• Identify the components that can built into new strategy implementation paradigms that can achieve success in the modern corporation.
• Clearly understand the relationship between strategy formulation and strategy implementation in the organisational context.
• Assess the challenges which can relate to changes in the global competitive environment as well as changes inside the organisation and design a successful strategy implementation.
• Learn to go beyond dichotomous views of strategy by using multiple levels of exploration and creating integrating narratives beyond simply strategic techniques and empty strategic rhetoric.
• Understand how managers deal with change that follows strategy formulation on an organizational level and thus develop innovative managerial skills.

It is a well known fact among business leaders that strategic implementation is the most important component of strategic management. As Asea Brown Bovery Chairman, Percy Barnevick put it : “Successful strategy consists of 5-10% of vision and around 90% of execution” (www.time.comby Jay Branegan Monday, Mar. 03, 1997). Thus although too much emphasis is placed on the studying of strategy formulation little is said about strategy implementation thus leaving a gap in our understanding of a very important strategic concern for corporations and managers.

The objective of this course is to:

• Critically analyse, integrate and synthesise on new concepts and current facts in assessing the practical implications of strategy formulation and strategy implementation in the modern  business world.
• Define corporate strategies for global and/national coporations and institutions.
• Provide the relevant theoretical and empirical background of the core components of modern strategy implementation which incl. assessing information, Management by Objective, the role of middle-management, the role of teams and the role of leader, ethics and negotiations, change, intervention by consultants and other stakeholders such as labor unions.
• Offer  an updated insight  on the theoretical developments in strategy implementation which will serve as the source of knowledgeable and informed, innovative and sustainable managerial solutions.
• Stress the role of strategy implementation as a distinctive skill in organisational change (such as mergers and acquisitions) and   crisis (such as the financial crisis).
• Although the context of strategy implementation is related to most business organisations special emphasis will be placed on the multinational corporation (MNC) as a key global shaper of  corporate strategy developments.

This course bridges components of strategic management, organisational behaviour and international business in addressing a crucial, but often neglected, topic in the teaching of strategy and management that of strategy implementation.

Course material consists of the selected chapters of the recommended textbooks (see below) and a series of articles from leading academic journals such the Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal as well as professional journals such as The McKinsey Quarterly.

Course Main Textbook

1. Flood, P., Dromgoole, T., Carroll, S. and Gorman, L (2000) Managing Strategy Implementation, Blackwell Business, Oxford, UK.

Supplementary textbook

1. Max H. Bazerman; Don A. Moore (20008) Judgment in Managerial Decision Making, John Wiley & Sons, Edition 7^th .

Additional Readings include: (the following list is not exhaustive and is bound to be expanded)

1. Bryan, L. and Farrell, D. (2008) Leading through uncertainty, The McKinsey Quarterly , http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Leading_through_uncertainty_2263
2. Fox, S. and Amichai -Hamburger, Y. (2001) The power of emotional appeals in promoting organizational change programmes, Academy of Management Executive, 15, 4.
3. Floyd, S. and Wooldridge, B. (1992) Managing strategic consensus: the foundation of effective implementation, Academy of Management Executive, 6, 4.
4. Boone, C., Van Olffen, W. and Van Witteioostuijn, A. (2005) Team locus of control composition, leadership structure, information acquisition and financial performance: a business simulation study, Academy of Management Journal, 48,5, 889-909.
5. Denison, D., Hart, S. and Kahn, J. (1996) From chimneys to cross functional teams: developing and validating a diagnostic model, Academy of Management Journal, 39, 4, 1005-1023
6. Nahapiet, J. and Ghoshal, S. (1998) Social capital, intellectual capital and the organizational advantage, Academy of Management Review, 23, 2, 242-266.
7. Kostova, T. and Roth, K. (2003) Social capital in MNCs and micro-macro model of its formation, Academy of Management Review, 28, 2, 297-317.