About the Authors

Arthur A. Thompson, Jr., earned his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from The University of Tennessee, spent three years on the economics faculty at Virginia Tech, and served on the faculty of The University of Alabama’s College of Commerce and Business Administration for 24 years. In 1974 and again in 1982, Dr. Thompson spent semester-long sabbaticals as a visiting scholar at the Harvard Business School.

His areas of specialization are business strategy, competition and market analysis, and the economics of business enterprises. In addition to publishing over 30 articles in some 25 different professional and trade publications, he has authored or co-authored five textbooks and six computer-based simulation exercises that are used in colleges and universities worldwide.

Dr. Thompson spends much of his off-campus time giving presentations, putting on management development programs, working with companies, and helping operate a business simulation enterprise in which he is a major partner.

Dr. Thompson and his wife of 47 years have two daughters, two grandchildren, and a Yorkshire terrier.

Dr. A. J. (Lonnie) Strickland, a native of North Georgia, attended the University of Georgia, where he received a bachelor of science degree in math and physics in 1965. Afterward he entered the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he received a master of science in industrial management. He earned a Ph.D. in business administration from Georgia State University in 1969. He currently holds the title of Professor of Strategic Management in the Graduate School of Business at The University of Alabama.

Dr. Strickland’s experience in consulting and executive development is in the strategic management area, with a concentration in industry and competitive analysis. He has developed strategic planning systems for such firms as The Southern Company, BellSouth, South Central Bell, American Telephone and Telegraph, Gulf States Paper, Carraway Methodist Medical Center, Delco Remy, Mark IV Industries, Amoco Oil Company, USA Group, General Motors, and Kimberly Clark Corporation (Medical Products). He is a very popular speaker on the subject of implementing strategic change and serves on several corporate boards.

John E. Gamble is currently Associate Dean and Professor of Management in the Mitchell College of Business at the University of South Alabama. His teaching specialty at USA is strategic management and he also conducts a course in strategic management in Germany, which is sponsored by the University of Applied Sciences in Worms.

Dr. Gamble’s research interests center on strategic issues in entrepreneurial, health care, and manufacturing settings. His work has been published in various scholarly journals and he is the author or co-author of more than 30 case studies published in an assortment of strategic management and strategic marketing texts. He has done consulting on industry and market analysis for clients in a diverse mix of industries.

Professor Gamble received his Ph.D. in management from The University of Alabama in 1995. Dr. Gamble also has a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Arts degree from The University of Alabama.

Arun Kumar Jain is a globally respected strategy and international business professor. He is a gold-medalist mechanical engineer and has a Ph.D from IIM-Ahmedabad.

Professor Jain has published more than 100 articles and case studies in leading journals including Harvard Business Review. All his three management books have received the Best Book Awards, viz.: Managing Global Competition – Achieving World-class Performance (Escorts Best Book Award 1995), Corporate Excellence – Growth Strategies Within Constraints (ISTD Best Book Award 1998), and Competitive Excellence – Critical Success Factors (Escorts Best Book Award 2000). The 14th edition of this book ran into seven reprints in India before being ‘retired’. His other textbook is International Business – Competing in Global Marketplace (6th SIE edition, 2009) co-authored with Charles W Hill and published by McGraw-Hill.

Professor Jain is the Founder-Chairman of Centre for Corporate Governance at Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, and Founder-Chairman of Center for Accelerated Learning, Innovation, and Competitiveness in Germany. He is also Affiliate Professor of Strategy, Intl Business, and Corporate Governance at EM Strasbourg School of Business, France.

As a consultant, advisor and boardroom-trainer, Dr Jain has advised governments, and Armed Forces Commanders, and large businesses including Fortune 500 companies. He conducts customized workshops on strategic thinking, and competitive excellence for Board members and C-level executives. He has been invited by leading Universities and Institutions – the recent ones being Global Corporate Governance Forum (World Bank/IFC) at Washington, Bundesbank (Germany), OECD at Paris and Copenhagen, UNCTAD, MITI (Japan), European Union (Brussels and Strasbourg) and Commonwealth Secretariat (UK). He has been on the Board of number of Institutions including Primary Market Advisory Committee (PMAC) of SEBI, and a Visiting Professor at number of B-Schools in Europe including Bradford University (UK), Athens University (Greece), Strasbourg University (France) etc. Till end-2008, Dr Jain was at Heilbronn University in Germany as Visiting Research Chair Professor of Corporate Governance.

He has conducted path-breaking research on drivers of corporate excellence in India, which was featured by Harvard Business Review (July-August 2005) as one of the ten most influential researches on Organizational Excellence across the world during last 25 years.

His forthcoming book, Long-Lasting Winners – 10 Lessons for the Whole World is being released in mid-2009 and is based on global research on companies that have lasted for more than 100 years.