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Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos. Shona L. Brown and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1998. 299 pp. $27.95.
It is becoming increasingly clear that we need to develop more dynamic models of strategy (Porter, 1991). A few recent books (D'Aveni, 1994; Hamel and Prahalad, 1994) have proposed frameworks for the development of competitive advantage within industries that experience high levels of instability, but these frameworks have tended to be both somewhat vague in their treatment of strategy and limited in their generalizability across industries. Competing on the Edge is therefore a welcome addition to the field because it complements the earlier books by providing a more specific conceptual framework that could be applied to a relatively broader cross section of industries.
In basic terms, the book argues against the notion of pushing for the best possible strategic fit between elements of environment, strategy, and organization. It suggests that such a push for an optimal fit tends to make firms relatively inflexible, making it harder for them to respond to changes.
Instead, the authors suggest a looser and broader coupling between the key elements, resulting in some form of semicoherent strategic direction for the firm. One of the key ideas in this regard is for firms to focus on the present as the link between the past and the future. In other words, firms should try to keep making themselves over by drawing on their past...