The Financial Times Guide to Strategy: How to Create and Deliver a Winning Strategy, Third Edition

Chapter 2. A brief history of strategy

The study of strategy and the development of the micro-economic intellectual foundations of strategic thinking can be traced back at least to Alfred CHANDLER (b. 1918), who was active and influential from the late 1950s. His 1962 book, Strategy and Structure, said that corporations should develop their strategy before deciding their structure. He defined strategy as the setting of long-term goals and objectives, the determination of courses of action, and the allocation of resources to achieve the objectives. Arguably, the roots of strategy go back much further, for example to Alfred SLOAN’s reorganisation of General Motors in 1921 (though this was documented only in My Years With General Motors, not published ...