The leading attempt at a complete normative theory of planning and resource allocation is provided by the concept of "strategy." - Joseph L. Bower

When the technology that has the potential for revolutionizing an industry emerges, established companies typically see it as unattractive: it’s not something their mainstream customers want, and its projected profit margins aren’t sufficient to cover big-company cost structure. As a result, the new technology tends to get ignored in favor of what’s currently popular with the best customers. But then another company steps in to bring the innovation to a new market. Once the becomes established there, smaller-scale innovation rapidly raise the technology’s performance on attributes that mainstream customers’ value.

The research described in this book is based on a field investigation of resource allocation in a very large firm. It was motivated by my conviction, stated above, that for purposes of management and research, adequate models of the allocation process are not available. I believe that this lack stems from the fact that prescriptive theories of economic choice have not yet been set in the context of the large organization's political process. The research described below is an attempt to take a step in that direction by developing a descriptive conceptual scheme of the resource allocation process. Because "resource allocation" is an all-encompassing phrase, it is not particularly operational as a subject for research.

To make further progress it is necessary to go beyond the financial model.