Book Review Of Business Policy And Strategy: An Action Guide

Book Review of Business Policy and Strategy: An Action Guide


        Submitted in partial fulfillment of B.S. in Business Administration

        Century University, New Mexico

        Grade = 95% {A}


        Business Policy and Strategy: An Action Guide, by Robert Murdick, R.

Carl Moor and Richard H. Eckhouse, attempts to tie together the broad policies

and interrelationships that exist among the many functional areas which

undergraduate students typically study.  The authors intend the text to

supplement the typical case book and/or computer simulations used in teaching

business strategy (ix).  Situational analysis is presented, as is a structure

for developing strategy.  Practicality and real world experience is combined

with educational theory to provide as complete a picture as possible of strategy

in business.

        The authors have divided the text into 15 chapters with no further

subdivisions. It is possible, however, to group the chapters into specific areas

of study.  For example, the first chapter, "Business Failure -- Business

Success," examines why businesses fail, and provides the reason for continuing

with the remainder of the text.  The next two chapters focus on the "field of

action," including the business environment and the business system.  The fourth

and fifth chapters introduce strategic management (chapter 4) and the struggle

not only to survive, but to prosper using strategic management (chapter 5).

Chapters Six through Nine address specific functional areas (marketing,

accounting/finance, production, and engineering/research and development).

Chapters 10 and 11 introduce the reader to the problems of managing human

resources (chapter 10) and data processing resources (chapter 11).  The last

four chapters discuss the issues involved with analyzing business situations.

Multinational business analysis is the subject of chapter 12, while chapter 13

turns the reader's attention to how to conduct an industry study.  Chapters 14

and 15 focus on how to analyze a case and illustrations of case analysis,

respectively.  The text concludes with an appendix of symbols used by those who

evaluate reports and a general index to topics within the book. The authors make

good and frequent use of charts, graphs, forms and other graphic techniques to

illustrate their points.  Each chapter concludes with a selected bibliography

that the student may use for additional research.  The book is printed entirely

in black ink; the use of color for key concepts would have enhanced the book's

value as a teaching text.  Visually, the book is crowded without much white

space for readers to make notes.  Key concepts could also have been separated

from supporting text in a more clear manner.  While each chapter has a summary,

they do not have an introduction or a listing of key words of concepts that the

student should learn as a result of studying each chapter.  Such aids would make

the book more valuable and enhance the learning experience of readers. Chapter 1

examines why some businesses fail and why others succeed.  The first sentence in

the book states exactly where the authors stand on the issue: "Businesses fail

because managers fail" (1).  The authors present a chart that illustrates how

businesses large and small can both have "relatively short successful life

spans" (1) Reasons for the ultimate failure are presented in this chart, and the

authors go into greater detail in the text. Fundamentally, the authors find that

managers in business are unable to determine what action to take, or are unable

to implement the necessary action once they have  identified it.  The reasons

for these shortcomings are many, but the authors find that managers may be

unable to differentiate between problems and symptoms.  To help their readers

overcome this problem and successfully manage one or more businesses, Murdick,

Moor and Eckhouse identify five points that they address in the remaining 14

chapters. One, they present the field of action i
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