the portfolio matrixes designed as instruments of strategic work on a corporate level (see Hofer — Schendel, 1982).

Largely founded on the ideas of Ansoff, the so-called systematic strategic planning approach was quite influential at its time. However, the extrapolation thinking typical to both Ansoff and the whole strategic planning school and some other basic assumptions proved to be unsustainable quite soon during the 1970s — particularly due to the oil crises. For the first, the future was assumed to be more predictable than it perhaps turned out to be and secondly, only decisions on goals and aims were considered important and the commitment of the organisation to them only a marginal problem. As a solution to the challenges, Ansoff (1979) himself suggested the concept of strategic management. The main goal was to increase the company’s sensitivity to react to strategic surprises i.e. situations where the basic assumptions proved invalid. Another major objective was to increase the importance of the implementation of plans in the strategic process.

Competitive strategy view

The modifications and supplements made to the framework of traditional strategic planning did not prove sufficient, however, to maintain its leading position, which was affected by more and more western firms having to operate in industries where growth was weak or even declining, making economic results increasingly dependent on the organisation’s skills to win market share from competitors. In other words, there are too many firms in the highly competitive markets and their supply is too homogeneous. According to thinking rapidly gaining ground in the 1980s, in such situations, knowledge of competition strategy was emphasised as a critical success factor. The by far greatest proponent of the competitive strategy approach was Michael E. Porter (1980; 1985) with his generic competition strategies and models of expanded competition.

According to Porter, the development of a competitive strategy involves the management in construing an abstract model of how the company will compete, what the goals and objectives of the company should be and what means and methods should be used to obtain them. In other words, a competitive strategy always combines the desired outcomes and the means used to achieve them. The main feature in defining a competitive strategy is that the company must be adjusted to its environment where the most important level of observation is the industry. Porter finds this to be so because the structure of the industry has a major significance for the common rules of competition and the strategies that the company is able to implement in the first place, whereas external forces such as technological or political factors affect all operators alike, and different companies have different capabilities to tackle these forces and adapt to them.

According to Porter’s (1980) model, the winning potential of an industry is determined by five forces that drive competition within an industry: 1) the intensity of rivalry among existing competitors, 2) the threat of entry by new competitors, 3) pressure from substitute products, 4) the bargaining power of buyers and 5) the bargaining power of suppliers. These five forces finally determine the structure of the industry, the intensity of competition and profitability. In addition, it is important to understand the development of the industry, its evolutionary processes. These processes push the industry toward its potential structure, which is seldom known at the start of the development of an industry or even in its later stages. However, there may still be features in the technological foundation, the properties of the products and the qualities of the present and potential buyers which take the industry towards a certain direction, depending on the success of the R&D, marketing innovations and so forth.

The starting point of drawing up an efficient competitive strategy is finally the effort to conduct various attack and defence measures, counteractions and evasive moves to create a defendable position against the said fundamental competitive forces. Widely understood, there are only few basic options for this. Firstly, a firm may seek to position itself so that its skills provide the best possible defensive position against the system of competitive forces prevailing at a given time. Secondly, it is possible to seek to affect the balance of competitive factors through different strategic measures so as to improve the relative position of the own firm. Thirdly, it is possible to sit and wait for the changes and moves occurring every now and then in the underlying determinants of the competitive forces and try to react to them as soon as possible before the competitors realize what is going on.

Porter identifies three fundamental competitive strategies: cost leadership, differentiation and focusing. Every company obviously has to consider costs and the quality and image of the product to some extent. The emphasis between them may vary case-by-case and sometimes a company may mix several approaches in its operations. However, this is seldom possible and only under certain special conditions. According to Porter, the principle is that a successful implementation of each basic strategy requires clear choice and almost complete commitment. In making the choice, it has to be considered that each industry is fundamentally different and its impossible to present general rules on how these generic strategies should be shaped in detail to fit the special features of a given industry.

Even if Porter’s view is much more versatile and dynamic than e.g. Ansoff’s, it still represented a rational planning tradition anchored in the microeconomic theory of the firm (cf. Porter, 1981), to which, however, was attached a game dimension familiar from military strategic thinking: "According to Porter and other scholars who have studied the content of strategy as a competitive strategy the world is a world of wars and games. It is a question of moves, stakes and action. Within the firm, the possibilities in this approach may be condensed to few basic outlines and more detailed instructions derived from these. The thinking is analytically logic and fits the planning models well" (Kettunen, 1997, 241).

Strategy process school

The era of "different" strategic thinking was already beginning. Particularly the strategy concept of Henry Mintzberg (1987), who had distinguished himself as a critic of the strategic planning school, can be called very "amoebic": strategy may be a plan, an operations model, a vision or position in the market; strategy may be planned and intended, pursued, realized or unrealized. Mintzberg’s view of strategy differs quite clearly from the thoughts of the strategic planning school. He compares strategy to an organic form: strategies strive constantly to be born, die and re-formulate after and during the formulation of the formal strategy. Mintzberg (1987) finds that the real creation of the strategy may be described as an emerging process, where the planned strategy may greatly differ from the realized strategy due to sudden environmental changes and the maturing of the thinking of the strategy formulator.

Mintzberg succeeded in revitalizing the world of ideas on the strategy process. But he had less original things to say about the content of strategy. Still, largely thanks to the "anti-rational revolution" began by Mintzberg himself, the term "strategic planning" has disappeared from management discourse so completely that Mintzberg (1994) has found it necessary to write a book The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, where he sums up the basics of the rise and fall of strategic planning school into three fundamental fallacies, which are that forecasting the future is possible, that planning can be detached from operations and that the strategy process can be formalized. Mitzberg’s list is not revolutionary, as a long time before, e.g. Ohmae (1983) laconically remarked that strategic planning killed strategic thinking.

Be that as it may, such criticism brought strategic planning and partially also competitive strategy into disgrace. This was also due to Japan’s economic success simultaneously causing a great interest in the secrets of its success, which were increasingly sought for not only in macro-economic factors but from the micro-level, in the structure of the industry, organisation culture and management. The best known work written in this spirit was Peters and Waterman’s (1982) In Search of Excellence, the main thesis of which was that management thinking emphasising structures and competitive strategy has proceeded to the inflection point of its life span, and more and more companies should start to look for competitive advantage from "softer" factors such as management style and culture. Peters and Waterman’s key idea is exaggerated, typical of consultancy literature, but easy to understand: the success of a firm shall be built around people, values and culture and not technology, analysis and calculations. Peters and Waterman argue that the culture and values of such a firm of the future may be summed up as a "success profile", which is construed on the basis of the operations models adopted by the successful "champions".

Peters and Waterman (1982) sum up their success profile in eight themes, which include 1) a bias for action i.e. a burning desire to get things done, 2) customer-orientation i.e. an "obsession" with good service, 3) intrapreneurship i.e. fostering innovation and nurturing "champions", 4) human-orientation i.e. respecting employees as sources of ideas and builders of profitability, 5) hands-on, value-driven i.e. management by wandering around and underlining certain basic values, 6) stick to the knitting i.e. avoiding business that you do not know, 7) structural simplicity i.e. elimination of all "futile" directors, departments and functions, 8) simultaneous loose-tight properties i.e. centralised profit demands plus autonomy in shop-floor activities. Peters and Waterman’s study and results have undergone heavy criticism but they succeeded in summing up most of the theses which still repeat themselves in "progressive" management models as guarantees of success (Kettunen, 1997).

Peters and Waterman’s success profile is bewildering in that it does not contain an explicit mention on strategy. However, this confusing finding is explained by Peters and Waterman’s interest in the Japanese companies: the Japanese do not explicitly formulate specific strategies (Porter, 1996; Nonaka — Takeuchi, 1995). In the spirit of the Japanese view, both Mintzberg and Peters and Waterman thought that strategy in itself is not so important as continuous learning, change and development; the process of creation consists of fragmented pieces gradually attaching themselves to each other — strategy is a subsequent explanation for the attachment process.

Resource-based view

It has been particularly Mintzberg’s but also Peters and Waterman’s contribution to create as realistic a picture of the strategy process as possible and to underline the importance of strategic learning. Progress later evolved in the direction desired by Mintzberg and Peters and Waterman when the theme of continuous strategic learning advocated by them established itself as one of the cornerstones of the discourse of the field. On the other hand, the rational strategy thinking opposed by them gained new momentum from the so-called economic turn. Empirical studies underlay this turn and suggested that there may be systematic differences in profitability between close competitors within the same industry and these may be of long duration (Rumelt, 1991).

The most potent explanation for these internal differences in profitability was offered by the so-called resource-based view (RBV), due to the influence of economists in particular, which became the cornerstone of the search for the new competitive advantage (Peteraf, 1993). The core message of the resource-based view can be summed up as a thesis, according to which the significantly divergent market positions of relatively close competitors revert back to he combination of resources and capabilities typical of and unique to a given firm. Further, to act as sources of sustainable competitive advantage these resources and capabilities shall fill a number of conditions, which are value, rareness, imitability, and substitutability in short (Barney, 1991).

Of these, value implies that a certain resource or capability — which should be relatively under-priced at the time of purchase — really offers firms realistic possibilities to either exploit the possibilities or to prevent the threats in the business environment, and thereby to improve the market position. Secondly, resources or capabilities should be rare: resources which are valuable in themselves but commonly available do not offer a sustainable advantage. Thirdly, resources and capabilities shall be inimitable, which is availed by their immaterial, abstract or systemic nature and patentability. Fourthly, resources and capabilities shall be sustainable: i.e. a strategically relevant function cannot be vulnerable e.g. to the change of one key person (Barney, 1991; 1997).

In the literature on the topic, resources and capabilities have usually been separated from each other. A resource can then be defined as a discernable — but not necessarily concrete — item of property to which a certain value may be attributed and which can be sold. Such resources include brands, patents and licenses. Capability, on the other hand, is not a concrete or discernable matter to which value could be attributed and which could be separately sold. Further, capability may be valuable in and of itself or strengthen the value of the resource. For example Nike’s obvious capability in marketing strengthens the value of its brand (see Makadok, 2001). It is extremely difficult to define or break down such capability and its sources. This is because the capability is partly consciously designed but also built on so-called tacit knowledge, developed through trial and error in the process of time. It cannot be obtained from books or seminars and competitors hence find it hard to understand or copy. So-called causal ambiguity is usually related to a capability producing a genuine competitive advantage, which refers to the problems of competitors to perceive what the competitive advantage of a firm is eventually made of (Barney, 1991; 1997; cf. Nonaka — Takeuchi, 1995).

The resource-based view, established in the 1990s as the paradigm of strategic studies is best known in the form popularised by Prahalad and Hamelin (1990; 1994) — core competence. The main points of core competence thinking include the following: all useful resources have their owners and takers. Owners always have numerous alternative uses for their resources, but the best resources are always scarce. Due to this, there exists a continuous competition on the ownership and control of the major resources between the alternative users. Due to constant competition, owners must carefully consider the use of the resources: their allocation, development and increase. For example, the most capable individuals remain employed by the firm if they get paid enough and if they get offered interesting jobs and development opportunities.

There is nothing new here. What is crucial, however, is that merely by buying different resources from the market — be they new technology or skilled people- a sustainable competitive advantage cannot be created. The success factors cannot be found in the market, as in the state of free competition everything is already priced so that if a product or service contains something extra, it also costs that much more. Hence, a sustainable economic result cannot be created by operating in the market. The source of sustainable competitive advantage is thus defined as knowledge created in the firm, bringing added value to the customers. A whole shall be built of the various resources which cannot be bought in the market, which brings added value to the customers, is difficult to copy and shall be constantly developed to maintain the lead.

Core competence thinking, like the resource-based view in general, is an interesting mixture of traditional competition and resource thinking of economics and modern human resource management thinking. In this sense, it preserves the rational premises while at the same time trying to distance itself from its weaknesses: "Whether a company is building a strategy based on core competencies, is developing a learning organization, or is in the middle of a transformation process, those concepts can all be interpreted as a mandate to build a unique set of resources and capabilities. However, this must be done with a sharp eye on the dynamic industry context and competitive situation, rigorously applying market tests to those resources. Strategy that blends two powerful sets of insights about capabilities and competition represents an enduring logic that transcends management fads." (Collis — Montgomery, 1999, 57).

Summary: strategic management studies and practice

In a rapidly changing environment, the faith in the possibilities of a predetermined strategy collapsed no later than the start of the 1990s, and soon Prahalad and Hamel’s (1990; 1994) thesis on core competence as the only sustainable source of competitive advantage had gained a leading position. However, there are elements and trends in business life, which appear to be against this alleged basis of competitive advantage. For example Pfeffer (1994) has wondered why the constant increase of part-time employment, outsourcing and transfer of work to countries of low labour costs is getting more and more common, although the official liturgy goes that everybody swears by the development of core competence.

This finding would seem to indicate that Ansoff and Porter are here even today — in spite of the "theoretical dominance" of core competence thinking. The traditional analysis and planning-based approach has not disappeared but rather merged into the new doctrines. For example, prickled with some new attributes and stresses, the essence of competitive intelligence largely corresponds to what was previously called competitor analysis (cf. Kahaner, 1998; Porter, 1980). There is nothing dramatically new in the reception of these activities either: e.g. Pirttilä (2000) has maintained that the top management in particular is sceptical about the actual usefulness of the all-encompassing methods of the normative competitive intelligence literature.

Näsi and Aunola (2002) have examined the practical implementation of strategy in firms today. Their investigation supports the intuition based on everyday experience: much more straightforward and simplified models and tools are used in business than could be assumed on the basis of the theoretical discussion (see also Pirttilä, 2000). For example, a fairly traditional planning process á la Ansoff is still going strong in many firms. Almost always this has been simplified, however, and been supplemented by an application of the balanced scorecard, which has gained popularity as a tool of strategy implementation (Norton — Kaplan, 1996). Furthermore, as attested by the adoption of the scorecard thinking, in more and more companies, "strategic planning" is understood more loosely as one of the organisational change and learning processes.

From the point of view of practical management, there are still deficiencies in the learning process view or core competence thinking. Firstly, the operational definition of the much talked about core competence has proved quite difficult (Hoopes, et al. 2003). Secondly, the limits of cognitive capacity brought out by Simon (1947) have not entirely disappeared. Thirdly, knowledge and learning in private life does not have an intrinsic value, which the proponents of core competence would implicitly seem to attach to it (cf. Pirttilä, 2000).

Furthermore, it may be argued that the resource-based view and core competence thinking are not as brand new as one is sometimes led to believe. For example the starting point of classical strategic planning was weighing the strengths and weaknesses of the firm against the threats and opportunities of the environment, and the strengths and weaknesses were then already related to the firm’s resources and competencies (see Andrews, 1971). From this perspective, it appears exaggerated to offer the position of the "new theory of the firm" to the resource-based view. On the one hand, in addition to features of the traditional theory of the firm it undoubtedly has a weakness familiar to it: a narrow view of competition in the market. Precisely because of this, some elements of Porter’s framework are needed to further supplement this side of the analysis, although his policy of defendable position has proved questionable in the world of rapid changes (Foss, 1996).

The theoretical literature mentions core competence as the only sustainable source of competitive advantage. In spite of this, core competence thinking has not had such a dominant position in business life as it has in strategic management studies, where the field is more fragmented in reality than the position of the resource-based view would lead one to presume (Mintzberg, et al, 1998). After the "economic turn" in strategic studies, there would appear to be some kind of integration in the field, which most proponents of the rational strategic view would no doubt like to further deepen (see Rumelt, 1994). The critics of this turn have found it necessary to defend the pluralist discourse tradition of strategic management studies from the invasion of rationalism and formalism, which are clearly economic by origin (see Hirsch, et al., 1990; Mahoney, 1993).

This defence of eclecticism is backed up by the view that due to the real nature of the management’s strategic work, in addition to the competition waged in the markets, topics of interest always include customers, technology, demography, social psychology, politics, law and so forth, depending on which of these aspects in which circumstances offers possibilities of success or threatens the survival of the firm (see Rumelt, et al, 1991). In other words, the faith of firms is not merely in the hands of competitors in the way assumed by the ideal models of economics, but many other things or parties may affect it, the least of which is not the customers. Due to this, the eclectic elements offering theoretical flexibility have always been an essential and inevitable part of strategic management studies (Foss, 1996).

From the point of view of construing a more holistic and multidisciplinary foundation of thought in the assessment of the competitiveness of the product market brought out in the beginning of this paper, quite a challenging setting follows: on the one hand, strategic management studies in business administration may supplement the somewhat caricatured view of the decision-making situation of the management and the various factors affecting it. On the other hand, its very pluralist and polyphonic basic character complicates the choice of the relevant framework — and opens the door to criticism. However, if the integration of the field of strategic thinking continues due to the economic turn, it alleviates the problem of choosing a framework. This, however, may lead to new disintegration from the genuine decision-making of the management. Apparently, not altogether in vain did de Wit and Meyer (1998) maintain that confronting the inner tensions tensions and paradoxes of strategic management studies is an "ultimate intellectual challenge". Overstatement or not, strategic management studies offer no shortcut for developing the foundation of thought of competitive assessment but they do provide some elements worthy of closer inspection.

Literature

Andrews, Kenneth, R. (1971) The Concept of Corporate Strategy. Irwin: Homewood.

Ansoff, H. Igor (1965) Corporate strategy: An Analytical Approach to Business Policy for Growth and Expansion. McGraw-Hill: New York.

Ansoff, H. Igor (1979) Strategic Management. Macmillan: London.

Barney, Jay, B. (1997) Gaining and sustaining competitive andantage. Prentice Hall: New Jersey.

Barney, Jay, B. (1991) Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Management 1991: 17, 99—120.

Chandler, Alfred, D. Jr. (1962) Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise. M.I.T. Press: Cambridge, Mass.

Clausewitz, Carl von (1832) Vom Kriege. Dummlers Verlag: Berlin.

Collis, David, J. — Montgomery, Cynthia, A. (1999) Competing on Recources: Strategy in the 1990s. In: Harvard Business Review on Corporate Strategy. Harvard Business School Press: Boston.

Cyert, R. M. — March, J. G (1963) Behavioral theory of the firm. Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Dixit, Avinash — Nalebuff, Barry (1991) Thinking Strategically. Wiley: New York.

Foss, Nicolaj, J. (1996) Research in strategy, Economics, and Michael Porter. Journal of Management Studies 1996: 1, 1—24.

Hoopes, D. G. — Madsen, T. L. — Walker, G. (2003) Guest Editors’ Introduction to the Special Issue: Why Is There a Resource-based View? Toward a Theory of Competitive Heterogeneity. Strategic Management Journal 2003: 10, 889—902.

Hofer, Ch. W. — Schendel, D. (1982) Strategy Formulation: Analytical Concepts. St. Paul: West, MN.

Kahaner, Larry (1998) Competitive Intelligence : How to Gather, Analyze, and Use Information to Move Your Business to the Top. Touchstone Books: Carmichael, CA.

Kettunen, Pertti (1997) Iso pyörä kääntyy. Suomalaisen johtamisen erityispiirteitä. WSOY: Juva.

Kieser, Alfred (1997) Rhetoric and Myth in Management Fashion. Organization 1997: 1, 49—74.

Koponen, A. — Okko, P. — Virtanen, M. (2003) Hyödykemarkkinoiden kilpailullisuuden tutkiminen: teoriasta, menetelmistä ja toteuttamisesta. Publications of Turku School of Economics and Business Administration. Series Discussion and reports 1: 2003. Grafia Oy: Turku.

Mahoney, J. T. (1993) Strategic management and determinism: sustaining the conversation. Journal of Management Studies 1993: 30, 173—191.

Makadok, R. (2001) Towards a synthesis of resource-based and dynamic capability views of rent creation. Strategic Management Journal 2001: 5, 387—402.

Mintzberg, Henry (1987) Crafting Strategy. Harvard Business Review 1987: July-August, 66—74.

Mintzberg, Henry (1994) The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning. Prentice-Hall: Hempstead.

Mintzberg, H. — Ahlstrand, B. — Lampel, J. (1998) Strategy safari: a guided tour through the wilds of strategic management. Prentice-Hall: Hemel Hempstead.

Neumann, J. von — Morgenstern, O. (1947) Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour. Princeton University Press: Princeton.

Nonaka, I. — Takeuchi, H. (1995) The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation. Oxford University Press: New York.

Norton, David, P. — Kaplan, Robert, S. (1996) The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action. Harvard Business School Press: Boston, MA.

Näsi, Juha — Aunola, Manu (2002) Strategisen johtamisen teoria ja käytäntö. Technology Industries of Finland Publications 12/2002. Teknologiainfo: Helsinki.

Ohmae, Kenichi (1983) Strateginen ajattelu. WSOY: Juva.

Peteraf, Margaret (1993) The Cornerstones of Competitive Advantage: A Resource-Based View. Strategic Management Journal 1993: 14, 179—191.

Peters, Thomas, J. — Waterman, Robert, H. (1982) In Search of Excellence. Lessons from American Best-Run Companies. Harper & Row: New York.

Pfeffer, Jeffrey (1994) Competitive Advantage through People. Unleashing The Power of The Work Force. Harvard Business School Press: Boston, Mass.

Pirttilä, Anneli (2000) Kilpailijaseuranta. WSOY: Porvoo.

Porter, Michael, E. (1981) The Contributions of Industrial Organization to Strategic Management. Academy of Management Review 1981: 4, 609—620.

Porter, Michael, E. (1980) Competitive Strategy: Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors. Free Press: New York.

Porter, Michael, E. (1985) Competitive advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance. Free Press: New York.

Porter, Michael, E. (1996) What Is Strategy? Harvard Business Review 1996: November-December, 61—78.

Prahalad, C. K — Hamel, Gary (1990) The Core Competence of the Corporation. Harvard Business Review 1990: May-June, 79—91.

Prahalad, C. K. — Hamel, Gary (1994) Competing for the Future. Harvard University Press: Boston.

Rumelt, Richard, P. (1991) How much does industry matter. Strategic Management Journal 1991: 12, 167—185.

Rumelt, R. P. — Schendel, D. — Teece, D. J. (1991) Strategic management and economics. Strategic Management Journal 1991: 12, 5—29.

Rumelt, Richard — Schendel, Dan — Teece, Daniel (1994) Fundamental Issues in Strategy: A Research Agenda. Harvard Business School Press: Boston, MA.

Scherer, F. M. — Ross, D. (1990) Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance. Houghton & Mifflin Company: Boston.

Schoemaker, P. J. (1993) Strategic decisions in organizations: rational and behavioural views. Journal of Management Studies 1993: 30, 107—129.

Simon, Herbert, A. (1947) Administrative behavior: A Study of decision-making process in administrative organization. Free Press: New York.

Wit, Bob de — Meyer, Ron (1998) Strategy. Process, Content, Context. An International Perspective. 2nd edition. International Thomson Business Press: London.


[i] Ari Ahonen is a Head of Research in the FCA’s Monopolies Unit. He is also a docent in Economics, Management and Organisation at the Turku School of Economics and Business Administration.

The Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (FCCA) began operations on 1 January 2013: www.kkv.fi