From Resource Allocation to Strategy

Joseph L. Bower is a Professor in the General Management unit at Harvard Business School. Professor Bower is a leading expert in the fields of corporate strategy, organization, and public policy, and has devoted his research and teaching to the problems top managements face as they deal with the rapidly changing political economy and competitive circumstances of the contemporary world economy, as well as publishing many books and articles on these issues. Clark G. Gilbert is an Assistant Professor in the Entrepreneurial Management unit at the Harvard Business School. He teaches the Entrepreneurial Manager Course in the first year of the MBA program and has served as the co-director of faculty recruiting for his unit. Professor Gilbert's research focuses on corporate innovation and the challenges of entrepreneurship in large, established firms. Prior to joining Harvard Business School, Professor Gilbert worked as a consultant at the Monitor Group. Today he consults widely to the media, healthcare, and technology industries.

SECTION I: INTRODUCTION TO THE RESOURCE ALLOCATION PROCESS ; 1. Linking Resource Allocation to Strategy ; 2. Modeling the Resource Allocation Process ; 3. The Role of Strategy Making in Organizational Evolution ; 4. Anomaly-Seeking Research: Thirty Years of Theory Development ; SECTION II: WHEN THE BOTTOM-UP PROCESS FAILS ; 5. When the Bottom-up Resource Allocation Process Fails ; 6. Customer Power, Strategic Investment, and the Failure of Leading Firms ; 7. No Exit: The Failure of Bottom-up Strategic Processes and the Role of Top-down Disinvestment ; 8. The Process of International Expansion: Comparing Established Firms and Entrepreneurial Start-ups ; SECTION III: RESTORING THE BOTTOM-UP PROCESS ; 9. Restoring the Bottom-up Process of Resource Allocation ; 10. Strategy Making as an Iterated Process of Resource Allocation ; 11. Resource vs. Routine Rigidity: Toward an Interpretive Model of Response to Discontinuous Change ; SECTION IV: THE NEED FOR TOP-DOWN INTERVENTION ; 12. Corporate Intervention in Resource Allocation ; 13. The Entrepreneurial M-Form: A Case Study of Strategic Integration in a Global Media Company ; 14. Strategic Flexibility: The Value of Corporate-level Real Options as a Response to Uncertainty in the Pursuit of Strategic Integration ; 15. Resource Allocation Process in Multidimensional Organizations: MNCs and Alliances ; SECTION V: OUTSIDE COMMENTARIES ON THE RAP PERSPECTIVE ; 16. Resource Allocation, Strategy, and Organization: An Economist's Thoughts ; 17. Comments on the Resource Allocation Process ; 18. Research Complementarities: A Resource-Based View of the Resource Allocation Process Model (and Visa Versa) ; 19. CEO as Change Agent? ; SECTION VI: CONCLUSION ; 20. A Revised Model of the Resource Allocation Process