Identifying and Understanding the Core Concepts in Strategic Management

Abstract

As strategic management content has proliferated, it is increasingly important for scholars and students to focus on the discipline’s core. While faculty may implicitly understand the “core” (Landrum, 1993), no systematic study of strategy core concepts has been undertaken. Herein, we first examine strategy review articles identifying core concepts. Then, we identified core concepts in strategy textbooks. We reconciled differences between those two sources and produced a unified set of core concepts. This set of concepts helps faculty identify the heart of strategy, allowing them to focus class time on the core. This in turn should produce superior student learning.