Cliff Bowman & Andrew Kakabadse 
Designing World Class Corporate Strategies [PDF ebook] 

Designing World Class Corporate Strategies considers the key role of corporate centres within very large, primarily multi-business organisations. At present, these corporate centres are under attack as not creating and value and merely adding cost to their groups.
The authors have developed a corporate configurations model which demonstrates four ways in which corporate centres can add significant value. However this requires the centre to act in specific ways depending on the external environment in which the group is operating.
Designing World Class Corporate Strategies is highly readable, with a large number of illustrative examples included in the text. Academic references and theoretical underpinnings are placed in the final chapter of the book, so that the book is focused on the professional market for strategy and creating value.