Facebook’s Career Page
Facebook, Inc. is an American online social media and social networking service company based in Menlo Park, California. It was founded by Mark Zuckerberg along with other fellow Harvard College students. As of the end of 2018, the number of Facebook employees reached 35,587 full-time staff. It is considered one of the Big Four technology companies along with Amazon, Apple, and Google.
From our Thompson text, read Chapter 10 Assurance of Learning Exercise #3(Pg number 681 in the pdf) related to Facebooks Career page and click on the https://www.facebook.com/careers/ to provide you with information to use in your response to the following:
How do Facebooks internal management training programs integrate the traits and stated goals on the Careers page into specific and tangible construction of employee capabilities?
How does the internal training prepare Facebook employees of all types to move fast and break things?
Incorporate information from our coursework (Thompson text and other material) this week into your assignment analysis of the above.
Submission Details:
Your analysis should be 500 words
Incorporate a minimum of at least one course (Thompson text) and one non-course scholarly/peer reviewed source in your paper.
All written assignments must include a coverage page, introductory and concluding paragraphs, reference page, be double-spaced, and proper in-text citations using APA guidelines.
Resources:
text book attached:
LO 10-2, 10-3(include these work)
Chapter 10 Assurance of Learning Exercise #3(Pg number 681 in the pdf)
Review Facebooks Careers page (www.Facebook.com/careers/). The
page emphasizes Facebooks core values and explains how potential
employees could fit that mold. Bold and decisive thinking and a
commitment to transparency and social connectivity drive the page and the
company as a whole. Then research Facebooks internal management
training programs, called employee boot camps, using a search engine
like Google or Bing. How do these programs integrate the traits and stated
goals on the Careers page into specific and tangible construction of
employee capabilities? Boot camps are open to all Facebook employees, not
just engineers. How does this internal training prepare Facebook employees
of all types to move fast and break things?
page i
page ii
CRAFTING AND
EXECUTING STRATEGY
The Quest for Competitive
Advantage
Concepts and Cases
page iii
CRAFTING AND EXECUTING
STRATEGY
The Quest for Competitive
Advantage
Concepts and Cases|22ND EDITION
Arthur A. Thompson Margaret A. Peteraf
The University of Alabama Dartmouth College
John E. Gamble A.J. Strickland III
Texas A&M UniversityCorpus Christi The University of Alabama
page iv
CRAFTING & EXECUTING STRATEGY: THE QUEST FOR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE,
CONCEPTS AND CASES, TWENTY-SECOND EDITION
Published by McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121. Copyright 2020 by
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
http://shutterstock.com/
Names: Thompson, Arthur A., 1940- author.
Title: Crafting & executing strategy: the quest for competitive advantage:
concepts and cases / Arthur A. Thompson, Jr., University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, Margaret A. Peteraf, Dartmouth College, John E. Gamble,
University of South Alabama Mobile, A.J. Strickland III, University of
Alabama Tuscaloosa.
Other titles: Crafting and executing strategy
Description: Twenty-second edition. | New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education,
[2020]
Identifiers: LCCN 2018052588| ISBN 9781260075106 (bound edition) | ISBN
1260075109 (bound edition) | ISBN 9781260157185 (loose-leaf edition) |
ISBN 1260157180 (loose-leaf edition)
Subjects: LCSH: Strategic planning. | Strategic planningCase studies.
Classification: LCC HD30.28 .T53 2020 | DDC 658.4/012dc23 LC record
available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018052588
The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The inclusion of a
website does not indicate an endorsement by the authors or McGraw-Hill Education, and McGraw-
Hill Education does not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented at these sites.
mheducation.com/highered
https://lccn.loc.gov/2018052588
http://mheducation.com/highered
page v
To our families and especially our spouses:
Hasseline, Paul, Heather, and Kitty.
page vi
About the Authors
Arthur A. Thompson, Jr., earned his BS and PhD degrees in economics
from The University of Tennessee, spent three years on the economics
faculty at Virginia Tech, and served on the faculty of The University of
Alabamas College of Commerce and Business Administration for 24 years.
In 1974 and again in 1982, Dr. Thompson spent semester-long sabbaticals
as a visiting scholar at the Harvard Business School.
His areas of specialization are business strategy, competition and market
analysis, and the economics of business enterprises. In addition to
publishing over 30 articles in some 25 different professional and trade
publications, he has authored or co-authored five textbooks and six
computer-based simulation exercises. His textbooks and strategy
simulations have been used at well over 1,000 college and university
campuses worldwide.
Dr. Thompson and his wife of 58 years have two daughters, two
grandchildren, and a Yorkshire Terrier.
page vii
Margaret A. Peteraf is the Leon E. Williams Professor of Management
Emerita at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. She is an
internationally recognized scholar of strategic management, with a long list
of publications in top management journals. She has earned myriad honors
and prizes for her contributions, including the 1999 Strategic Management
Society Best Paper Award recognizing the deep influence of her work on
the field of Strategic Management. Professor Peteraf is a fellow of the
Strategic Management Society and the Academy of Management. She
served previously as a member of the Board of Governors of both the
Society and the Academy of Management and as Chair of the Business
Policy and Strategy Division of the Academy. She has also served in
various editorial roles and on numerous editorial boards, including the
Strategic Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, and
Organization Science. She has taught in Executive Education programs in
various programs around the world and has won teaching awards at the
MBA and Executive level.
Professor Peteraf earned her PhD, MA, and MPhil at Yale University
and held previous faculty appointments at Northwestern Universitys
Kellogg Graduate School of Management and at the University of
Minnesotas Carlson School of Management.
John E. Gamble is a Professor of Management and Dean of the College of
Business at Texas A&M UniversityCorpus Christi. His teaching and
research for more than 20 years has focused on strategic management at the
undergraduate and graduate levels. He has conducted courses in strategic
management in Germany since 2001, which have been sponsored by the
University of Applied Sciences in Worms.
Dr. Gambles research has been published in various scholarly journals
and he is the author or co-author of more than 75 case studies published in
an assortment of strategic management and strategic marketing texts. He
has done consulting on industry and market analysis for clients in a diverse
mix of industries.
Professor Gamble received his PhD, MA, and BS degrees from The
University of Alabama and was a faculty member in the Mitchell College of
Business at the University of South Alabama before his appointment to the
faculty at Texas A&M UniversityCorpus Christi.
Dr. A. J. (Lonnie) Strickland is the Thomas R. Miller Professor of
Strategic Management at the Culverhouse School of Business at The
University of Alabama. He is a native of north Georgia, and attended the
University of Georgia, where he received a BS degree in math and physics;
Georgia Institute of Technology, where he received an MS in industrial
management; and Georgia State University, where he received his PhD in
business administration.
Lonnies experience in consulting and executive development is in the
strategic management arena, with a concentration in industry and
competitive analysis. He has developed strategic planning systems for
numerous firms all over the world. He served as Director of Marketing and
Strategy at BellSouth, has taken two companies to the New York Stock
Exchange, is one of the founders and directors of American Equity
Investment Life Holding (AEL), and serves on numerous boards of
directors. He is a very popular speaker in the area of strategic management.
Lonnie and his wife, Kitty, have been married for over 49 years. They
have two children and two grandchildren. Each summer, Lonnie and his
wife live on their private game reserve in South Africa where they enjoy
taking their friends on safaris.
page viii
B
Preface
y offering the most engaging, clearly articulated, and conceptually
sound text on strategic management, Crafting and Executing
Strategy has been able to maintain its position as the leading
textbook in strategic management for over 30 years. With this latest edition,
we build on this strong foundation, maintaining the attributes of the book
that have long made it the most teachable text on the market, while updating
the content, sharpening its presentation, and providing enlightening new
illustrations and examples.
The distinguishing mark of the 22nd edition is its enriched and enlivened
presentation of the material in each of the 12 chapters, providing an as up-to-
date and engrossing discussion of the core concepts and analytical tools as
you will find anywhere. As with each of our new editions, there is an
accompanying lineup of exciting new cases that bring the content to life and
are sure to provoke interesting classroom discussions, deepening students
understanding of the material in the process.
While this 22nd edition retains the 12-chapter structure of the prior
edition, every chapterindeed every paragraph and every linehas been
reexamined, refined, and refreshed. New content has been added to keep the
material in line with the latest developments in the theory and practice of
strategic management. In other areas, coverage has been trimmed to keep the
book at a more manageable size. Scores of new examples have been added,
along with 16 new Illustration Capsules, to enrich understanding of the
content and to provide students with a ringside view of strategy in action.
The result is a text that cuts straight to the chase in terms of what students
really need to know and gives instructors a leg up on teaching that material
effectively. It remains, as always, solidly mainstream and balanced,
mirroring both the penetrating insight of academic thought and the
pragmatism of real-world strategic management.
A standout feature of this text has always been the tight linkage between
the content of the chapters and the cases. The lineup of cases that accompany
page ix
the 22nd edition is outstanding in this respecta truly appealing mix of
strategically relevant and thoughtfully crafted cases, certain to engage
students and sharpen their skills in applying the concepts and tools of
strategic analysis. Many involve high-profile companies that the students
will immediately recognize and relate to; all are framed around key strategic
issues and serve to add depth and context to the topical content of the
chapters. We are confident you will be impressed with how well these cases
work in the classroom and the amount of student interest they will spark.
For some years now, growing numbers of strategy instructors at business
schools worldwide have been transitioning from a purely text-case course
structure to a more robust and energizing text-case-simulation course
structure. Incorporating a competition-based strategy simulation has the
strong appeal of providing class members with an immediate and engaging
opportunity to apply the concepts and analytical tools covered in the
chapters and to become personally involved in crafting and executing a
strategy for a virtual company that they have been assigned to manage and
that competes head-to-head with companies run by other class members.
Two widely used and pedagogically effective online strategy simulations,
The Business Strategy Game and GLO-BUS, are optional companions for
this text. Both simulations were created by Arthur Thompson, one of the text
authors, and, like the cases, are closely linked to the content of each chapter
in the text. The Exercises for Simulation Participants, found at the end of
each chapter, provide clear guidance to class members in applying the
concepts and analytical tools covered in the chapters to the issues and
decisions that they have to wrestle with in managing their simulation
company.
To assist instructors in assessing student achievement of program
learning objectives, in line with AACSB requirements, the 22nd edition
includes a set of Assurance of Learning Exercises at the end of each chapter
that link to the specific learning objectives appearing at the beginning of
each chapter and highlighted throughout the text. An important instructional
feature of the 22nd edition is its more closely integrated linkage of selected
chapter-end Assurance of Learning Exercises and cases to the publishers
page x
web-based assignment and assessment platform called Connect. Your
students will be able to use the online Connect supplement to (1) complete
selected Assurance of Learning Exercises appearing at the end of each of the
12 chapters, (2) complete chapter-end quizzes, and (3) enter their answers to
a number of the suggested assignment questions for 14 of the 32 cases in this
edition. The analysis portion of the Connect exercises is automatically
graded, thereby enabling you to easily assess the learning that has occurred.
In addition, both of the companion strategy simulations have a built-in
Learning Assurance Report that quantifies how well each member of your
class performed on nine skills/learning measures versus tens of thousands of
other students worldwide who completed the simulation in the past 12
months. We believe the chapter-end Assurance of Learning Exercises, the
all-new online and automatically graded Connect exercises, and the
Learning Assurance Report generated at the conclusion of The Business
Strategy Game and GLO-BUS simulations provide you with easy-to-use,
empirical measures of student learning in your course. All can be used in
conjunction with other instructor-developed or school-developed scoring
rubrics and assessment tools to comprehensively evaluate course or program
learning outcomes and measure compliance with AACSB accreditation
standards.
Taken together, the various components of the 22nd edition package and
the supporting set of instructor resources provide you with enormous course
design flexibility and a powerful kit of teaching/learning tools. Weve done
our very best to ensure that the elements constituting the 22nd edition will
work well for you in the classroom, help you economize on the time needed
to be well prepared for each class, and cause students to conclude that your
course is one of the very best they have ever takenfrom the standpoint of
both enjoyment and learning.
DIFFERENTIATING FEATURES OF THE
22ND EDITION
Eight standout features strongly differentiate this text and the accompanying
instructional package from others in the field:
. Our integrated coverage of the two most popular perspectives on strategic
managementpositioning theory and resource-based theoryis
unsurpassed by any other leading strategy text. Principles and concepts
from both the positioning perspective and the resource-based perspective
are prominently and comprehensively integrated into our coverage of
crafting both single-business and multibusiness strategies. By highlighting
the relationship between a firms resources and capabilities to the activities
it conducts along its value chain, we show explicitly how these two
perspectives relate to one another. Moreover, in Chapters 3 through 8 it is
emphasized repeatedly that a companys strategy must be matched not only
to its external market circumstances but also to its internal resources and
competitive capabilities.
. With this new edition, we provide the clearest, easiest to understand
presentation of the value-price-cost framework. In recent years, this
framework has become an essential aid to teaching students how companies
create economic value in the course of conducting business. We show how
this simple framework informs the concept of the business model as well as
the all-important concept of competitive advantage. In Chapter 5, we add
further clarity by showing in pictorial fashion how the value-price-cost
framework relates to the different sources of competitive advantage that
underlie the five generic strategies.
. Our coverage of cooperative strategies and the role that interorganizational
activity can play in the pursuit of competitive advantage is similarly
distinguished. The topics of the value net, ecosystems, strategic alliances,
licensing, joint ventures, and other types of collaborative relationships are
featured prominently in a number of chapters and are integrated into other
material throughout the text. We show how strategies of this nature can
contribute to the success of single-business companies as well as
multibusiness enterprises, whether with respect to firms operating in
domestic markets or those operating in the international realm.
. The attention we give to international strategies, in all their dimensions,
make this textbook an indispensable aid to understanding strategy
formulation and execution in an increasingly connected, global world. Our
treatment of this topic as one of the most critical elements of the scope of a
page xi
companys activities brings home to students the connection between the
topic of international strategy with other topics concerning firm scope, such
as multibusiness (or corporate) strategy, outsourcing, insourcing, and
vertical integration.
. With a standalone chapter devoted to these topics, our coverage of business
ethics, corporate social responsibility, and environmental sustainability
goes well beyond that offered by any other leading strategy text. Chapter 9,
Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Environmental Sustainability, and
Strategy, fulfills the important functions of (1) alerting students to the role
and importance of ethical and socially responsible decision making and (2)
addressing the accreditation requirement of the AACSB International that
business ethics be visibly and thoroughly embedded in the core curriculum.
Moreover, discussions of the roles of values and ethics are integrated into
portions of other chapters, beginning with the first chapter, to further
reinforce why and how considerations relating to ethics, values, social
responsibility, and sustainability should figure prominently into the
managerial task of crafting and executing company strategies.
. Long known as an important differentiator of this text, the case collection in
the 22nd edition is truly unrivaled from the standpoints of student appeal,
teachability, and suitability for drilling students in the use of the concepts
and analytical treatments in Chapters 1 through 12. The 32 cases included in
this edition are the very latest, the best, and the most on target that we could
find. The ample information about the cases in the Instructors Manual
makes it effortless to select a set of cases each term that will capture the
interest of students from start to finish.
. The text is now more tightly linked to the publishers trailblazing web-based
assignment and assessment platform called Connect. This will enable
professors to gauge class members prowess in accurately completing (a)
selected chapter-end exercises, (b) chapter-end quizzes, and (c) the creative
author-developed exercises for seven of the cases in this edition.
. Two cutting-edge and widely used strategy simulationsThe Business
Strategy Game and GLO-BUSare optional companions to the 22nd
edition. These give you an unmatched capability to employ a text-case-
simulation model of course delivery.
ORGANIZATION, CONTENT, AND
FEATURES OF THE 22ND-EDITION
TEXT CHAPTERS
Chapter 1 serves as a brief, general introduction to the topic of strategy,
focusing on the central questions of What is strategy? and Why is it
important? As such, it serves as the perfect accompaniment for your
opening-day lecture on what the course is all about and why it matters.
Using the newly added example of Apple, Inc., to drive home the concepts
in this chapter, we introduce students to what we mean by competitive
advantage and the key features of business-level strategy. Describing
strategy making as a process, we explain why a companys strategy is
partly planned and partly reactive and why a strategy tends to co-evolve
with its environment over time. We discuss the importance of ethics in
choosing among strategic alternatives and introduce the concept of a
business model. We show that a viable business model must provide both
an attractive value proposition for the companys customers and a formula
for making profits for the company. A key feature of this chapter is a
depiction of how the value-price-cost framework can be used to frame this
discussion. We show how the mark of a winning strategy is its ability to
pass three tests: (1) the fit test (for internal and external fit), (2) the
competitive advantage test, and (3) the performance test. And we explain
why good company performance depends not only upon a sound strategy
but upon solid strategy execution as well.
Chapter 2 presents a more complete overview of the strategic management
process, covering topics ranging from the role of vision, mission, and
values to what constitutes good corporate governance. It makes a great
assignment for the second day of class and provides a smooth transition
into the heart of the course. It introduces students to such core concepts as
strategic versus financial objectives, the balanced scorecard, strategic
intent, and business-level versus corporate-level strategies. It explains why
all managers are on a companys strategy-making, strategy-executing team
and why a companys strategic plan is a collection of strategies devised by
different managers at different levels in the organizational hierarchy. The
chapter concludes with a section on the role of the board of directors in the
page xii
strategy-making, strategy-executing process and examines the conditions
that have led to recent high-profile corporate governance failures. The
illustration capsule on Volkswagens emissions scandal brings this section
to life.
The next two chapters introduce students to the two most fundamental
perspectives on strategy making: the positioning view, exemplified by
Michael Porters five forces model of competition; and the resource-
based view. Chapter 3 provides what has long been the clearest, most
straightforward discussion of the five forces framework to be found in any
text on strategic management. It also offers a set of complementary
analytical tools for conducting competitor analysis, identifying strategic
groups along with the mobility barriers that limit movement among them,
and demonstrates the importance of tailoring strategy to fit the
circumstances of a companys industry and competitive environment. The
chapter includes a discussion of the value net framework, which is useful
for conducting analysis of how cooperative as well as competitive moves
by various parties contribute to the creation and capture of value in an
industry.
Chapter 4 presents the resource-based view of the firm, showing why
resource and capability analysis is such a powerful tool for sizing up a
companys competitive assets. It offers a simple framework for identifying
a companys resources and capabilities and explains how the VRIN
framework can be used to determine whether they can provide the company
with a sustainable competitive advantage over its competitors. Other topics
covered in this chapter include dynamic capabilities, SWOT analysis, value
chain analysis, benchmarking, and competitive strength assessments, thus
enabling a solid appraisal of a companys cost position and customer value
proposition vis–vis its rivals. An important feature of this chapter is a
table showing how key financial and operating ratios are calculated and
how to interpret them. Students will find this table handy in doing the
number crunching needed to evaluate whether a companys strategy is
delivering good financial performance.
Chapter 5 sets forth the basic approaches available for competing and
winning in the marketplace in terms of the five generic competitive
strategiesbroad low-cost, broad differentiation, best-cost, focused
differentiation, and focused low cost. It demonstrates pictorially the link
page xiii
between generic strategies, the value-price-cost framework, and
competitive advantage. The chapter also describes when each of the five
approaches works best and what pitfalls to avoid. Additionally, it explains
the role of cost drivers and uniqueness drivers in reducing a companys
costs and enhancing its differentiation, respectively.
Chapter 6 focuses on other strategic actions a company can take to
complement its competitive approach and maximize the power of its
overall strategy. These include a variety of offensive or defensive
competitive moves, and their timing, such as blue-ocean strategies and first-
mover advantages and disadvantages. It also includes choices concerning
the breadth of a companys activities (or its scope of operations along an
industrys entire value chain), ranging from horizontal mergers and
acquisitions, to vertical integration, outsourcing, and strategic alliances.
This material serves to segue into the scope issues covered in the next two
chapters on international and diversification strategies.
Chapter 7 takes up the topic of how to compete in international markets. It
begins with a discussion of why differing market conditions across
countries must necessarily influence a companys strategic choices about
how to enter and compete in foreign markets. It presents five major
strategic options for expanding a companys geographic scope and
competing in foreign markets: export strategies, licensing, franchising,
establishing a wholly owned subsidiary via acquisition or greenfield
venture, and alliance strategies. It includes coverage of topics such as
Porters Diamond of National Competitive Advantage, multi-market
competition, and the choice between multidomestic, global, and
transnational strategies. This chapter explains the impetus for sharing,
transferring, or accessing valuable resources and capabilities across
national borders in the quest for competitive advantage, connecting the
material to that on the resource-based view from Chapter 4. The chapter
concludes with a discussion of the unique characteristics of competing in
developing-country markets.
Chapter 8 concerns strategy making in the multibusiness company,
introducing the topic of corporate-level strategy with its special focus on
diversification. The first portion of this chapter describes when and why
diversification makes good strategic sense, the different means of
diversifying a companys business lineup, and the pros and cons of related
page xiv
versus unrelated diversification strategies. The second part of the chapter
looks at how to evaluate the attractiveness of a diversified companys
business lineup, how to decide whether it has a good diversification
strategy, and what strategic options are available for improving a diversified
companys future performance. The evaluative technique integrates
material concerning both industry analysis and the resource-based view, in
that it considers the relative attractiveness of the various industries the
company has diversified into, the companys competitive strength in each
of its lines of business, and the extent to which its different businesses
exhibit both strategic fit and resource fit.
Although the topic of ethics and values comes up at various points in this
textbook, Chapter 9 brings more direct attention to such issues and may be
used as a standalone assignment in either the early, middle, or late part of a
course. It concerns the themes of ethical standards in business, approaches
to ensuring consistent ethical standards for companies with international
operations, corporate social responsibility, and environmental sustainability.
The contents of this chapter are sure to give students some things to ponder,
rouse lively discussion, and help to make students more ethically aware
and conscious of why all companies should conduct their business in a
socially responsible and sustainable manner.
The next three chapters (Chapters 10, 11, and 12) comprise a module on
strategy execution that is presented in terms of a 10-step action framework.
Chapter 10 provides an overview of this framework and then explores the
first three of these tasks: (1) staffing the organization with people capable
of executing the strategy well, (2) building the organizational capabilities
needed for successful strategy execution, and (3) creating an
organizational structure supportive of the strategy execution process.
Chapter 11 discusses five additional managerial actions that advance the
cause of good strategy execution: (1) allocating resources to enable the
strategy execution process, (2) ensuring that policies and procedures
facilitate rather than impede strategy execution, (3) using process
management tools and best practices to drive continuous improvement in
the performance of value chain activities, (4) installing information and
operating systems that help company personnel carry out their strategic
roles, and (5) using rewards and incentives to encourage good strategy
execution and the achievement of performance targets.
Chapter 12 completes the 10-step framework with a consideration of the
importance of creating a healthy corporate culture and exercising effective
leadership in promoting good strategy execution. The recurring theme
throughout the final three chapters is that executing strategy involves
deciding on the specific actions, behaviors, and conditions needed for a
smooth strategy-supportive operation and then following through to get
things done and deliver results. The goal here is to ensure that students
understand that the strategy-executing phase is a make-things-happen and
make-them-happen-right kind of managerial exerciseone that is critical
for achieving operating excellence and reaching the goal of strong company
performance.
In this latest edition, we have put our utmost effort into ensuring that the
12 chapters are consistent with the latest and best thinking of academics and
practitioners in the field of strategic management and provide the topical
coverage required for both undergraduate and MBA-level strategy courses.
The ultimate test of the text, of course, is the positive pedagogical impact it
has in the classroom. If this edition sets a more effective stage for your
lectures and does a better job of helping you persuade students that the
discipline of strategy merits their rapt attention, then it will have fulfilled its
purpose.
THE
