Levers of Control

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

This book provides a new, comprehensive theory for controlling business strategy. Over the past two decades, management theorists and economists have devoted a great deal of energy to understanding strategy formation in competitive markets. They have developed techniques for analyzing the relative economic advantage of differentiated product and service offerings, but they have paid relatively little attention to understanding how to implement and control strategies. Yet the best-laid plans are worthless unless business managers understand the tools and techniques of strategy implementation.

Notwithstanding recent advances in theories of organization and strategy, the tenor of management control reaches back to the 1960s. ...