The Fundamental Elements of Strategy

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxviii

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2. Introduction: What Goes Wrong in Our Understanding of the Strategy Concept?

   • Xiu-bao Yu

   Pages 1-5Open Access

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3. Why Are There Over 90 Definitions of the Strategy Concept?

   • Xiu-bao Yu

   Pages 7-27Open Access

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4. Fundamental Elements of the Strategy Concept

   • Xiu-bao Yu

   Pages 29-44Open Access

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5. What Is an Organizational Strategic Decision?

   • Xiu-bao Yu

   Pages 45-59Open Access

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6. Tactics and the Three Elements of Strategy

   • Xiu-bao Yu

   Pages 61-76Open Access

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7. Firms Strategies and Their Three Elements

   • Xiu-bao Yu

   Pages 77-100Open Access

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8. Strategic Decision Biases and Decision Making Principles

   • Xiu-bao Yu

   Pages 101-119Open Access

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9. Knowing Yourself and Knowing the Others

   • Xiu-bao Yu

   Pages 121-139Open Access

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10. Evaluation of Strategy Based on the Three Elements

    • Xiu-bao Yu

    Pages 141-160Open Access

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11. Implications for Future Research

    • Xiu-bao Yu

    Pages 161-189Open Access

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12. Back Matter

    Pages 191-193

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This open access book clarifies confusions of strategy that have existed for nearly 40 years through the core thoughts of three fundamental elements. Unlike the traditional definition of strategy as "a plan to achieve a long-term goal from overall considerations”in a linear view, this book defines strategy from non-linear viewpoint as it is in the real world. The art of a strategy lies not only in the determination of development goals, but also in the identification of development problems and putting forward overall guiding ideology of solving problems. Rich illustrations  as well as numerous business and military cases are presented in helping readers to understand the fundamental elements of strategy.
The general scope of the book includes introductions to the three fundamental elements of strategy, three-sub decisions of a complete strategic decision, incomplete strategies, relationship between tactic and strategy, three elements of competitive and corporativestrategies. There may be biases in company-level, real strategic decision-making which makes a complete strategy not necessarily a perfect one. The book introduces biases and reasons for the biases, helping industrial strategic decision-makers understand the importance of knowing the nature of the company, the industry and its environment. In addition, this book also presents principles and evaluation approaches of strategic decisions,  explores the reasons for the excessive definitions of the strategy concept, and discusses directions of future’s research tasks.
The book will benefit business managers who are interested in knowing what a complete strategic decision is and how to avoid errors or biases in strategic decision-making. It also benefits students in business schools (especially in MBA/EMBA programs) who are (or will be) on executive positions. Academic researchers may find it is interesting to understand strategy from the view of the three elements. The new view provides a novel insight into strategy and promotes several research directions in the future. The three elements of strategy are also applicable to military strategies and readers who are interested in military and may find its value as well.

• business strategy
• competitive strategy
• strategic decision
• tactics and strategy
• evaluation of strategy
• assessment of strategy
• future of strategy study
• China's cases in management
• open access

• School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

  Xiu-bao Yu

X.B. (Vicky) Yu received a BS and MS in Mining Engineering from China University of Mining and Technology, and a PhD from University of Queensland (Australia). Dr. Yu served on the faculty of Shandong University of Science and Technology for six years. Late she spent 4 years in Australia where she did her PhD at UQ. She currently is an associate professor of Strategic Management in the School of Economics and Management (SEM) at Tongji University, Shanghai, China. In 2007, she was honored with the “Shanghai Municipal Award for Bringing up Talents (Shanghai Yucai Award)” for her outstanding commitment to teaching. In 2015, her strategy course received the Award of “Shanghai Municipal Demonstrative English Course for Colleges and Universities”. She had been on positons of the assistant to the SEM school dean and DBA program director at Tongji University for eight years.
Her areas of specialization are business strategy, and industrial safety management. She has done extensive consulting for companies in China including several state firms. She severed as National Review expert of Firm Safety Culture in China for two terms. In addition to publishing over 25 articles on academic journals, she has authored and co-authored two books and one textbook.Dr. Yu and her husband are close to 60 years old and have one son. 

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