The course will run throughout the spring semester as a sequence of seminars, case-works and projects. During the first part of the course, we make a critical analysis of existing concepts and frameworks in the strategic marketing and brand management literature. The core question addressed is:1) How is strategic leadership and branding conceived and why in the normative and predominant marketing literature?  The aim of the analysis is to create propositions regarding the necessity of making minor or major modifications of theliteratures’ frameworks, in light of recent developments and trends in the strategic, communication and leadership literature. Hence, a second question dealt with is the following: 2) Are existing ideas, construct, frameworks etc. in the marketing literature (dealing with marketing capabilities, positioning, competitive advantage, strategic brand management, marketing management and leadership etc.) in tune with recent and evolving ideas and experiences in the literature about strategizing, communication and leadership? Additionally, 3) Which changes – if any – are suggested to be made of the marketing literatures’ frameworks - in light of theory developments in strategy, communication and leadership? During the second part of the course itisthe practice of strategic leadership and branding that stands in focus. The objective is to produce the basis for answering the following question: 1) How is strategic leadership and branding enacted in practice? 2) Which similarities and differences reveals from comparing a theoretically constructed framework of strategic leadership and branding with frameworks enacted in practice? Hence, the course ends up with putting the first part of the course (the development of a theoretical framework) up against the second part (ideas and experiences from practice).

Progression
The course constitutes together with ‘Marketing, Creativity and Innovation’ the foundation of the concentration. This means that the course is based on issues, terms and concepts that have been introduced in previous courses. The course is also closely related to the course ‘Consumers’ experiences and design’ and to ‘Managing Knowledge, Projects and Teams’.
The course starts with a critical reflection on the strategy and the marketing management literature. We elaborate on questions such as: Do any of the well-known approaches and practices for conceptualising and communicating a firm’s overall marketing strategy, brand strategy, product strategy etc. require a modification? The inspiration and theoretical foundation for this course originates from recent publications in the field of strategy, strategic management. and leadership. In this literature, constructs and issues such as the learning organization, knowledge creation, chaos theory, story telling, organisational identity etc. have long been discussed in relation to the strategy and leadership construct. The same constructs have lately begun to appear in some marketing publications due to the need of marketing researchers to ‘delve into the organization’s black box’ and to take on a strategic leadership perpective. The latter for the sake of developing an understanding the role of marketing for firm’s innovation, and implicitly marketing’s impact on business performance. The inspiration and basis for the course comes from references such as these, but above all from writers who would not call themselves marketing researchers (see: indicative literature), but who have recognized that:
- We find ourselves in ‘an innovation-driven knowledge-networked’ era that requires new (extended) strategic management approaches
- We require a shift beyond mechanistic analytical approaches to strategy-making and implementation.
-We need to link strategy and strategic management closer to leadership in order to realize effective and efficient implementation.


The objective of the semester project is to produce the basis for answering the following question: what is the meaning of strategic market management when the vision is ‘market creation’ through innovation? The starting point in answering this question is a framework for strategic market management that has been worked out from literature studies. The task is to explore the relevance and premises of implementing this framework in practice. A prerequisite for the task is a case, a company, in that it is demanded that the group undertake interviews with managers involved with strategic marketing issues and processes, and that the group acquire enough insight into the decision context of the interviewed managers. That is, an insight about the strategic context of the case (industry and market analysis, among other things) is asked for.

Strategy: Process, Content, Context, 5th edition

Ron Meyer and Bob De Wit

ISBN: 978-1-4080-8267-6

Brand Management: Research, Theory and Practice

Heiding, T; Knudtzen, C. F. & Bjerre, M.

Routledge, London, UK, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-415-44327-2

Plus: a selection of articles