| Learning objectives |
Learning objectives for the joint exam in
Business Strategy and Organizational Identity.
At the exam the student should be able to:
- Relate various theories related to business strategy to each
other, and apply them in order to analyze issues of business
strategy
- Discuss, using theories relevant to business strategy, how and
why business strategy facilitate assimilation and differentiation
among internal and external stakeholders
- Relate various theories related to organizational identity to
each other, and apply them in order to analyze issues of identity
and corporate branding
- Discuss, using theories relevant to organizational identity,
how and why organizational identity changes and involves internal
and external stakeholders
- Discuss how identity provides a foundation for strategy and how
it offers the opportunity for organizations to achieve competitive
advantage
|
| Course prerequisites |
| Business Strategy can only be taken together with
the course Organizational Identity as the two courses have a common
exam. |
| Examination |
|
Business
Strategy in conjunction with Organizational
Identity:
|
| Exam
ECTS |
15 |
| Examination form |
Oral exam based on written product
In order to participate in the oral exam, the written product
must be handed in before the oral exam; by the set deadline. The
grade is based on an overall assessment of the written product and
the individual oral performance. |
| Individual or group exam |
Group exam, max. 5 students in the
group |
|
The oral exam will is individual and based on a
group project .
Ordinary exam takes place in October/November. |
| Size of written product |
Max. 15 pages |
|
For a single student max. 10 pages |
| Assignment type |
Project |
| Duration |
Written product to be submitted on specified date and
time.
20 min. per student, including examiners' discussion of grade,
and informing plus explaining the grade |
| Preparation time |
No preparation |
| Grading scale |
7-step scale |
| Examiner(s) |
Internal examiner and external examiner |
| Exam period |
Autumn Term |
| Make-up exam/re-exam |
Same examination form as the ordinary exam
If a student is ill during the oral
exam, he/she will be able to re-use the project at the make-up
exam. If the student was ill during the writing of the project and
did not contribute to the project, the make-up/re-exam project can
be written individually or in groups (provided the other students
are taking the make-up/re-exam). If the student did not pass the
regular exam, the examiner decides whether a new or revised
project, must be handed in to a new deadline specified by the line
secretariat. Reexam takes place in
Jan/Feb.
|
|
| Course content and structure |
|
Aim of the course
The aim of this course is to introduce the student to a set of
innovative management practices for business development and
strategic management. The course provides students with an overview
of different perspectives in the field of strategy but makes a
distinct move from the traditional linear causality models of
strategic management to more complex models that focus on strategy
as a process, facilitating analysis of ‘how’ organizational
strategies emerge. The notion of emergence emphasizes the processes
whereby issues and activities become strategic and how strategic
decisions shape actions in the organization in relation to
perceived environmental changes.
The overall ambition of this course is to stimulate students to
learn about and make use of innovative management practices for
business development and strategic management. This is crucial for
the ability to understand and practice strategic management and
business development.
In conjunction with the course Organizational Identity (OI), the
strategy course will engage in practical case work through analysis
as well as creative strategy making. The latter will be facilitated
by learning techniques from art and design studios.
Contents
Specifically, the course presents three schools of strategic
management and business development and discusses their underlying
assumptions about which actions, methods and tools provide the
‘best practice’ for business.
Each theory is viewed as a ‘tool’ which students can use to study
strategic management in practice as well as to practice management.
The course moves away from taking strategies and intentions as
given and view them as emerging in the context of people trying to
organize things. Therefore, we will look at how each of these three
theoretical schools view such things as intentions, control,
profits and budgets, mission-vision-strategy, set direction and
creativity that are supposed to guide the practice of managerial
action. Particularly, the course will address this in a context of
a managerial attention to the balance between exploitation and
exploration of resources, competences, mental models and
meaning/identity that shape business development.
Finally, the course focuses on the role of tools and models in
analysis and how numbers are used in decision making. Tools and
models have a different status in the three schools. From the
rational perspective, where tools are seen as neutral descriptors
and objective decision points, we move towards to a constructivist
position where they are seen as performing realities – fabricating
‘facts’- that serve as input for managerial discussion and
sense-making.
The overall ambition of this course is to stimulate students to
learn about and make use of innovative management practices for
business development and strategic management. This is crucial for
the ability to understand and practice strategic management and
business development.
Overlap with the course Organizational Identity (OI)
This course of Business Strategy overlaps naturally with OI in
three ways:
In aiming to understand how organizational identity is explicated
and used as an internal resource for management to develop certain
policies and organizational architectures that stimulate local
action.
In viewing identity as a strategyc asset .
In that several theoretical frameworks (e.g. co-creation)
are used in both courses.
|
| Teaching methods |
Lectures presenting and analyzing different forms
of reports from classical analysis to other ways of inquiring about
‘what is going on’ and what can be done about it from different
perspectives
Students will engage in explicit reflection and use of models and
theoretical perspectives.
Case based learning
Studio based learning |
| Expected literature |
|
The total reading is about 800 pages.
In terms of level of difficulty about 400 pages are considered
relatively easy reading, whereas 400 pages are on a higher and more
difficult level.
Clegg, S., Carter C., Kornberger, M., and Schweitzer J. (2011),
Strategy, Theory & Practice, Sage, London, 488
p.
|
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