Muddling Through Does Not Work for Pandemics: COVID-19 Letter Published in The Financial Times

In 1959, Charles Lindblom wrote The Science of “Muddling Through”, advocating an incremental approach to public policy and management. “Muddling through” does not work for pandemics. The science of pandemics is dominated by epidemiology, not behavioral science. The delay between policy decisions (or indecisions) and the resultant high UK death rate needs tracing back from …

Agent-Based Strategizing: New Book Published at Cambridge University Press

My new book, Agent-Based Strategizing, has been published at Cambridge University Press. It is available to download for free until 31 July 2019 at the link below. The book is an overview of how agent-based modelling has been (and can be) used in strategic management. https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/agentbased-strategizing/4AD9D0D7416DE46AEB7F1A5478772ACF Abstract: Strategic management is a system of continual disequilibrium, …

Speech given at a meeting of Congregation of the University of Oxford, 7 May 2019

Dr Duncan Robertson, Fellow of St Catherine’s Vice-Chancellor, members of Congregation. I look around this room and see privilege.  Every one of us here in the Sheldonian Theatre is privileged; every member of Congregation reading the Gazette is privileged.  We are privileged not by our past but by our present: we all have the power …

The Most Competitive Airline Routes in the World

I am using airline data to construct a network of competition in the airline industry.  As part of this, I am listing the routes that are the most competitive – not necessarily the ones that have the most flights, but the ones that have the most competitors. And here they are HKG-ICN  Hong Kong – …

Journals for Analytical Strategic Management: Which Journals Should I Search?

For new scholars, or for practitioners interested in learning about strategic management, it can be difficult to know where to start.  The following is a list of the key journals in strategy together with some thoughts on their particular strengths. Strategic Management Journal – perhaps the premier journal within strategic management.  This mainly uses statistical …

Agent-Based Models of A Banking Network

Agent-Based Models of a Banking Network as an Example of a Turbulent Environment: The Deliberate vs Emergent Strategy Debate Revisited is a paper that I wrote that uses an agent-based model to simulate the strategic positioning decisions of firms within a competitive environment.  It links firm strategy (particularly banking strategy) to the competitive environment: where should …