LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Consider how strategy in ancient times and military strategy can provide insights to businesses.
- Describe how strategic management has evolved into a field of study.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
-George Santayana, The Life of Reason
Santayana’s quote has strong implications for strategic management. The history of strategic management can be traced back several thousand years. Great wisdom about strategy can be acquired by understanding the past, but ignoring the lessons of history can lead to costly strategic mistakes that could have been avoided. Certainly, the present offers very important lessons; businesses can gain knowledge about what strategies do and do not work by studying the current actions of other businesses. But this section discusses two less obvious sources of wisdom: (1) strategy in ancient times and (2) military strategy. This section also briefly traces the development of strategic management as a field of study.
- 2663 reads
