Syllabus

Short Course Description

This core course deals with the craft of strategy formulation and implementation that drive competitive organizations. The course provides insight into how to identify and choose a superior competitive position, how to analyze a strategic situation, and finally how to create the organizational context to make the chosen strategy work. As such, the objectives of this course are twofold: 1) to explore conceptual frameworks and models which will assist you with analyzing competitive situation and strategic dilemmas and gain insight into strategic management; 2) to help you acquire experience in dealing with strategic issues. We start by defining the logic of strategy and how strategy relates to different measures of firm performance. We then move to the analysis of the external competitive environment, looking at industry structure, value chain dynamics, and assess how a firm can select the best position within this environment. Based on this analysis and the firm core comptencies, we consider specific actions a firm can take within a particular market or industry to gain competitive advantages. Such business strategies include vertical integration, cost leadership and product differentiation. These alternative strategic choices may offer valuable opportunities, yet may entail tremendous uncertainty. We then turn to strategic options available to the firm seeking to gain competitive advantages by operating in multiple businesses simultaneously. Such corporate level strategies include strategic alliances, diversification, and acquisitions.