07 September 2008

Strategic Management Dynamics - Chapter 3 - Resource Accumulation.

This Chapter explains the principle that resources accumulate and deplete (fill and drain, over time) and the deeply fundamental role of this principle as core theory underlying organizations’ performance over time. It describes the 'stock-and-flow' structure that captures, numerically, the behaviour of accumulating resources, explains in detail the implications for numerical analysis of performance. The Chapter shows how this phenomenon relates to the problem of 'causal ambiguity', severely limiting the insights that can be obtained either by correlation analysis or by managerial judgment. It demonstrates how the mechanism operates in marketing (e.g. new-product adoption), human resources (staff hiring and retention) and product development. Connections are made to segmentation, value-chain and asset-stock accumulation concepts in Strategy, and to the criteria normally used to assess the strategic contribution of firm resources.

This chapter includes connections to the following strategy concepts: Value-Curve, Value Chain, asset-stock accumulation and causal ambiguity.

Materials to support Chapter 3 of Strategic Management Dynamics include -

For registered site users:

Worksheets that accompany Strategic Management Dynamics, both in PDF and mystrategy format - Login above or register here

For registered online students:

Class lecture segments 3.0 to 3.3.
Additional exercises based on figures 3.6 and 3.9 from the book, including video demonstrations.

For information on our 10-week online course in Strategy Dynamics see the course information page

For registered Teachers:

PDF slides from the book
Solutions to end of chapter questions.

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Strategic Management Dynamics - Chapter 3 - Resource Accumulation.

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