"Books and articles come and go, endlessly. But a few do stick, and this book is such a one.
Organizational Strategy, Structure, and Process
broke fresh ground in the understanding of strategy at a time when thinking about strategy was still in its early days, and it has not been displaced since."
—David J. Hickson, Emeritus Professor of International Management & Organization, University of Bradford School of Management
Originally published in 1978,
became an instant classic, as it bridged the formerly separate fields of strategic management and organizational behavior. In this Stanford Business Classics reissue, noted strategy scholar Donald Hambrick provides a new introduction that describes the book's contribution to the field of organization studies. Miles and Snow also contribute new introductory material to update the book's central concepts and themes.
focuses on how organizations adapt to their environments. The book introduced a theoretical framework composed of a dynamic
adaptive cycle
and an empirically based
strategy typology
showing four different types of adaptation. This framework helped to define subsequent research by other scholars on important topics such as configurational analysis, organizational fit, strategic human resource management, and multi-firm network organizations.