19-Book Reviews - Business Policy and Strategic Management

8/22/2019 19-Book Reviews - Business Policy and Strategic Management

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Management & Change, Volume 13, Number 1 (2009)

228 Book Reviews

Azhar Kazmi, Business Policy and Strategic Management (Second

Edition). New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited

(7 West Patel Nagar, New Delhi 110008), 2007, xxvi + 619 pp. Rs.

265 paperback.

The book is a blend of a theory of applications of strategic management.

Out of five parts into which the book is structured, part five is devoted

entirely to the case method of learning strategic management. Each part

begins with an introductory comment that clarifies the overall educationalgoals, and relates each successive part with the preceding parts. Each chapter

similarly starts with an introductory paragraph that its states the learning

objectives and the means adopted to achieve them. The reading matter in

each chapter is divided into sections and sub-sections logically connected to

each other. The textual matter is also liberally interspersed with cases and

examples pertaining to strategic management applications. A summary at

the end of each paper recapitulates the major issues covered and can serve

as checklist of the points learnt.

A student can benefit from two sets of questions provided at the end of

each chapter. Short-answer questions are intended for quick review of the

concept discussed in a chapter and these could be used for quizzes and

tests for students' evaluation for the ideas grasped. Discussion/ applications

questions require more detailed answer and include conceptual as well as

applications-oriented issues. These questions may be used for

comprehensive, end-of-term examinations for students' evaluation. Notes

and references at the end provide a list of further reading and comments on

the matter covered in the chapter.

The book divided into five parts. Part I entitled 'Introduction to Business

Policy and Strategic Management' includes two chapters, namely Chapter

1: 'Introduction to Business Policy' and Chapter 2: 'An Overview of Strategic

Management'. In Chapter 1 students can directly relate to the objectives

and see how they stand to benefit by strategic management. In Chapter 2

readers can see how differently the concept of strategy has been analyzed

and understood and how the discipline of strategic management has evolved.

Part II entitled 'Strategic Intent' has six chapters, namely Chapter 3:

'Hierarchy of Strategic Intent', Chapter 4: 'Environmental Appraisal', Chapter

5: 'Organizational Appraisal', Chapter 6: 'Corporate-level Strategies', Chapter

7: 'Business-level Strategies' and Chapter 8: 'Strategic Analysis and Choice'.

Chapter 3 comprehensively deals with the elements of strategic intent: the


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Book Reviews 229

vision, mission business definition, and goals and objectives. Chapter 4 and

5 deal with SWOT analysis that enable organizations to achieve strategic

advantage over their rival companies. Chapter 6 and 7 deal with numerous

corporate and business strategies. Chapter 7 on strategic alternatives

specifically described those strategies that are more commonly used for

Indian companies. Chapter 8 deals with strategic analysis and choice that

facilitate strategy formulation.

Part III entitled 'Strategy Implementation' has four chapters, namely,Chapter 9: 'Activating Strategies', Chapter 10: 'Structural Implementation',

Chapter 11: 'Behavioural Implementation' and Chapter 12: 'Functional and

Operational Implementation'. Chapter 9 to 12 deal with different accepts of

strategic implementation. Chapter 11 dealing with behavioral issues of

implementation addresses factors such as corporate culture, corporate politics

and power, personal values and business ethics, and social responsibility.

These issues are increasingly becoming important as the application of the

behavioral concepts to strategic management gains wider acceptance.

Chapter 12 deals with functional and operational issues of implementation

such as productivity, processes, people and pace. Productivity is the measure

of the relative amount of input needed to secure a given amount of output.

Processes are courses of action used for operational implementation. People

are the stakeholders in the organizations. Pace is the speed of operational

implementation and measured in terms of time.

Part IV entitled 'Strategy Evaluation' consists of a single chapter, namely,

Chapter 13: 'Strategic Evaluation and Control'. Strategy evaluation is

necessary to test effectiveness of strategies in achieving objectives. Through

strategic and operational controls strategists set standards, measure

performance, evaluate the strategy, and then initiate corrective action. The

end result is adjustment of strategies, reformulation of objectives, or adaption

of plans.

Part V entitled 'Case Method and Case Studies' covers two sections,

first section dealing with conceptual foundations of case method under the

title 'Applying Strategic Management through the Case Method' and thesecond section provides details of 20 case studies under the title 'Synopses

of Case Studies'. Each case study ends with a set of pertinent questions.

There are short and long cases: cases from different industries; case based

manufacturing as well as service organizations; and cases that deal with a

limited number of issues to cases that have a wider coverage.


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230 Book Reviews

An annexure included at the end of the book provides some useful

sources of information on Internet regarding business policy and strategic

management. This should prove to be a welcome feature for those learners

who would like to access the net for more information on issues covered in

this book. A bibliography in business policy and strategic management is

provided at the end that should serve as good source of reference material

for learners and researchers in the area.

K.M.Mital, Professor of Strategic Management, General Management

Area, IILM Institute for Higher Education.

VITAL PURSUITS

Welcome every morning with a smile. Look on the new day as anotherspecial gift from your Creator, another golden opportunity to completewhat you were unable to finish yesterday. Be a self starter. Let yourfirst hour set the theme of success and positive action that is certain toecho through your entire day. Today will never happen again. Dont

waste it with a false start or no start at all. You were not born to fail.

- Og Mandino

Dont waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work beforeyou, well assured that the right performance of this hours duties will be

the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.- R.W.Emerson

Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago? Howdid they work out? Did not most of them turn out all right after all?

- Dale Carnegie

I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win than win a cause

that will some day lose.- Woodrow T. Wilson

Source: The Times of India, Sacred Space, New Delhi, October 29,2007 and December 4, 2007


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His passion for clean environment is obvious when he wrote: 'Let theearth and the water, the air and the fruits of my country be sweet (banglarmati, banglar ja) '. In his works one can frequently come across references totapovan (forest hermitage) and in one of his writings he noted: "Our tapovans,which were natural universities, were not isolated from life; and the spiritualeducation, which the students received there was a part of the spiritual lifewhich included all life. Our centre of culture should not only be the centre of

the intellectual life of India but of her economic life as well. Its very existencewould depend on the success of its industrial ventures carried out on the

cooperative principle, which would unite the teachers and students in a livingbond (The Centre of Indian Culture)".

In Sonar Tari (Golden Boat), one of his poetic works, he wrote 'gaganegaraje megh ghanavarsha' (heavy rainclouds clap in the sky); and in Kshanik(For a While) 'My heart dances today like a peacock. My soul and the kadambaflowers blossom together. Rain-clouds wet my eyes with their blue collyrium.'.In Balaka (Flight of Swans) looking at a flight of swans moving over the

J helum, Tagore responded: "When like a scimitar the hill stream sheathedin evening gloom, suddenly a flock of birds passed overhead their laughingwings hurtling like an arrow among the stars. It awakens a passion for

speed among the motionless things, in their bosom the hills leave with theanguish of storm clouds. The trees yearn to break away from their rootedshackles. The flight of the birds had rent the veil of stillness and revealed tome an immense movement in the deep silence. I see the hills and forestsflying across time to the unknown and the darkness thrill into fire as the starswing by. In my being I feel the rush of the sea-crossing birds leaving a waybeyond the limits of life and death, while the migrant word cries out in amyriad voice - not here, not there, but in the bosom of the far-away."

Tagore's love for nature also included children. As a writer he wouldnever forget children. His concern for their need for joy, love and freedom,was genuine. He would often remind children: "Blessed I am that I was bornin this land (sarthak janam amar janmechhiei deshe)".He noted (p.124):

"My real work has been to awaken, in nature's vast playground, the ten-der grace of childhood, its budding effort, the first rays of knowledge fallingacross its horizon. Otherwise I would have been swamped by the trivia ofroutine, statute and syllabus. My happiness, my fulfillment has been in tryingto rouse the young ones to the Delight of the unseen Player, to set them intune with the Dance of Life itself. It is not in me to be more serious than that.

The Master of Games has mercifully released me from the fetters of the

mature and the elder. Those who try to set me on a pedestal I shall tell themthat I was born with my seat below on the lap of the earth. In these trees andforests, the dust, earth and grass, have I poured out my life. T hose who areclose to the spirit of the earth, those who are made and shaped by her, andwho will find their final rest in her, of them all I am the friend. I am a poet, ami

kavi (From the Seventieth Birthday Address)."

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Tagore also expressed tender sentiments of a motherless child sometime during the zenith of his writing career in the following lines:

"I cannot remember my mother, only sometime in the midst of play atune seems to however my playthings, the tune of some song that she usedto hum while rocking the cradle. I cannot remember my mother, but when inthe early autumn morning the smell of the shiuli flower flats in the air, thescent of the morning service in the temple comes to me as the scent of mymother. I cannot remember my mother, only when from the bedroom window

I send my eyes into the blue of the distant sky, I feel that the stillness of mymother's gaze on my face has spread all over the sky."

No account of Tagore's poetry can be complete without a reference to

Gitanjali which has crossed all limits of popularity and every educated In-dian is at least familiar with such widely quoted lines as "where the mind iswithout fear and the head is held high" (p.130).

"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; where knowl-edge is free; where the world has not been broken up into fragments bynarrow domestic walls; where the words come out from the depth of truth;

where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; where theclear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand ofdead habit; where the mind is led forward by thee into ever widening thoughtand action - Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake(Gitanjali)."

A mixed bag, Gitanjali has several compositions including touchingexpression for feelings of separation and parting (p.131)

"When I go from hence let this be my parting word, that what I have seenis unsurpassable. I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus that ex-pands on the ocean of light, and thus am I blessed - let this be my partingword. In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play and here have Icaught sight of Him that is formless. My whole body and my limbs havethrilled with His touch who is beyond touch; and if the end comes here, let itcome - let this be my parting word (Gitanjali)."

Tagore thus had been a great writer, poet and artist par excellencewhose contribution to Indian culture, nature and fine arts has hardly any

parallel. His life will always be source of inspiration for writers and scholars,and for all others who like him might leave 'indelible footprints' on the sands

of time.

- Editor

Source: Ghose, S. (1986) Rabindranath Tagore. New Delhi: SahityaAkademi (Rabindra Bhavan, 35 Ferozeshah Road, New Delhi110001). p.131.

232 Book Reviews

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19-Book Reviews - Business Policy and Strategic Management