Arthur A. Thompson, Jr., earned his BS and PhD degrees in economics from the University of Tennessee in 1961 and 1965, respectively, 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. He has published over 30 articles in some 25 different professional and trade publications and has authored or co-authored five textbooks and four computer-based simulation exercises.

Dr. Thompson is a frequent speaker and consultant on the strategic issues confronting the electric utility industry, particularly as concerns the challenges posed by industry restructuring, re-regulation, competition, and customers’ freedom of choice. He spends much of his off-campus time giving presentations to electric utility groups and conducting management development programs for electric utility executives all over the world.

Dr. Thompson and his wife of 43 years have two daughters, two grandchildren, and a Yorkshire terrier.

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 PhD 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.

He has served as director of marketing for BellSouth, where he had responsibility for $1 billion in revenues and $300 million in profits.

In the international arena, Dr. Strickland has done extensive work in Europe, the Middle East, Central America, Malaysia, Australia, and Africa. In France he developed a management simulation of corporate decision making that enables management to test various strategic alternatives.

In the area of research, he is the author of 15 books and texts. His management simulations, Tempomatic IV and Micromatic, were pioneering innovations that enjoyed prominent market success for two decades.

Recent awards for Dr. Strickland include the Outstanding Professor Award for the Graduate School of Business and the Outstanding Commitment to Teaching Award for the University of Alabama, in which he takes particular pride. He is a member of various honor leadership societies: Mortar Board, Order of Omega, Beta Gamma Sigma, Omicron Delta Kappa, and Jasons. He is past national president of Pi Kappa Phi social fraternity. John E. Gamble is currently Chairman of the Department of Management and Associate 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 through a collaborative MBA program sponsored by the University of Applied Sciences in Ludwigshafen/Worms, the State of Rhineland Westphalia, and the University of South Alabama.

Dr. Gamble’s research interests center on strategic issues in entrepreneurial, health care, and manufacturing settings. His work has been published in such scholarly journals as Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Labor Research, Health Care Management Review, and Labor Studies Journal. He is the author or co-author of more than 20 case studies published in various strategic management and strategic marketing texts. He has done consulting on industry and market analysis and strategy formulation and implementation issues with clients in public utilities, technology, non-profit, and entrepreneurial businesses.

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

Arun Kumar Jain has had an unusual career. He is a gold-medalist mechanical engineer (having received the Best All-Round Student of the Institute award), and a Ph. D from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad in Business Policy where he received the IFCI Outstanding Doctoral Research Award.

He is widely acknowledged as the strategy guru in India. His three books including Competitive Excellence—Critical Success Factors, Managing Global Competition—Achieving World-class Performance, and Corporate Excellence—Growth Strategies Under Constraints, is each a best-seller and winner of ‘Best Book Award’ in India. Dr. Jain has served and taught at leading B-Schools and Universities in India and abroad and received several teaching excellence recognitions. He is also a Visiting Professor at School of Business at University of Bradford (UK).

His research has featured in prestigious national and international journals including Harvard Business Review. Dr. Jain has written more than 50 field based case studies. He teaches papers on Global Competition and Corporate Governance, and conducts short-term programmes on Strategic Thinking for the corporate world. He is a member of several prestigious Boards and Advisory Committees including Primary Market Advisory Committee of SEBI.

Currently Dr. Jain is Professor of Strategic and International Management at Indian Institute of Management–Lucknow (India) and Chairman of Centre for Corporate Governance.