Strategic Groups, Strategic Moves and Performance

John J. Quinn This book is a collection of papers addressing three broad questions arising from the notion of strategic groups. The first question addressed is, what defines a strategic group? A number of papers deal with conceptual aspects of this question which are then admirably exemplified in Competitive Groups as Cognitive Communities: The Case of Scottish Knitwear Manufacturers, THOMAS PORAC and BADEN-FULLER... The second question...The final question addressed is whether there is a relationship between strategic group membership and performance... The answer is an overwhelming not proven...however, it is pointed out that this does not mean that the concept of strategic groups would not be useful. The argument is that one strategic group is not necessarily better than another, just different; but the strategic group with which the firm is associated would still provide the comparative frame-work for the manager to evaluate his own firm's performance and processes... Overall this is an academic book but with several well written cases that will appeal to a wider audience. Long Range Planning D.E. Hussey This is the first volume of a second series of The Best of Long Range Planning (the first ran to 12 volumes). There is a real improvement in format...the publishers are using a book-sized format which offers more utility to the reader. They fit easily into a bookshelf, and this volume contains an index to the selection from the back issues of the journal... For those who do not regularly read the journal, the book offers high quality, fairly recent articles, written by high-calibre authors, that they might otherwise never have seen and which should provoke thought about the management of strategy and change. Journal of Strategic Change

• Chapter headings: Models of Competition. Strategic Moves. Strategic Groups and Performance.