Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road: Strategic Management Edition
21 February 2009
| Peter Klein |
Joe Mahoney and Christos Pitelis have produced their most original, and possibly most enduring, piece of scholarly work, reprinted here by permission:
Why did the chicken cross the road?
“We must first study the chickens in aggregate; once we understand the chicken industry, then we can explain the individual chicken’s conduct.” — Joe Bain
“We must study the potential mobility barriers of a meaningful strategic group of chickens to understand the individual chicken’s conduct.” — Richard Caves
“The reason for the chicken’s behavior is causally ambiguous.” — Richard Rumelt
“The behavior of the chicken is socially embedded.” — Mark Granovetter
“The chicken is merely following its standard operating procedures.” — Richard Cyert and James March
“Walking across the street is a core competence of the chicken.” — Gary Hamel
“Walking across the street is the chicken’s strategic intent.” — C. K. Prahalad
“It is the chicken’s dominant logic.” — Richard Bettis
“It is simply a routine of the chicken.” — Sidney Winter
“In a complex environment such behavior is the chicken’s dynamic capability.” — David Teece
“”We will need to triangulate to understand the ESSENCE OF DECISION of the chicken.” — Graham Allison
“The chicken is attempting to economize on bounded rationality and attenuate opportunism.” — Oliver Williamson
“The chicken is choosing purposefully based on its perception of its subjective opportunity set.” — Edith Tilton Penrose
“The chicken will likely be hit by a car.” – Population ecology theorists
“The chicken is driven to seek power and resources from the other side of the road.” — Jeffry Pfeffer
“The chicken’s walking is part of its activity system.” – Michael Porter
“The chicken’s walking is a discovery procedure; a kind of chicken’s spontaneous order.” — Friedrich Hayek
“The fact that the chicken continues to walk across the road, indicates that the chickens walking has been transformed from a core capability to a core rigidity.” — Dorothy Leonard Barton
“To position itself.” — Porter
“Because the path is more interesting than the equilibrium position.” — Penrose
“Learning by doing.” — Arrow
“Because of procedural (ir)rationality.” — Simon
“To effect intra-chicken conflict resolution.” — Cyert and March
“To experience unit cost economies.” — Chandler
“To claim the residual corn.” – Alchian and Demsetz
“Spontaneous dis-order.” – Mises
“For creative distraction.” — Schumpeter, before he learned English
“To avoid chicken capture.” — Stigler
“Because of market failure.” — Coase
“It has nothing to lose except the oven.” — Marx
“Because of its animal spirit.” — Keynes
“To collect dispersed knowledge.” — Hayek
“Just to be on the safe side.” — Knight
“A road unexamined is not worth crossing.” — Socrates
“To return to God.” — St. Augustine
“It is due to the chicken’s monads.” — Leibniz
“To advance the evolution of the world.” – John Dewey
“The chicken is absurd.” — Sartre
“It does not make a difference.” – Albert Camus
“All I know is that I don’t know.” — Plato
“It just keeps walking.” — Johnny Walker
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1.
pj | 21 February 2009 at 12:36 pm
Brilliant!
But isn’t it remarkable how the life’s work of the world’s greatest management thinkers can be summed up, with only slight loss of content, in single sentences?
2.
Salvador | 21 February 2009 at 12:54 pm
Because it was a crossing it can believe in ( a democrat)
It just did it ( Nike)
It didn’t cross , the road changed it relative position to the chicken ( Einstein)
Since we were checking its speed we don’t know where it is ( Heisemberg)
Only to discover there is another road to cross ( Plank)
It crossed and didn’t cross at the same time , we will know when we open the box ( Schrodinger)
It was a moral categorical imperative( Kant)
It was trying to embody the absolute objectivity ( Hegel)
It didn’t cross , when it reached halfway , it was the same go forward or back . So it is still there .( Ockam)
Nobody where there too see it crossing. So it didn’t cross ( Comte)
It didn’t cross , it was a CNN created reality. ( Derrida)
It didn’t cross , it is a discourse intended to fulfill the domination lust of the technical scientific complex (Lyotard)
Because it was a punishment to force conformity over dissidents ( Foucault)
3.
david | 21 February 2009 at 3:45 pm
Transaction costs
4.
REW | 21 February 2009 at 4:21 pm
I am awestruck. Pithy, yet pointed.
Joe and Christos, what shall I use as the original citation? Perhaps a nonworking paper?
5.
Ivan | 22 February 2009 at 3:46 am
There is one mystake:
“All that I know is that I don’t know”, it was Socrates, not Plato.
6.
Bart | 22 February 2009 at 11:03 am
All good guesses, but you’ll never really know unless you read this
7.
Bart | 23 February 2009 at 6:27 am
Hmmm, a dead link, here’s the live one
8. B-School Profs on Gratitude, Starbucks and More | Stacy Blackman Consulting - MBA Admissions | 23 February 2009 at 9:41 am
[...] On the ambulatory practices of poultry — The Organizations and Markets blog offers the strategic management edition analyzing an age-old conundrum: Why did the chicken cross the road? [...]
9. Back to B-School mobile edition | 23 February 2009 at 11:26 am
[...] and Markets blog offers the strategic management edition analyzing an age-old conundrum: Why did the chicken cross the road? posted by Stacy Blackman February 23, 2009 @ 8:26 [...]
10.
Taoist | 25 February 2009 at 9:49 pm
There is no chicken.
11.
Nihilist | 25 February 2009 at 9:50 pm
There is no road.
12.
John | 26 February 2009 at 5:20 pm
why did the chicken cross the playground? to get to the other SLIDE.
13.
Gene Callahan | 27 February 2009 at 12:10 am
“It is the chicken’s tradition to cross roads.” — Oakeshott
Oh, and Ivan — Socrates never wrote anything. So that was said by a *character* named Socrates in a dialogue written by Plato.
14.
Ramya TV | 24 March 2009 at 4:36 am
The chicken must have crossed the road to gain first mover advantage over the egg, thereby the chicken came first and the long standing chicken and egg problem finally had a solution: -Shamsie, Jamal
The road, the chicken and the crossing came together seeking each other and it obviously made sense to cross the road.-Weick
Or, the chicken might have wanted to write a critique of Bill Gates “The Road Ahead”
15. Random Links XXIII « Random Musings of a Deranged Mind | 12 April 2009 at 10:33 pm
[...] http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2009/02/21/why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-road-strategic-managemen... [...]