IB/MG 320 - Strategic Management

To be effective, business leaders must understand the factors responsible for their firm’s past performance and be able to identify those changes (internal & external to the firm) that are most likely to affect its performance. The Strategic Management course addresses this reality by examining the fundamental conditions that enable a firm to conceive, formulate, and sustain a superior strategic position. In particular, we will focus on:

• The environmental factors (including cultural factors) that impact the firm.
• The firm’s internal source of competitive advantage and whether this is sustainable in the long term.
• The likely behavior of a company’s competitors (and how a company can influence its rivals).
• Corporate strategy and its various components.

Students will learn strategic analysis tools, including models and frameworks to help them diagnose organizational issues and make recommendations to improve or sustain corporate performance. The objective of the course is to equip students with real-world skills that can be applied in an organizational setting and to provide them with an appreciation for the complexity of strategic decision-making in large firms operating in a competitive world with rapid globalization. On a more general level, the course aims to improve students’ critical thinking skills and ability to tackle tough organizational problems in a variety of challenging settings.