Making Strategy and Organization Compatible

CLAUDE MICHAUD is Professor of Economics at INSEAD, and Director General of CEDEP at Fontainebleau, France. He is a leading expert in designing management programmes for executive education. He and Jean-Claude Thoenig cover issues such as how companies may sustain development in hyper-competitive economies, and how headquarters as well as their CEOs should govern firms that are structured around business units. JEAN-CLAUDE THOENIG is Professor of Sociology of Organizations and former dean at INSEAD, Fontainebleau. He is also Senior Research Fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (GAPP-Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan), France. He is a co-founder and the first chairperson of EGOS, the European Group for Organizational Studies, and has long term consulting relationships with multinational companies.

• Preface In Praise of Complexity Building Bridges Between Management and Strategy The Organizational System Cognition as a Major Asset of the Firm AGRO: A Company in Transition Managerial Fine-Tuning The Role of General Management Cosmorphar, or Excellence in Tacit Accumulation Where Management and Strategy Strengthen One Another Appendices

'This important book is a required reading for those who want to understand and master the complexity of the 21st century enterprise. It offers a new perspective, based on sound theories, of what good management is and of what managers should do in their complex environment. Autonomization, cross-fertilization, risk-taking, networking, improvisation and sense-making are the new motto of the complex enterprise that Michaud and Thoenig present in their groundbreaking new work. A must read for business leaders and scholars.' - Professor Raymond-Alain Thietart, University of Paris-Dauphine and Esse;, Fellow of the Academy of Management; President of the International Association of Strategic Management; Former Senior Editor of 'Organization Science' 'Michaud and Thoenig offer a landmark book. No recipes, no ready-made kits, no over-simplified message. It underlines that the function of the executive has also to be that of a cognitive architect. The book shows with real life cases how those companies that make a difference are like sophisticated machines, and that it is today's complexity, never stable and always evolving, which is the main driver of performance...Read this book! Because you'll see your competitors - and your own company - in a new light.' - Henri Lagarde, Chairman and CEO, Royal Canin 'A refreshing book which forces the reader to re-think strategy by interrogating the problems and paradoxes which emerge when strategy meets organization. The analysis is well-grounded in the Social Sciences, yet remains an invaluable input for those who practice strategy in organizations.' - Professor David C. Wilson, Warwick Business School, UK; Editor of 'Organization Studies' 'This book covers key issues any executive faces. How to make a company succeed in the short term without being the prisoner of ready-made recipes? How to build common identities in today's companies? How to build organizational and cognitive excellence as competitive assets? A book I consider as a major event in modern management.' - Igor Landau, Chairman of the Management Board, Aventis