The Strategic Management of Technology in the Chemical and Petrochemical Industries

This work is concerned with the interaction between technology and business strategies in the chemical and petrochemical industries. It begins with a discussion about strategy, which reviews the different schools of thought; this is followed by a chapter on the interface between strategy and technology at the different levels of management within a corporation, a description of the methodology for technology strategy analysis and a review of the evolution of the pattern of innovation in the chemical industry. The second part provides in-depth case studies, each of which describes a Strategic Business Unit (SBU) and the corporations which contain these SBUs. A short technology review, as well as a market review, is included in each chapter, providing the reader with the necessary background to the full understanding of the case studies. The SBUs and their corporations' business and technology strategies are then analyzed. Finally, the last chapter compares the four cases, highlighting evidence of an emerging new paradigm.