I want it to be rigorous but something that they can read and understand. The Dess, Lumpkin, and Eisner text I am currently using is exactly what I like and, more importantly, what my students need and like.

As organizational and leadership development consultants, we are always looking for great tools, case studies, and examples to better deliver core strategy concepts to our clients. Not only does DLE Strategic Management provide us with that, it is almost a one-stop shop in this regard. The book has a comprehensive conceptual model with timely, relevant, and well-researched examples and cases. We have found it to be of conceptual as well as practical use and highly recommend it to consultants and leaders alike.

What's New? Highlights of the Fifth Edition

• All of the 12 opening "Learning from Mistakes" that lead off each chapter are totally new. Unique to this text, these vignettes are all examples of what can go wrong, and they serve as an excellent vehicle for clarifying and reinforcing strategy concepts. After all, what can be learned when one simply admires perfection?
• We have increased the number of "Strategy Spotlights"(sidebar examples) from 90 to 116. About half of these are brand new to this edition and many of the others have been carefully updated. We were able to add more and still save some space by focusing on bringing important strategy concepts to life.
• We have added 14 more exhibits to the text. This, along with the two four-color pictures in each chapter (a feature that we added with the fourth edition), aids learning and improves visual appeal. To further enhance readability and impact, we work hard to write short paragraphs and provide many indented examples throughout the book.
• "Crowdsourcing" is a new theme throughout the book. It originated with the open source movement, a community of developers working together to create alternatives to Microsoft’s products. However, it has expanded in recent years to include many approaches in which a wide range of businesses are enlisting the masses to solve problems, suggest new products, provide feedback, and enhance demand for products and services. After introducing this theme in Chapter 1, we provide seven "Strategy Spotlights" where firms are effectively using this innovative process. For example, in Chapter 2, we discuss how Virgin Mobile USA used it for everything from designing phones to coming up with names for service plans. Chapter 3 mentions how Cookshack, a small producer of ovens for barbecue and smoked foods, used crowdsourcing to, in effect, turn its customers into its customer service department! And, in Chapter 10, we explain how Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical giant, launched Innocentive—the first online, incentive-based scientific network for the global research and development community.
• Our discussion of environmental sustainability has been extended throughout the text. As noted by Daniel Esty and Andrew Winston in their award-winning book Green to Gold " Environmental leaders see their businesses through an environmental lens, finding opportunities to cut costs, reduce risk, and enhance intangible value. They build deeper connections with customers, employees, and other stakeholders" * Given the salience of environmental sustainability in today's global economy, we discuss this issue throughout the text—including eight “Strategy Spotlights.” For example, in Chapter 1, we explain how Shaw Industries, an industrial flooring producer, used its recycling efforts to both reduce its costs and eliminate its need for PVC plastic— a potentially toxic substance. Chapter 4 discusses how “going green” helps attract talent, and Chapter 8 explains how “eco-entrepreneurs” have recycled milk jugs, tires, and jars to create playground equipment, garage flooring, and glass awards, respectively! To provide some balance on this topic, we also discuss how some energy companies have been accused of “greenwashing” (that is, making unsubstantiated claims about how environmentally friendly a firm’s products are) in their sustainability programs.

Key content changes for the chapters include:

• Chapter 1 introduces the concept of “crowdsourcing”, which, as noted above, becomes a theme throughout the text. This innovative approach to open sourcing has provided a wide variety of businesses with a new source for products, ideas, and many value-adding activities. We also illustrate the complexities inherent in the stakeholder concept by addressing the many conflicting demands faced by the world’s largest retailer - Wal-Mart.
• Chapter 1 provides a summary of the worldwide financial crisis that intensified in 2008 and 2009. We address not only some of the root causes but also how it has dramatically affected many industries, such as automobiles, dining, retail, and technology.
• Chapter 2 addresses some recent insights from Michael Porter on the effective use of the five-forces model of industry profitability. In our previous editions, we discussed caveats in performing an industry analysis, such as how some firms have prospered in low-profit industries, the detrimental effects of exploiting buyer power, and the salient role of complementors in industry analysis. Now, we include Porter’s new perspectives on the importance of understanding the structural underpinnings of profitability, such as an awareness of time horizons and the value of quantitative factors in performing an in-depth analysis.
• Chapter 3 discusses how businesses can use blogs and social networking sites to enhance their reputation—or how such sites can erode key stakeholders’ perceptions. Comcast, for example, was badly hurt when an angry customer put a video on YouTube of a technician who fell asleep on his couch! However, on the bright side, firms like Southwest Airlines, Whole Foods, and the shoe store Zappos have effectively used social messaging services.
• Chapter 5 extends our discussion of the industry life cycle concept by explaining why old technologies don't just fade away. Using examples as diverse as mainframes, carburetors, and coronary bypass surgery, three approaches are suggested: retreating to more defensible ground, using the new to improve the old, and improving the price-performance trade-off.
• Chapter 6 draws on the stakeholder concept to show how antitakeover measures may benefit stakeholders other than management. Antitakeover defenses, such as poison pills, typically are viewed as simply measures to entrench and protect management. However, this is not always the case. We discuss how such defenses can also serve to protect employees, the community at large, and customers.
• Chapter 7 addresses an important rationale for international expansion —taking advantage of arbitrage opportunities. Simply put, arbitrage involves buying something where it is cheap and selling it where it commands a higher price. It can be applied to almost any factor of production and every stage of the value chain.
• Chapter 8 (Entrepreneurial Strategy and Competitive Dynamics) has been reconfigured to include a section on competitive dynamics that addresses the cycle of actions and responses that are initiated when a new player enters a competitive marketplace. This is a hot issue in strategy and has important implications for competitive advantage—the core topic of our book. We address competitive dynamics for such rivals as Facebook and MySpace, as well as AMD and Intel (chip makers). The first part of the chapter draws on materials that were previously part of Chapter 13 on creating new ventures.
• Chapter 9 extends our discussion of corporate governance in the international context. Here, we discuss “multilatinas,” which have pursued a strategy of regional and international expansion. We address some of the governance and transparency issues that Latin-owned companies need to improve upon in order to ensure access to international capital markets.
• Chapter 11 introduces the idea of integrative thinking developed in Roger Martin’s book The Opposable Mind. Leaders are often faced with decision alternatives that pose difficult dilemmas. The best leaders are those who avoid thinking in terms of either-or trade-offs. Instead, they seek out creative solutions that synthesize opposing perspectives.
• Chapter 12 draws on Christensen's work on innovation. We distinguish between sustaining innovations that energize markets by, for example, extending sales and disruptive innovations that overturn markets by providing new approaches to meeting customer needs. In rapidly changing environments, it is vital to understand how to manage different types of innovative activity.
• Chapter 13 updates our Appendix: Sources of Company and Industry Information. We appreciate the contributions of Ruthie Brock and Carol Byrne in providing this comprehensive information. It is organized to cover a range of issues, such as competitive intelligence, annual report collections, company rankings, business websites, and strategic and competitive analysis. It should be invaluable in analyzing companies and industries.
• Alan Eisner, our case author, has worked hard to further enhance our excellent case package. These include:

• 26 author-written cases (much more than our competition).
• Updating our users’ favorite cases (based on extensive market feedback) with new information and data to minimize instructor preparation time and maximize freshness.
• 9 new cases and significant updates on 21 cases, including Southwest Airlines, JetBlue, General Motors, Ford, Apple, eBay, and many others.
• Providing an excellent mix of tried-and-true classics as well as shorter favorites from Harvard.
• A major focus on fresh and current cases about familiar firms.
• Cases of varying lengths to best fit instructor needs.
• Many videos to match the cases.

What Remains the Same: Key Features from Earlier Editions

• Traditional organizing framework with three other chapters on timely topics. Crisply written chapters cover all of the strategy bases and address contemporary topics. First, the chapters are divided logically into the traditional sequence: strategy analysis, strategy formulation, and strategy implementation. Second, we include three chapters on such timely topics as intellectual capital/knowledge management, entrepreneurial strategy and competitive dynamics, and fostering corporate entrepreneurship and new ventures.
• “Learning from Mistakes” chapter-opening cases. To enhance student interest, we begin each chapter with a case that depicts an organization that has suffered a dramatic performance drop, or outright failure, by failing to adhere to sound strategic management concepts and principles. We believe that this feature serves to underpin the value of the concepts in the course and that it is a preferred teaching approach to merely providing examples of outstanding companies that always seem to get it right! After all, isn’t it better (and more challenging) to diagnose problems than admire perfection? As Dartmouth’s Sydney Finkelstein, author of Why Smart Executives Fail, notes: “We live in a world where success is revered, and failure is quickly pushed to the side. However, some of the greatest opportunities to learn—both for individuals and organizations—come from studying what goes wrong.” * We’ll see how, for example, Motorola failed to keep up with customer expectations in the Chinese mobile-phone market and saw its market share sharply erode, how Michelin’s PAX “run-flat” tire failed because they didn’t create a differentiation advantage that justified the premium price, and how Richard Fuld’s toxic leadership played a key role in Lehman Brothers’ demise. BusinessWeek named Fuld one of the worst managers of 2008 and claimed that he “drove his people hard and ignored warning signs, rewarding risk and greed.”
• Consistent chapter format and features to reinforce learning. We have included several features in each chapter to add value and create an enhanced learning experience. First, each chapter begins with an overview and a set of bullets pointing to key learning objectives. Second, as previously noted, the opening case describes a situation in which a company’s performance eroded because of a lack of proper application of strategy concepts. Third, at the end of each chapter there are four different types of questions/exercises that should help students assess their understanding and application of material:
  1. Summary review questions.
  2. Experiential exercises.
  3. Application questions and exercises.
  4. Ethics questions.
  Given the emergence of the Internet and e-commerce, each chapter contains at least one exercise that involves the use of the Internet.

• “Reflecting on Career Implications” for each chapter. This feature—at the end of each chapter—will help instructors drive home the immediate relevance/value of strategy concepts. It focuses on how an understanding of key concepts helps business students early in their careers.
• Key Terms. Approximately a dozen key terms for each chapter are identified in the margins of the pages. This addition was made in response to reviewer feedback and improves students’ understanding of core strategy concepts.
• Clear articulation and illustration of key concepts. Key strategy concepts are introduced in a clear and concise manner and are followed by timely and interesting examples from business practice. Such concepts include value-chain analysis, the resource-based view of the firm, Porter’s five-forces model, competitive advantage, & boundaryless organizational designs, digital strategies, corporate governance, ethics, and entrepreneurship.
• Extensive use of sidebars. We include 116 sidebars (or about nine per chapter) called “Strategy Spotlights.” The Strategy Spotlights not only illustrate key points but also increase the readability and excitement of new strategy concepts.
• Integrative themes. The text provides a solid grounding in ethics, globalization, and technology. These topics are central themes throughout the book and form the basis for many of the Strategy Spotlights.
• Implications of concepts for small businesses. Many of the key concepts are applied to start-up firms and smaller businesses, which is particularly important since many students have professional plans to work in such firms.
• Not just a textbook but an entire package. Strategic Management features the best chapter teaching notes available today. Rather than merely summarizing the key points in each chapter, we focus on value-added material to enhance the teaching (and learning) experience. Each chapter includes dozens of questions to spur discussion, teaching tips, in-class group exercises, and about a dozen detailed examples from business practice to provide further illustrations of key concepts.
• Excellent set of cases. We have selected an outstanding collection of current and classic cases for this edition, carefully including a wide variety of cases matched to key strategic concepts and organized to create maximum flexibility. We have a balance of short, concise and longer, comprehensive cases. At the same time, we maintain currency and name recognition of our cases with many new and updated classroom-tested cases. We have also updated many of the favorites from the fourth edition such as Southwest Airlines, JetBlue Airways, World Wrestling Entertainment, Ann Taylor, Apple, eBay in Asia, Nintendo, and many others to further engage students. New cases include: Jamba Juice, Geely Automotive, Lenovo, Build-A-Bear Workshop, Mattel, and Weight Watchers. We are once again pleased to include several cases from The Harvard Business School and The Harvard Business Review, including Crown Cork & Seal and Automation Consulting.

Student Support Materials

• Online Learning Center (OLC). The following resources are available to students via the publisher's OLC at www.mhhe.com/dess5e:
  Chapter quizzes students can take to gauge their understanding of material covered in each chapter
  • A selection of PowerPoint slides for each chapter.
  • Links to strategy simulations the Business Strategy Game & GLO-BUS. Both provide a powerful and constructive way of connecting students to the subject matter of the course with a competition among classmates on campus and around the world.

Instructor Support Materials

• Instructor’s Manual (IM). Prepared by the textbook authors, the accompanying IM contains summary/objectives, lecture/discussion outlines, discussion questions, extra examples not included in the text, teaching tips, reflecting on career implications, experiential exercises, and more.
• Test Bank. Prepared by the authors, the test bank contains more than 1,000 true/false, multiple-choice, and essay questions. It has now been tagged with learning objectives as well as Bloom's Taxonomy and AACSB criteria. Assurance of Learning Ready. Assurance of Learning is an important element of many accreditation standards. Dess 5e is designed specifically to support your Assurance of Learning initiatives. Each chapter in the book begins with a list of numbered learning objectives that appear throughout the chapter, as well as in the end-of-chapter questions and exercises. Every test bank question is also linked to one of these objectives, in addition to level of difficulty, topic area, Bloom’s Taxonomy level, and AACSB skill area. EZ Test, McGraw-Hill’s easy-to-use test bank software, can search the test bank by these and other categories, providing an engine for targeted Assurance of Learning analysis and assessment.
  AACSB Statement. The McGraw-Hill Companies is a proud corporate member of AACSB International. Understanding the importance and value of AACSB accreditation, Dess 5e has sought to recognize the curricula guidelines detailed in the AACSB standards for business accreditation by connecting selected questions in Dess 5e and the test bank to the general knowledge and skill guidelines found in the AACSB standards. The statements contained in Dess 5e are provided only as a guide for the users of this text. The AACSB leaves content coverage and assessment within the purview of individual schools, the mission of the school, and the faculty. While Dess 5e and the teaching package make no claim of any specific AACSB qualification or evaluation, we have labeled selected questions within Dess 5e according to the six general knowledge and skills areas.
  Computerized Test Bank Online. A comprehensive bank of test questions is provided within a computerized test bank powered by McGraw-Hill’s flexible electronic testing program, EZ Test Online ( www.eztestonline.com ). EZ Test Online allows you to create paper and online tests or quizzes in this easy-to-use program! Imagine being able to create and access your test or quiz anywhere, at any time without installing the testing software. Now, with EZ Test Online, instructors can select questions from multiple McGraw-Hill test banks or author their own, and then either print the test for paper distribution or give it online.

• PowerPoint Presentation. Prepared by Brad Cox of Midlands Tech, it consists of more than 400 slides incorporating an outline for the chapters tied to learning objectives. Also included are multiple-choice questions that can be used as Classroom Performance System (CPS) questions as well as additional examples outside of the text to promote class discussion. Case Study PowerPoint slides are available to facilitate case study coverage.
• Instructor’s Resource CD-ROM. All instructor supplements are available in this one-stop multimedia resource, which includes the Instructor’s Manual, Test Bank, PowerPoint Presentations, and Case Study Teaching Notes.
• Case Videos. A set of videos related to selected cases accompanies the text to support your classroom, student lab, or for home viewing. These thought-provoking video clips are available upon adoption of this text.
• Online Learning Center (OLC). The instructor section of www.mhhe.com/dess5e also includes the Instructor's Manual, PowerPoint Presentations, Interactive Case Grid, and Case Study Teaching Notes as well as additional resources.
• The Business Strategy Game and GLO-BUS Online Simulations. Both allow teams of students to manage companies in a head-to-head contest for global market leadership. These simulations give students the immediate opportunity to experiment with various strategy options and to gain proficiency in applying the concepts and tools they have been reading about in the chapters. To find out more or to register, please visit www.mhhe.com/thompsonsims.

Additional Resources

• McGraw-Hill/Primis Custom Publishing. You can customize this text. McGraw-Hill/Primis Online’s digital database offers you the flexibility to customize your course, including material from the largest online collection of textbooks, readings, and cases. Primis leads the way in customized eBooks with hundreds of titles available at prices that save your students over 20 percent off bookstore prices. For more information, please visit www.primisonline.com/dess or call 800-228-0634.
• BusinessWeek subscription. Students can subscribe to BusinessWeek for a special rate in addition to the price of the text. Students will receive a passcode card shrink-wrapped with their new text. The card directs students to a Web site where they enter the code and then gain access to BusinessWeek’s registration page to enter their address information and set up their print and online subscription. Please ask your McGraw-Hill/Irwin representative for more information.