AIMS:

• To give an overview of the many, frequently disagreeing, schools of thought in strategic management and to develop the ability to critically reflect on theories as well as to combine them flexibly for practical analysis.
• To enable readers to develop a deep understanding of the concepts, techniques and practices associated with the development of strategic change in organizations.

OUTCOMES:

Readers will be able to:

1. recognize the diversity of approaches to issues in strategic management
2. develop effective organizational and environmental analyzes
3. advise on approaches to the crafting of creative strategies at the business and corporate level
4. evaluate the assumptions underlying different approaches to the management of strategic change
5. analyze the problems of bringing about significant strategic and organizational change.

SYLLABUS

Approaches to Strategic Management:

Introduction to the different approaches to strategic management: ontological and epistemological assumptions. Deliberate or emergent, profit maximization and pluralistic approaches, prescriptive or classical, evolutionary or environmental, processional and systemic or cultural.

Organizational Environment:

Organizational purpose, stakeholder expectations and organizational culture. Auditing resources and capabilities, comparative analysis, value chain and core competence analysis, financial and portfolio analyzes. Understanding the nature of the external environment: simple static conditions, dynamic or complex. The role of planning and control at the strategic level: cybernetics, the law of requisite variety, systems dynamics, chaos theory and complexity science. Macro -environmental analysis. Industry and competitor analysis. Scenario planning.

Choice at the Business and Corporate level:

Strategic Choice: Generic Strategies: Cost advantage: sources of cost advantage. Differentiation: drivers of differentiation. Focus strategies. Resource based strategies and core competence. Industry context; industry evolution versus industry creation. The growth of the multi-business organization; strategic choice at the corporate level: portfolio management versus competence and related perspectives. Growth strategies: acquisition and diversification. Networks, alliances, partnerships and joint ventures.

Analyzing Strategic Change:

Models of organizational change: planned versus contextual accounts; top down versus bottom up approaches. Metaphorical analysis and its limitations. Understanding organizational culture. Flux and transformation in organizations.

Producing and Managing Change in Organizations:

Measuring Organizational Performance. Organizational configurations and structures, strength & weaknesses of structural changes. Producing organizational culture change. Benchmarking, Total Quality Management, Business Process Engineering, Strategic Leadership; ordinary and extraordinary management. The role of power and politics in strategy formulation. Organizational learning and learning organizations.

Supportive reading

de Wit, B & Meyer, R, (1998), Strategy Process, Content & Context. 2nd Ed, West.

Mintzberg H, Ahlstrand, B. & Lampei, J., (1998) Strategy Safari: "A guided tour through the wilds of strategic management". Prentice Hall.

Stacey, R, (2000), Strategic Management & Organizational Dynamics, Pitman, London.