Course info

MODULE DESCRIPTION

The business world is increasingly global, complex and fast changing. While some organisations are consistently successful over a long period of time, many fail and are forgotten forever. Since capital, labour and management are increasingly mobile, in theory it should become consecutively easier to imitate the strategies of winning companies and dissipate their profits. In practice, however, only a few firms become long-term leaders. Why?

While there appears to be clear link between successful industry performance and superior strategy there is little agreement on what a strategy really is or how to develop a good one.
This module introduces students to the concepts and tools of business strategy making. It encourages a critical appreciation of how firms make sense of their business environment and how they position themselves in their market. It also critically examines the process for making strategic choices and how firms turn strategy into action.


Module aims
- To provide an overview of the different approaches to strategy, and bring you in contact with the corresponding literature.
- To enable you to connect these approaches to business situations.
- To train you in strategic thinking, and in analysing and making sense of the complexities of the business world around you.
- To enable you to critically analyse strategy from a political, cultural and ideological perspective and work with approaches to strategy, whether in the future you will have to make strategy yourself or whether strategy will be imposed upon you by organisations or superiors.

Module outcomes
- Recognise and understand the principles and practices involved in business strategy making
- Link a specific case to general theoretical issues and approaches.
- Make sense of a business situation, analyse it using relevant models and develop a strategy
- Critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the different tools and techniques used in strategy making