Richard Rumelt

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Richard Rumelt
Richard Rumelt 2011.jpg
Rumelt in 2011
Born (1942-11-10) November 10, 1942 (age 81)
Alma mater University of California, Berkeley
Harvard Business School
OccupationAcademic
Employer University of California, Los Angeles

Richard Post Rumelt (born November 10, 1942) [1] is an American emeritus professor at the University of California, Los Angeles Anderson School of Management. He joined the school in 1976 from Harvard Business School. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Academic career

Richard Rumelt earned Bachelor's and Master's of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley. He worked as a systems design engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1963-65. He received his doctorate from the Harvard Business School in 1972 and joined the Harvard Business School faculty as an Assistant Professor. On leave from HBS, he helped found and teach at the Iran Center for Management Studies during 1972-74. In 1976 he joined the faculty of Management at the UCLA school of business. In 1993 he was appointed to the Harry and Elsa Kunin Chair in Business and Society. During 1993-96 he taught at INSEAD (France), where he received the Shell Chair in Management. Rumelt was a founding member of the Strategic Management Society and served as its president in 1995-98. [5] [6]

He is noted for having made several key contributions to the study of business and corporate strategy. His 1974 study of diversification strategy inaugurated a stream of work on the performance implications of diversification. His 1982 paper with Steven Lippman showed how classical industrial organization results—profitability being related to concentration and to market share—could arise under perfect competition if there was uncertainty in the sources of efficiency. This result was key in the development of the "resource-based view" of strategic success. Rumelt's 1991 empirical follow-on (How Much Does Industry Matter?) showed that the most of the dispersion of profit rates in the economy was between business units rather than between industries. His 2011 book (Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why it Matters) redefined strategy as a form of problem solving. It was chosen one of six finalists for the Financial Times & Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award for 2011. His book The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists was published in 2022 and was selected as one of the top business books of 2022 by the Financial Times and by the Globe & Mail.

Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why it Matters

Rumelt's 2011 book, Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why it Matters, outlines his views on the nature of effective strategy. He argues that good strategy involves identifying key facts and problems and then coordinating a focused response. Examples include the Battle of Cannae, where Hannibal used a large-scale troop maneuver to negate the Romans' numerical advantage, and Steve Jobs' second tenure as Apple CEO, where he streamlined product lines to position Apple as a niche computer provider while awaiting new opportunities. However, Rumelt cautions against coordination without purpose, as it can lead to reduced specialization. In contrast, he characterizes bad strategy as often consisting of fluff, excessively complex language, and the conflation of goal-setting with strategy.

Personal life

Rumelt is married to Kate Rumelt; the couple enjoys hiking and skiing. [2] They live in Bend, Oregon. His daughter Cassandra Clare is the author of The Shadowhunter Chronicles .

Select publications

Related Research Articles

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In the field of management, strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by an organization's managers on behalf of stakeholders, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organization operates. Strategic management provides overall direction to an enterprise and involves specifying the organization's objectives, developing policies and plans to achieve those objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the plans. Academics and practicing managers have developed numerous models and frameworks to assist in strategic decision-making in the context of complex environments and competitive dynamics. Strategic management is not static in nature; the models can include a feedback loop to monitor execution and to inform the next round of planning.

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Strategic thinking is a mental or thinking process applied by an individual in the context of achieving a goal or set of goals. As a cognitive activity, it produces thought.

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Richard A. D'Aveni is an American academic, thought leader, business consultant, bestselling author and the Bakala Professor of Strategy at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He is best known for creating a new paradigm in business strategy and coining the term “hypercompetition” which led Fortune to liken him to a modern version of Sun Tzu.

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Shaker A. Zahra is the Robert E. Buuck Chair of Entrepreneurship and professor of strategy and entrepreneurship, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. He is also the academic director of the Gary S. Holmes Entrepreneurship Center.

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References

  1. "Richard Rumelt". The Economist. 2008-12-26. ISSN   0013-0613 . Retrieved 2017-03-26.
  2. 1 2 "Richard Rumelt Keynote Speakers Bureau & Speaking Fee". BigSpeak Speakers Bureau: Keynote Speakers, Business Speakers and Celebrity Speakers. Retrieved 2017-03-26.
  3. "Rumelt | UCLA Anderson School of Management". www.anderson.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-26.
  4. "Richard Rumelt Silicon Valley Institute for Business Innovation". svibi.com. Retrieved 2017-03-26.
  5. "Richard Rumelt Keynote Speaker Bio - KEYNOTES.ORG". www.keynotes.org. Retrieved 2017-03-26.
  6. The Crux. 2021-09-13. ISBN   978-1-5417-0126-7.
  7. Rumelt, Richard P. (1974). Strategy, structure, and economic performance. Boston: Division of Research, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University. ISBN   0875841090. OCLC   1111246.
  8. Lippman, S. A.; Rumelt, R. P. (1982). "Uncertain Imitability: An Analysis of Interfirm Differences in Efficiency under Competition". The Bell Journal of Economics. 13 (2): 418. doi:10.2307/3003464. JSTOR   3003464.
  9. Rumelt, Richard P. (1991). "How Much Does Industry Matter?". Strategic Management Journal. 12 (3): 167–185. doi:10.1002/smj.4250120302. ISSN   0143-2095. JSTOR   2486591.
  10. Fundamental issues in strategy : a research agenda. Rumelt, Richard P., Schendel, Dan., Teece, David J. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press. 1994. ISBN   0875843433. OCLC   29023581.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  11. Rumelt, Richard P. (1991-01-01). "How Much Does Industry Matter?". Strategic Management Journal. 12 (3): 167–185. doi:10.1002/smj.4250120302. JSTOR   2486591.
  12. "The perils of bad strategy". McKinsey & Company. Retrieved 2017-03-26.
  13. Rumelt, Richard P. (2011). Good strategy, bad strategy : the difference and why it matters (1st ed.). New York: Crown Business. ISBN   9780307886231. OCLC   676726571.
  14. Rumelt, Richard Post (2022). The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists. New York: Public Affairs. ISBN   9781541701243.