Book Briefs: Make the Rules or Your Rivals Will

Make the Rules or Your Rivals Will

By G. Richard Shell
Crown Business, April 2004
336 pages, $27.50

Here’s Wharton School Professor Shell’s argument in a nutshell: He who makes
the rules wins. And the best way to make the rules is to literally help write
the law. In typical discussions of business strategy, it is unusual to hear
the law mentioned. That’s a mistake, Shell argues. “Law is perhaps the most
hidden of competitive strategy tools. Many in business fear getting tangled
up with lawyers, lobbyists and bureaucrats, so they keep their distance from
legal matters. But it is just this aversion that makes legal knowledge such
a rich source of competitive advantage. Someone, after all, is going to make
the rules. The only question is who.” Whether you are talking about taking advantage
of existing laws—or lobbying to create new ones—Shell’s central argument
makes a lot of sense.