The strategic grounding of competitive advantage - The case of Scania

Scania has performed well above average in the heavy truck industry during a considerable time span. Scania's sources of competitive advantage are presented and their interrelations and significance for the business strategy analysed in order to explain the success of Scania. Strategic issues are traditionally analysed in a top-down procedure starting with the corporate strategy and proceeding by disaggregation of the strategy down in the organisation. This is known as the grand strategy perspective and views strategy as a "chain of causality". We introduce the grounded strategy perspective which views strategy as a "pattern in a stream of decisions and actions", and takes its starting point in the stream of activities within the company. Grounded strategy synthesises the strategy according to a bottom-up procedure. The case of Scania and the heavy truck industry is analysed according to these two different perspectives on strategy. The methodological approach may be different depending on the perspective. The results of the case study from each perspective reveal interesting implications to strategists: scholars as well as practitioners. The grand strategy approach appears to be advantageous for analysis at the higher levels of strategy, while the grounded approach appear to be advantageous at the lower levels of strategy.