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The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the relationship between three concepts: organisations, transformability and the dynamics of strategy. These three concepts together with their interrelationships are central in explaining the life cycle of organisations, their survival and renewal.

The development of this explanation has been based on bringing together a diversity of perspectives. Each perspective provides a horizon of understanding by directing attention in a particular way. The benefits of this approach are that it avoids the pitfalls of one‐dimensionalism. This approach more accurately reflects the multi‐faceted reality within which organisations operate.

Discusses, compares and contextualises the findings and approaches of the papers in this special issue.

The perspectives considered represent a small sample of the diversity that exists. However, this sample as serves a starting‐point in developing a wider, more holistic debate that aims to bring theory and practice together.

To consider whether the growth in management and entrepreneurship education is driven by (external) demand or (internal) academic supply.

Three key elements of the intellectual context of management and entrepreneurship education are considered: the apparent causal relationship between improved management and economic performance; the privilege afforded to management as an agent of change in the context of globalisation; reforms in the public sector which define problems in terms of management rather than resources.

There is a lack of clarity as to whether the purpose of entrepreneurship education is about promoting higher levels of activity or better recognising entrepreneurial activity.

The paper offers an alternative perspective on entrepreneurship education through an examination of its purpose rather than its form and content.

The growth in management education generally, and entrepreneurship education specifically, has occurred at the same time as increasing importance is attached to management both as an activity for academic investigation and as a practical activity in both public and private sectors. This paper argues that the intellectual foundations of this growth are unsupported by a significant volume of evidence and so it is unlikely that the hope for economic outcomes will be achieved. In the specific case of entrepreneurship education, this paper recommends that the tension between prescription and recognition of the activity needs to be resolved by both academics and policy makers before the benefits of education in this area can be realised.

The current obsession with globalization and technological change has given rise to a new school of management, the revolutionary school. This school uses language appropriated from the political concept of revolution and argues that the key role of management is the transformation of their organizations. The article considers the extent to which the European business environment has been transformed and the extent to which transformation is possible under difficult market conditions such as those faced by the European car industry. The article concludes that under the structural conditions of saturation and slow or cyclical growth, organizational transformation is unlikely to be successful.

Although technology has always been, and will continue to be, the hallmark of human activity, it remains a poorly understood concept. There is little recognition that behind technology lies a technology, the accelerating application of which is making the presence of the technological revolution more and more visible. The most obvious manifestation of this is the increasing frequency in the redefinition of the way in which society lives and works. This article, while demonstrating humankind as technology creatures, provides an explanation of how society progresses or regresses by resolving or failing to resolve the paradoxes inherent in technology through uncovering both its mythology and economy.

In an age where organizational transformation is becoming more important to both the theory and practice of strategic management, the aim of this paper is to provide a model through which organizational transformation and strategic change can be understood in an holistic manner.

In developing a model to explain organizational transformation, the paper draws on two different theoretical traditions. First, the paper draws on theories of political revolutions and, second, the paper draws on interpretative theories, in particular, speech act theory.

The paper argues that in order to provide a realistic understanding of how and why an organization has attempted a transformational strategy it is important to consider four issues: the event which triggered the transformation, the program and process through which transformation was attempted, the outcome of the transformational strategy, and the myths which have been built up around the transformation.

The paper takes a novel approach by drawing on non‐management theories to develop an understanding of management phenomena. In doing this the paper generates an original model useful for the post rational explanation of transformational strategies.

The aim of this paper is to assess both the philosophical underpinnings and contributions to knowledge made by research in the field of strategy in the five years between 2002 and 2006.

The paper begins with a review of the literature on the philosophy, purpose, process and outcome of management research which leads to the development of a conceptual model. Following this, almost 4,000 articles from 23 journals are assessed on the basis of their philosophical underpinnings and contribution to knowledge. Findings are reported and implications are discussed.

Most strategy research, especially in higher ranked journals, comes from a positivist perspective. Across all journals, most contributions to knowledge are in the form of stretching theory. There is a limited amount of reflective work in the strategy literature.

Given the form and content of strategy research, it is increasingly unlikely that research will make the crossover from the academic to the practitioner world.

This paper provides a better understanding of the process through which academic management research can be carried out and the barriers to this process. The paper provides a number of important insights into the nature of strategy research.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the extent to which recent changes in the UK's higher education sector are likely to increase the level of competition and change the behaviour of UK higher education institutions.

The paper draws on a conceptual framework developed to understand competitive conditions and behaviours in order to provide an analytical device to guide the narrative of the paper. The paper draws on a number of national and international sources.

It is likely that competition between UK higher education institutions will intensify in the future especially in light of the introduction of student tuition fees and this will lead to further changes in behaviour.

The paper offers an original approach and conceptual basis to make a contribution to a growing debate about the future of the UK higher education sector.

This paper explores the underlying principles on which effective model building can be explained in fast‐moving environments through an examination of qualities that govern the effectiveness of businesses and are shared by models that represent them. By studying a number of generic and specific cases three strands are shown to be of central importance: the way of thinking, operational system, and capacity for value generation. These three strands, which are interrelated, form the basis of a meta‐model for business models. Whilst specific business models always represent a choice between alternatives, each of which rests on different assumptions regarding the reality of business and its environment, the ability to generalise business models from one context to another is the function of the meta‐model. The application of the meta‐model will enable businesses to adapt themselves naturally to their environment which is changing at an ever‐increasing rate.

This paper serves to discuss the benefit of applying scenario‐planning techniques to more traditional approaches to strategy development in helping firms deal with uncertainty and evolutionary change in their surrounding environment. Assessing this environment provides insight into the unique changes, the implications these changes have on a firm's strategies, and the creation of special techniques required to understand them. One of these special techniques is scenario planning. Any study of the relationship between strategy, environment and performance must include variables that involve business scope and resource commitments.

A review of the research literature on the use and benefits of both the traditional approaches and the scenario approach to constructing the future strategy of a firm in a changing environment is undertaken.

The results suggest that a better understanding of the performance of firms within a changed environment can be achieved using the combination of a PESTEL analysis, internal resource analysis and the use of scenarios. This reformulation equation creates a model of a possible environment in which the firm must operate and an investigation of the strategic implications of various scenarios to the firm.

This paper is unique in that it marries the traditional approaches to strategy development with the application of scenario planning. It is of benefit to managers and strategic planners by illustrating how a firm may better develop insight into how it should formulate and implement its strategy in order to retain or create a competitive advantage in the changed environment in which it operates.