Kathleen Eisenhardt, Professor of Management, Stanford University

Kathleen is the co-author of Competing on the Edge, Strategy as Structured Chaos.

http://www.stanford.edu/~kme/

From Competing on the Edge, Strategy as Structured Chaos
Shona L. Brown and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, 1998

Intense, high-velocity change is relentlessly reshaping the face of business in fledgling high-tech ventures and Fortune 500 giants, from Santiago to Stockholm, in steel and silicon alike. Everywhere, and in every industry, markets are emerging, closing, shrinking, splitting, colliding, and growing – and traditional approaches to business strategy are no longer adequate. In their revolutionary new book, Brown and Eisenhardt contend that to thrive in these volatile conditions, standard survival strategies must be tossed aside in favor of an entirely new paradigm: competing on the edge.

Competing on the edge is an unpredictable, uncontrollable, often even inefficient strategy, yet a singularly effective one in an era driven by change. By linking the practical concerns of business managers to some of the most exciting ideas from science concerning complexity and evolution, the authors have created a bold, new strategy that harnesses the dynamic nature of change to create a continuous flow of competitive advantages. To compete on the edge is to chart a course along the edge of chaos, where a delicate compromise is struck between anarchy and order. It requires maneuvering along the edge of time, where current business is the primary focus, and actions are shaped by past legacies and future opportunities. By adroitly competing on these edges, managers can avoid reacting to change, and instead set their own rhythmic pace that others must follow, thereby shaping the competitive landscape – and their own destiny.

Drawing from their own in-depth research with twelve global businesses and interviews with more than one hundred managers, the authors use real world examples to showcase competing-on-the-edge strategies in action. These lessons are linked to fundamental scientific principles from complexity theory, the nature of speed, and time-paced evolution. In one of the first books to translate leading-edge complexity concepts from science into management practice, the authors explain how these ideas play out in real firms, and the surprisingly practical value they hold for the business arena. Business and science converge in Competing on the Edge, and the result is a ground-breaking book that will take managers to sophisticated new levels in their understanding and practice of strategy.

At its heart, competing on the edge meets the strategic challenge of change by constantly reshaping a firm’s competitive advantage, even as the marketplace unpredictably and rapidly shifts. The best firms, argue Brown and Eisenhardt, employ a competing-on-the-edge strategy to change routinely, relentlessly and rhythmically over time. Written for managers (or would-be-managers) who understand that their primary challenge is not to survive change but to embrace it, the lessons and insight in Competing on the Edge offer an unprecedented opportunity to seize the change initiative, set the pace of competition, and ultimately dominate an industry. Inspired by the theories of science yet grounded in the practical realities of business, the detailed examples, rigorous research, and serious thinking that inform every aspect of this thought-provoking new book coalesce into a surprising strategy that works – when the name of the game is change.

KATHLEEN M. EISENHARDT is the Stanford W. Ascherman M.D. Professor at Stanford University and Co-Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. Professor Eisenhardt’s work centers on strategy and organization, especially in technology-based companies and high-velocity industries. She has worked extensively with a variety of firms, ranging from telecommunications, software, computing, biotech, and semiconductor to agribusiness and consumer services. She is a co-author of Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos (Harvard Business School Press), winner of the George R. Terry award for outstanding contribution to management thinking and named one of the top 10 business and investing books by Amazon.com. Professor Eisenhardt also has published in a variety of academic and management journals. Her most recent research articles include Architectural Innovation and Modular Corporate Form (with D. Charles Galunic) in AMJ and Integrating Knowledge in Groups: How Formal Interventions Enable Flexibility (with Gerardo Okhuysen) in Organization Science. Her most recent HBR article is Strategy as Simple Rules. She is the first author to be featured in HBR’s OnPoint collections.

Professor Eisenhardt’s research focus is on strategy and organization in uncertain, high-velocity markets, with particular emphasis on complexity and evolutionary theories. She is currently studying acquisitions from the perspective of the selling firm, the creation of synergies in multi-business corporations, building corporate ecosystems, and the globalization of entrepreneurial firms.

For her on ideas on fast strategic decision making, Professor Eisenhardt won the Pacific Telesis Foundation Award. She has also received the Whittemore Prize for her writing on organizing global firms in rapidly changing markets, the Stern Award for her work on strategic alliance formation in entrepreneurial firms, and the ASQ Scholarly Contribution award for research on rapid product development. She has also received the Scholarly Contribution award from the OMT division of the Academy of Management. Professor Eisenhardt also consults at senior levels on strategy and organization for a variety of global corporations.

Professor Eisenhardt has also received several teaching honors, including being one of 8 professors named to the Stanford Professorial Honor Roll (by student selection) and for teaching one of the Ten Best Courses at Stanford (by student selection).

Professor Eisenhardt is a member of Strategic Management Society and INFORMS, and has been elected a Fellow of the Academy of Management. She has served on the editorial boards of ASQ, Organization Science, Academy of Management Journal, and Strategic Management Journal. She is also a Fellow of the World Economic Forum (Davos), a member of General Motors’ Science Advisory Committee, a board member of Montgomery Watson Harza, and an advisory board member of several entrepreneurial firms.

Eisenhardt received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (Brown University, cum laude and with honors). She holds an M.S. in computer science. Her Ph.D. is from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

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