Strategic Management is concerned with the overall purpose and scope of the organisation to meet the expectations of major shareholders and add value to different parts of the enterprise. As it takes a resolute management/chief executive perspective of the firm, strategic management is offered as an important integrating course in the programme. It analyses the complexity of decision making at a senior level in the firm and encourages the student to understand the role and tensions of various senior managers working in tandem with the general manager. The aim of the Strategic Management module is to provide an important integrative module in the programme enabling the student to draw on and integrate various disciplines and functions studied. The course takes a dedicated general management perspective on the issues involved in running an organisation, and emphasises the importance of leadership.
Nature of strategy and strategic decisions.
Strategic management in different contexts.
Perspectives on strategic thinking.
Emergent versus deliberate.
Values in tension.
Paradox and dilemmic thinking in strategy.
Organisational purpose.
Stakeholder view of the firm.
Corporate governance. Business and society.
The issue of corporate mission.
The challenge of the ‘triple bottom line’: balancing profitability with ecological awareness and corporate social responsibility.
Analysing the competitive environment. Auditing environmental influences. PEST. Five forces model.
Strategic group analysis.
Market attractiveness and business strength.
Value chain analysis.
Benchmarking.
SWOT analysis.
Business models.
Business model canvas.
Resources, competences and strategic capability:
Resource based view (RBV) of the firm.
Market adaptation versus resource leveraging.
Strategic market planning.
Competitive positioning.
Business level strategy.
Generic competitive strategies.
Cost leadership.
Differentiation.
Mass customisation.
Introduction to corporate level strategy. Expansion versus diversification. Organic growth.
Mergers and acquisitions.
Joint ventures and alliances.
Networks and a network perspective. Globalisation versus localisation. Organisation structure and design. Approaches to organisation structure. Resource allocation and control.
A balanced scorecard approach. Reward systems.
Strategic renewal.
Change and the learning organisation. Visualising strategy.
Design thinking.
Managing ideation and creativity in the firm.
Formal lectures will be synthesised with case study and group work. The instructor will balance the needs of the student to acquire the necessary knowledge of the discipline with the requirement to nurture a competence to apply these concepts and ideas in a real world context. Group learning will underpin individual learning, and the importance of learning from peers will be fundamentally recognised.
| Module Content & Assessment | |
|---|---|
| Assessment Breakdown | % |
| Formal Examination | 50 |
| Other Assessment(s) | 50 |