228 Book Reviews
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Azhar Kazmi, Business Policy and Strategic Management (Second Edition). New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited (7 West Patel Nagar, New Delhi 110008), 2007, xxvi + 619 pp. Rs. 265 paperback. The book is a blend of a theory of applications of strategic management. Out of five parts into which the book is structured, part five is devoted entirely to the case method of learning strategic management. Each part begins with an introductory comment that clarifies the overall educational goals, and relates each successive part with the preceding parts. Each chapter similarly starts with an introductory paragraph that its states the learning objectives and the means adopted to achieve them. The reading matter in each chapter is divided into sections and sub-sections logically connected to each other. The textual matter is also liberally interspersed with cases and examples pertaining to strategic management applications. A summary at the end of each paper recapitulates the major issues covered and can serve as checklist of the points learnt. A student can benefit from two sets of questions provided at the end of each chapter. Short-answer questions are intended for quick review of the concept discussed in a chapter and these could be used for quizzes and tests for students' evaluation for the ideas grasped. Discussion/ applications questions require more detailed answer and include conceptual as well as applications-oriented issues. These questions may be used for comprehensive, end-of-term examinations for students' evaluation. Notes and references at the end provide a list of further reading and comments on the matter covered in the chapter. The book divided into five parts. Part I entitled 'Introduction to Business Policy and Strategic Management' includes two chapters, namely Chapter 1: 'Introduction to Business Policy' and Chapter 2: 'An Overview of Strategic Management'. In Chapter 1 students can directly relate to the objectives and see how they stand to benefit by strategic management. In Chapter 2 readers can see how differently the concept of strategy has been analyzed and understood and how the discipline of strategic management has evolved. Part II entitled 'Strategic Intent' has six chapters, namely Chapter 3: 'Hierarchy of Strategic Intent', Chapter 4: 'Environmental Appraisal', Chapter 5: 'Organizational Appraisal', Chapter 6: 'Corporate-level Strategies', Chapter 7: 'Business-level Strategies' and Chapter 8: 'Strategic Analysis and Choice'. Chapter 3 comprehensively deals with the elements of strategic intent: the Management & Change, Volume 13, Number 1 (2009)
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vision, mission business definition, and goals and objectives. Chapter 4 and 5 deal with SWOT analysis that enable organizations to achieve strategic advantage over their rival companies. Chapter 6 and 7 deal with numerous corporate and business strategies. Chapter 7 on strategic alternatives specifically described those strategies that are more commonly used for Indian companies. Chapter 8 deals with strategic analysis and choice that facilitate strategy formulation. Part III entitled 'Strategy Implementation' has four chapters, namely, Chapter 9: 'Activating Strategies', Chapter 10: 'Structural Implementation', Chapter 11: 'Behavioural Implementation' and Chapter 12: 'Functional and Operational Implementation'. Chapter 9 to 12 deal with different accepts of strategic implementation. Chapter 11 dealing with behavioral issues of implementation addresses factors such as corporate culture, corporate politics and power, personal values and business ethics, and social responsibility. These issues are increasingly becoming important as the application of the behavioral concepts to strategic management gains wider acceptance. Chapter 12 deals with functional and operational issues of implementation such as productivity, processes, people and pace. Productivity is the measure of the relative amount of input needed to secure a given amount of output. Processes are courses of action used for operational implementation. People are the stakeholders in the organizations. Pace is the speed of operational implementation and measured in terms of time. Part IV entitled 'Strategy Evaluation' consists of a single chapter, namely, Chapter 13: 'Strategic Evaluation and Control'. Strategy evaluation is necessary to test effectiveness of strategies in achieving objectives. Through strategic and operational controls strategists set standards, measure performance, evaluate the strategy, and then initiate corrective action. The end result is adjustment of strategies, reformulation of objectives, or adaption of plans. Part V entitled 'Case Method and Case Studies' covers two sections, first section dealing with conceptual foundations of case method under the title 'Applying Strategic Management through the Case Method' and the second section provides details of 20 case studies under the title 'Synopses of Case Studies'. Each case study ends with a set of pertinent questions. There are short and long cases: cases from different industries; case based manufacturing as well as service organizations; and cases that deal with a limited number of issues to cases that have a wider coverage. Management & Change, Volume 13, Number 1 (2009)
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An annexure included at the end of the book provides some useful sources of information on Internet regarding business policy and strategic management. This should prove to be a welcome feature for those learners who would like to access the net for more information on issues covered in this book. A bibliography in business policy and strategic management is provided at the end that should serve as good source of reference material for learners and researchers in the area.
K.M.Mital, Professor of Strategic Management, General Management Area, IILM Institute for Higher Education.
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VITAL PURSUITS Welcome every morning with a smile. Look on the new day as another special gift from your Creator, another golden opportunity to complete what you were unable to finish yesterday. Be a self starter. Let your first hour set the theme of success and positive action that is certain to echo through your entire day. Today will never happen again. Don’t waste it with a false start or no start at all. You were not born to fail. - Og Mandino Don’t waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour’s duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it. - R.W.Emerson Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago? How did they work out? Did not most of them turn out all right after all? - Dale Carnegie I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win than win a cause that will some day lose. - Woodrow T. Wilson
Source: The Times of India, Sacred Space, New Delhi, October 29, 2007 and December 4, 2007
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His passion for clean environment is obvious when he wrote: 'Let the earth and the water, the air and the fruits of my country be sweet (banglar mati, banglar ja) '. In his works one can frequently come across references to tapovan (forest hermitage) and in one of his writings he noted: 'Our tapovans, which were natural universities, were not isolated from life; and the spiritual education, which the students received there was a part of the spiritual life which included all life. Our centre of culture should not only be the centre of the intellectual life of India but of her economic life as well. Its very existence would depend on the success of its industrial ventures carried out on the cooperative principle, which would unite the teachers and students in a living bond (The Centre of Indian Culture)'. In Sonar Tari (Golden Boat), one of his poetic works, he wrote 'gagane garaje megh ghanavarsha' (heavy rainclouds clap in the sky); and in Kshanik (For a While) 'My heart dances today like a peacock. My soul and the kadamba flowers blossom together. Rain-clouds wet my eyes with their blue collyrium.'. In Balaka (Flight of Swans) looking at a flight of swans moving over the Jhelum, Tagore responded: 'When like a scimitar the hill stream sheathed in evening gloom, suddenly a flock of birds passed overhead their laughing wings hurtling like an arrow among the stars. It awakens a passion for speed among the motionless things, in their bosom the hills leave with the anguish of storm clouds. The trees yearn to break away from their rooted shackles. The flight of the birds had rent the veil of stillness and revealed to me an immense movement in the deep silence. I see the hills and forests flying across time to the unknown and the darkness thrill into fire as the stars wing by. In my being I feel the rush of the sea-crossing birds leaving a way beyond the limits of life and death, while the migrant word cries out in a myriad voice - not here, not there, but in the bosom of the far-away.' Tagore's love for nature also included children. As a writer he would never forget children. His concern for their need for joy, love and freedom, was genuine. He would often remind children: 'Blessed I am that I was born in this land (sarthak janam amar janmechhiei deshe)'.He noted (p.124): 'My real work has been to awaken, in nature's vast playground, the tender grace of childhood, its budding effort, the first rays of knowledge falling across its horizon. Otherwise I would have been swamped by the trivia of routine, statute and syllabus. My happiness, my fulfillment has been in trying to rouse the young ones to the Delight of the unseen Player, to set them in tune with the Dance of Life itself. It is not in me to be more serious than that. The Master of Games has mercifully released me from the fetters of the mature and the elder. Those who try to set me on a pedestal I shall tell them that I was born with my seat below on the lap of the earth. In these trees and forests, the dust, earth and grass, have I poured out my life. T hose who are close to the spirit of the earth, those who are made and shaped by her, and who will find their final rest in her, of them all I am the friend. I am a poet, ami kavi (From the Seventieth Birthday Address).'
Management & Change, Volume 13, Number 1 (2009)
232 Book Reviews Tagore also expressed tender sentiments of a motherless child some time during the zenith of his writing career in the following lines: 'I cannot remember my mother, only sometime in the midst of play a tune seems to however my playthings, the tune of some song that she used to hum while rocking the cradle. I cannot remember my mother, but when in the early autumn morning the smell of the shiuli flower flats in the air, the scent of the morning service in the temple comes to me as the scent of my mother. I cannot remember my mother, only when from the bedroom window I send my eyes into the blue of the distant sky, I feel that the stillness of my mother's gaze on my face has spread all over the sky.'
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No account of Tagore's poetry can be complete without a reference to Gitanjali which has crossed all limits of popularity and every educated Indian is at least familiar with such widely quoted lines as 'where the mind is without fear and the head is held high…' (p.130). 'Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; where knowledge is free; where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; where the words come out from the depth of truth; where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; where the mind is led forward by thee into ever widening thought and action - Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake (Gitanjali).' A mixed bag, Gitanjali has several compositions including touching expression for feelings of separation and parting (p.131) 'When I go from hence let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable. I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus that expands on the ocean of light, and thus am I blessed - let this be my parting word. In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play and here have I caught sight of Him that is formless. My whole body and my limbs have thrilled with His touch who is beyond touch; and if the end comes here, let it come - let this be my parting word (Gitanjali).' Tagore thus had been a great writer, poet and artist par excellence whose contribution to Indian culture, nature and fine arts has hardly any parallel. His life will always be source of inspiration for writers and scholars, and for all others who like him might leave 'indelible footprints' on the sands of time. - Editor Source: Ghose, S. (1986) Rabindranath Tagore. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi (Rabindra Bhavan, 35 Ferozeshah Road, New Delhi 110001). p.131.
Management & Change, Volume 13, Number 1 (2009)