Bachelor Program in Business and Management

Strategic Management

Strategic Management

Academic year 2020/2021

Sommario del corso

• Course objectives
• Results of learning outcomes
• Course delivery
• Learning assessment methods
• Program
• Suggested textbooks and readings
• Notes
• Teaching tools

Course objectives

The objectives of the course are to:

• develop participants’ capabilities to make strategic choices for their organisation and understand how to develop a competitive advantage;
• enhance critical thinking and decision making for strategic management, at both individual and collective levels;
• encourage participants to make connections between theory and practice through real life innovative cases;
• show participants the fundamental dimensions of any strategy: what is the business model? What is the competitive advantage? What is the scope? In general, what key questions they need to answer;
• enable participants to fully diagnose a strategic business unit inside their organisation, providing them with key strategic frameworks and concepts.

Results of learning outcomes

At the end of the course, participants should be able to:

• Understand key frameworks and concepts in strategic management;
• Link vision, competitive advantage, objectives, business model to strategy;
• Master tools for strategic analysis and design (such as the value chain, the 5Forces, VRIO analysis or SWOT, TOWS, Core Challenges, etc.);
• Formulate corporate level strategies as well as business-level and selected functional strategies;
• Anticipate the consequences of strategy formulation for strategy implementation;
• Understand key success factors in strategy execution.

Course delivery

The course will leverage a variety of delivery modes and teaching methods, blending:

• interactive face-to-face
• discussion and debates
• groupwork
• Individual work

All this will be supported by:

• teaching materials on Blackboard
• pre-readings
• mini-videos
• case studies

Learning assessment methods

• Assessment of group works
• Online final quiz exam - the exam will be published in the homepage of the Moodle course under the section EXAM. Exam will consist of 15/20 quiz questions to be answered in a given time (e.g. 10/15 min). Every correct answer will be graded and incorrect answer equals zero point. Please refer to the section suggested readings and bibliography for study material.

Ogni studente/essa è invitato/a a leggere con attenzione il Codice etico di Ateneo (disponibile al link: https://www.unito.it/sites/default/files/allegati/01-08-2014/cod_etico_comunita_universitaria.pdf) nei cui principi morali – a maggior ragione in questa situazione, nella quale le modalità di esame che dovremo adottare vi responsabilizzano di più – siamo tutti sicuri che vi riconoscete. Siete uomini e donne che presto troveranno collocazione nel mondo del lavoro: noi docenti abbiamo cieca fiducia nelle vostre qualità umane e a quelle ci appelliamo.

Tuttavia il rischio che i principi meritocratici vengano inquinati da condotte non consone è immanente ed è per tale ragione che ciascun docente continuerà, con ancora maggiore rigore, a sorvegliare lo svolgimento delle prove di esame, orali e scritte, agevolato dagli strumenti di analisi inferenziale dei numerosi dati a nostra disposizione e dei software anti-plagio e anti-copiatura (per es. TURNITIN https://www.unito.it/node/4686), per evitare che il rispetto del merito sia appannaggio solo di alcuni.

Oltre che moralmente riprovevoli, sono comportamenti anche illeciti che saranno puniti nei modi e con le sanzioni amministrative che il regolamento su Procedimento e sanzioni disciplinari nei confronti degli studenti prevede (https://www.sme.unito.it/sites/u005/files/allegatiparagrafo/20-07-2016/regolamento_sanzioni_disciplinari_scuola_di_management_ed_economia_0.pdf)

Program

The course is structured in four parts:

1. An introduction to strategy, its origins, why it is important today;
2. The strategic position: analysing the environment, resources and capabilities, expectations and purposes (corporate governance, cultural web,);
3. Strategic choices: corporate-level strategy, business-level strategy, strategic guidelines and initiatives, directions and methods of development (alliances, mergers and acquisitions, diversification,);
4. Strategy implementation: organising, strategic enablers, strategic change.

Main topics addressed will be:

Knowledge and understanding

• Competitive advantage
• Mission, vision, values, level of ambition
• External situation, core competences
• Cost, differentiation strategies
• The mindset of thinking strategically
• Key steps of the strategic process
• Core challenges, must-win battles
• Business model, disruptive and innovative
• Other frameworks: Blue Ocean Strategy, Porter’s 5 forces, 3 Horizons, 7 Degrees of Freedom, Business Model Canvas, Operating Model, etc.

Skills

• Problem solving leadership
• Critical reasoning (e.g. 5 Why’s)
• Creative and imaginative thinking
• Compelling communication for change
• Think out of the box and triangulation

Values and attitudes

• Curiosity
• Passion
• Ethics
• Professional values
• Diversity
• Equality

Preparatory Work and Required readings

There are no mandatory readings nor preparatory work, except for notes and case studies that will be used in class and communicated in due course.

During the course, you will receive a full list of useful references. For those of you interested in optional pre-readings, the recommended books are:

• Johnson / Whittington / Angwin / Regner / Scholes (2014): Exploring Strategy (Pearson)
• Sola / Couturier (2013): How to Think Strategically – Your Roadmap to Innovation and Results(Financial Times Series, Pearson)

Additional recommended readings

• D’Aveni R., Gunther R., Hypercompetition: Managing the Dynamics of Strategic Manoeuvring, The Free Press
• Baghai M., Coley S., White D., The Alchemy of Growth, Perseus Publishing
• Bossidy L., Charan R., Execution – The Discipline of Getting Things Done, Random House
• Collins J., Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don’t, New York Harper-Business
• Grant R., Contemporary Strategy Analysis, Blackwell Business
• Hamel G., Prahalad C., Competing for the Future, Harvard Business School Press
• Kim W.C., Mauborgne R., Blue Ocean Strategy, Harvard Business School Press
• Mintzberg H., The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, Prentice Hall
• Osterwalder A., Pigneur Y., Business Model Generation, Wiley
• Porter M., Competitive Advantage, The Free Press
• Rumelt R., Good Strategy Bad Strategy, Profile Books

Note

• Teaching materials
• Exams and finals
• Go to Moodle
• Visit the forums