Administrivia 🧐

🧑💻🚀 Strategic Management

Admin
Author
Organisation

Andy Weeger

Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences

Published

September 1, 2023

Modified

February 19, 2024

Motivation

There is more vacuity about strategy than about any other topic in business today. John Kay, Financial Times in Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, and Lampel (2005)

In a nutshell

Strategy?
A plan to create value.

It may not be quite that simple, but it’s almost.

General remarks

This course will be taught using traditional synchronous lectures.

The focus of the classes is to discuss—not introduce—major concepts, tools and methods of strategic management.

The classes will be characterized by group work, discussions and short presentations.

The greatest amount of work is in preparing for and following up lectures in order to become sufficiently familiar with and understand the content.

It is necessary to prepare for each session, usually by reading a paper, details (see Table 1).

Please prepare your schedule accordingly.

Effort

Effort distribution for average students

Effort distribution for average students

 

 

 

 
Figure 1: Effort distribution for average students

For this course you will receive 5 ECTS. This corresponds to approx. 150 hours of work required by an average student to pass the course.

  • Classes (approx. 30 hours)
  • Paper reading (approx. 25 hours; approx. 2.5 hours per paper)
  • Follow-up and exam preparation (do the math yourself)

Contents

In this course, we will have a look at following topics

  • Concepts and taxonomy of strategy
  • Functions of strategic management
  • Development, analysis and implementation of strategies
  • Strategic role of corporate social responsibility
  • Performance measurement
  • IT strategy, innovation and alignment

Learning objectives

During this course, you should advance your skills in the following areas:

  • Understanding of concepts and taxonomies of strategy
  • Basic knowledge of underlying theories of strategic management and decision-making
  • Understanding of tools and frameworks for the development, analysis and implementation of strategies
  • Knowledge of key concepts and frameworks for decision making under uncertainty
  • Understanding of the role of IT strategy and its relationship with business strategy
  • Ability to work independently with literature to derive key-insights
  • Application of concepts, tools, and framework in real-life cases

Exam

There will we a written exam at the end of the semester.

The exam will

  • take place during the examination weeks,
  • will last 90 minutes,
  • cover all contents discussed in lecture,
  • focus on the application of the knowledge gained in the course.

Schedule

Date Topic Guiding Question Preparation
05.10.23 Administrivia What do you already know about strategy? —
12.10.23 Strategy What is strategy, what strategic management? Mintzberg (1987)
19.10.23 Strategy Types What are generic strategies and what are they good for? Galbraith, Craig, and Schendel (1983)
26.10.23 Environment What external forces need to be considered? Hallegatte (2009)
02.11.23 Capabilities What leads to competitive advantage? Ambrosini and Bowman (2009) (Peteraf (1993))
09.11.23 Strategy Formation What to consider when ‘crafting’ strategies? Mintzberg (1978)
16.11.23 Ethics and Responsibility Does it pay off to be really good? Barnett and Salomon (2012)
23.11.23 Structure How to match a firm’s structure with its strategy? Lorenz and Buchwald (2023)
30.11.23 Management Control How to effectively evaluate strategic performance? Chakravarthy (1986)
07.12.23 IS Strategy What about IS/IT and strategy? Chen et al. (2010).
14.12.23 Backlog What how to catch up on the backlog? Mithas and Rust (2016)
CW511 Alignment How to align business and IT? Henderson and Venkatraman (1999)
11.01.24 Case Study Sea Limited: Sustain or Expand?
18.01.23 Strategy in Action Guest Speech —
25.01.24 Exam preparation What needs to be discussed or explained again? Questions
Table 1: Schedule winter term 2023/2024 (may be subjected to changes)

Exercise

What is strategy?

Form small groups, discuss what corporate strategy is and find a company with a recognizable strategy to show your findings on.

Prepare to present your findings.

What is stratgegy?

Homework

Read Mintzberg (1987) and make notes on following questions:

  • What are the characteristics of the five different definitions of strategy discussed in the paper (Plan, Ploy, Pattern, Position, and Perspective)?
  • What do the perspectives imply for strategic management?
  • Do you agree with Mintzberg’s assertion that strategy is not solely a product of rational planning?
  • Use the organization chosen in the last exercise and analyze its strategy using Mintzberg’s Five Ps framework.

Q&A

Literature

Ambrosini, Véronique, and Cliff Bowman. 2009. “What Are Dynamic Capabilities and Are They a Useful Construct in Strategic Management?” International Journal of Management Reviews 11 (1): 29–49.
Barnett, Michael L, and Robert M Salomon. 2012. “Does It Pay to Be Really Good? Addressing the Shape of the Relationship Between Social and Financial Performance.” Strategic Management Journal 33 (11): 1304–20.
Chakravarthy, Balaji S. 1986. “Measuring Strategic Performance.” Strategic Management Journal 7 (5): 437–58.
Chen, Daniel Q, Martin Mocker, David S Preston, and Alexander Teubner. 2010. “Information Systems Strategy: Reconceptualization, Measurement, and Implications.” MIS Quarterly, 233–59.
Galbraith, Jay R., Cynthia A. Craig, and Dan Schendel. 1983. “An Empirical Analysis of Strategy Types.” Strategic Management Journal 4 (2): 153–73.
Hallegatte, Stéphane. 2009. “Strategies to Adapt to an Uncertain Climate Change.” Global Environmental Change 19 (2): 240–47.
Henderson, John C, and Harihara Venkatraman. 1999. “Strategic Alignment: Leveraging Information Technology for Transforming Organizations.” IBM Systems Journal 38 (2.3): 472–84.
Lorenz, Felix, and Arne Buchwald. 2023. “A Perfect Match or an Arranged Marriage? How Chief Digital Officers and Chief Information Officers Perceive Their Relationship: A Dyadic Research Design.” European Journal of Information Systems 32 (3): 372–89.
Mintzberg, Henry. 1978. “Patterns in Strategy Formation.” Management Science 24 (9): 934–48.
———. 1987. “The Strategy Concept i: Five Ps for Strategy.” California Management Review 30 (1): 11–24.
Mintzberg, Henry, Bruce W Ahlstrand, and Joseph Lampel. 2005. Strategy Bites Back: It Is a Lot More, and Less, Than You Ever Imagined–. Pearson Education.
Mithas, Sunil, and Roland T Rust. 2016. “How Information Technology Strategy and Investments Influence Firm Performance.” MIS Quarterly 40 (1): 223–46.
Peteraf, Margaret A. 1993. “The Cornerstones of Competitive Advantage: A Resource-Based View.” Strategic Management Journal 14 (3): 179–91.

Footnotes

  1. No lecture due to consulting workshops, you need to work through IS Strategy and Alignment (see here) on your own.↩︎