Essentials of Strategic Management: The Quest for Competitive Advantage

John E. Gamble is the Mary & Jeff Bell Endowed Distinguished Professor of Business and former Dean of the College of Business at Texas A&M University―Corpus Christi. His teaching and research have focused on strategic management and entrepreneurship at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He has conducted courses in strategic management in Germany since 2001, which have been sponsored by the University of Applied Sciences in Worms. 

Dr. Gamble’s research has been published in various scholarly journals, and he is the author or coauthor of more than 100 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 PhD, Master of Arts, and Bachelor of Science degrees from the University of Alabama and was a faculty member in the Mitchell College of Business at the University of South Alabama before his appointment to the faculty at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.


Arthur A. Thompson Jr. earned his BS and PhD 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 25 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 coauthored 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 60 years have two daughters, two grandchildren, and a Yorkshire terrier.

Margaret A. Peteraf is the Leon E. Williams Professor of Management Emerita at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. She is an internationally recognized scholar with a long list of publications in top management journals. She has earned myriad honors and prizes for her contributions, including the 2020 Strategic Management Distinguished Scholarship Award―a newly created award that has been dubbed “the Nobel Prize of Strategic Management.” She was also given the 1999 Strategic Management Best Paper Award in recognition of the deep influence of her work on the strategy field. Professor Peteraf has been elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Management as well as a Fellow of the Strategic Management Society. She has served as a member of the Academy of Management’s Board of Governors, as Chair of the Strategic Management Division of the Academy, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Strategic Management Society. She has taught in Executive Education programs around the world and has won teaching awards at the MBA and Executive Education level. Dr. Peteraf earned her PhD, MA, and MPhil at Yale University and held previous appointments at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management and at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.