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2017/2018 KAN-CCMIU1002U CEMS Global Strategic Management
| English Title | |
| CEMS Global Strategic Management |
Course information |
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| Language | English |
| Course ECTS | 7.5 ECTS |
| Type | Mandatory |
| Level | Full Degree Master |
| Duration | One Semester |
| Start time of the course | Autumn |
| Timetable | Course schedule will be posted at calendar.cbs.dk |
| Min. participants | 60 |
| Max. participants | 60 |
| Study board |
Study Board for BSc og MSc in Business, Language and Culture,
MSc
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| Course coordinator | |
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| Last updated on 02-03-2018 | |
Relevant links |
| Learning objectives | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| To achieve the grade 12, students should meet the
following learning objectives with no or only minor mistakes or
errors: There are three key interrelated goals in this course:
1.Obtaining a Global Strategic Management Mindset. To be successful as a global strategic manager, you must be able to think, act, and manage in ways that extend beyond a single country approach. This requires an open, (self-) critical, and adaptive approach, which should allow you to operate effectively in a multitude of contexts. 2.Acquiring Global Strategic Management Knowledge. To be successful as a global strategic manager, you must have an understanding of the drivers of global strategies, how these strategies affect a variety of outcomes, and through what strategy processes they come about. This requires an ability to know both what the most appropriate solution is theoretically and how practical factors affect that solution. 3.Applying Global Strategic Management Skills. To be successful as a global strategic manager, you must have a variety of personal skills, including the ability to turn knowledge into concrete action, the ability to work in teams to solve complex problems, and the ability to critically reflect on your own abilities and shortcomings. From these goals the following specific learning objectives result:
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| Course prerequisites | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| THIS COURSE IS ONLY OPEN TO CEMS MIM STUDENTS
Before the course starts you are expected to gain sufficient understanding of the essentials of strategic management, or if you feel you already master these to refresh that understanding. For this purpose you are very strongly advised to use a newly developed online CEMS app (details to be confirmed) or study a strategy textbook such as Robert Grant’s Contemporary Competitive Advantage. During the course there will not be time to revisit the essentials of strategic management. Please contact the lecturer (mmo.smg@cbs.dk) at your earliest convenience if you have any questions about this. |
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| Prerequisites for registering for the exam | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Number of mandatory
activities: 1
Requirements about active
class participation (assessed approved/not approved)
Participation in the group presentations in class is mandatory and must be completed in order to be admitted to the course exam. |
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| Examination | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Course content and structure | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Welcome to the course “Global Strategic Management” that forms a core part of the CEMS Program. The aim of the course is to help you improve in your ability to be an effective global manager, especially in the area of strategy. To achieve this aim, we will use a variety of learning tools, supported by relevant academic thinking where needed. This course builds upon foundational knowledge of (non-global) strategic management, which you are expected to have acquired previously and focuses on strategic management in a global context. In other words, the object of our interest is how firms formulate and implement strategies when they are operating across national borders or are planning to do so. Within this context, the course aims to provide you with a) an improved ability to analyze global strategies b), an improved ability to formulate global strategies, and c) an improved ability to execute global strategies. Our focus throughout the course is driven by real-life practical problems faced by large and sometimes smaller multinational firms across a range of industries and countries. As in real-life settings, we assume you have come to this course well prepared, willing to participate in class discussions, and ready to work in teams. Furthermore we strongly expect you to engage in a learning process and to be able to articulate that learning. The course essentially takes an evolutionary perspective, tracking how global strategic management in practice has changed over time up to where it is today and will go tomorrow. Such an approach is useful because it allows us to understand more basic settings prior to considering how global strategic management is becoming ever more complex. This complexity takes multiple forms, for instance in terms of types of decision-making, geographic spread, organizational models, the involvement of partners, and multiple and more diffuse performance objectives. The focus in this course is on practically relevant issues, and to some extent directly on the role you as an individual will have in tackling such issues. This practical perspective is shadowed by relevant literature and conceptual debates where needed, i.e. the focus is not on the literature or theory as such. However, through additional background readings you can dig into the literature and these conceptual debates as much as you need and want to.
Classes and group work
We strongly encourage presence in the classroom and participation in both classroom discussion and group work. Such participation should facilitate the writing of your learning diary, which is an integral part of the individual assignment you must pass in order to pass the course. Ample room will be provided for you to participate in classroom discussion, regardless of whether you prefer to tackle issues from a more practical or more conceptual angle. We use multiple learning tools in this class, including case studies, lectures, group presentations, role play, and practitioner contributions. Each of these tools provides different benefits. Case studies will be used to discuss specific topics in more depth, allowing us to study a specific issue in a practical context. The aim of these case studies is to put you in the position of a global strategic manager. Lectures will take a specific question as a point of departure and apply relevant academic thinking to that question. The focus of this course is in many ways fairly practical, but there will be room to deepen your theoretical knowledge, as well as to apply it in the individual assignment. The group presentations form a central part of the class and are mandatory (you must work on and attend your group’s presentation). Groups will have some minimum level of school and gender diversity and each group will tackle a different real-life problem faced by a company in the role of consultants. Each group will have two meetings with one of the lecturers to prepare the presentation. In these meeting a strategy to tackle the problem is formulated and an initial implementation approach is proposed. Each group will make a 20 minute presentation during week 9 or 10 of the course. The presentations will receive feedback from from the lecturers, and there will be some prizes to be won. Role play may be used for you to practise specific dilemmas you will encounter as a global strategic manager. Finally, practitioners from leading multinational companies in Denmark will come to class to share their experience and knowledge of global strategic management, usually focusing on specific issues their respective companies are dealing with (rather than on a broad take on global strategic management).
Sessions
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| Teaching methods | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Classes, group work and class presentations | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Feedback during the teaching period | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Student are welcome to come and receive feedback during office hours. Furthermore, each student group will have two meetings with the course lecturers to receive feedback on their group work. After the presentations each group will receive comments as well as an assessment, which takes place through the awarding of a prize for the best presentation. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Expected literature | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Some articles are available directly from CBS Learn. Others we will provide a link for, and you can then access these through the CBS Library. Should there be any additional documents from guest speakers, these will be uploaded on CBS Learn. One case is also available directly from CBS Learn. The others you should order, through the Case Centre (www.thecasecentre.org/) or from another case supplier. These suppliers charge a fee for the use of each case. At CBS students are responsible for purchasing their own copies of cases. CBS does not condone the copying or use of these materials by students who have not purchased the materials from an authorized case provider themselves. Make sure that you have access to all chapters, articles and cases well in advance so that you can come to class prepared and ready to build upon your understanding.
In this session we will first introduce the course, including the group work and assignment. Then we briefly revisit our understanding of strategic management (without the global) and set out the stall for global strategic management: What is it (not), why do we need it and how do we go about it? We then discuss multinational corporations, which are the vehicle for global strategic management.
Core readings and materials:
Further readings:
The starting point of this session is the idea that organizational structures and strategies are intertwined and that a choice of structure therefore enables / constrains strategic choices that organizations make. We then zoom in on a key aspect of organizational structure in global strategic management, the headquarter-subsidiary relationship. Next we look at global strategic management through a process angle, i.e. how does global strategic management get done? Then we look at formal and informal institutions, and include a simple simulation exercise on culture.
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Further readings:
This session starts looking at how to assess competitive advantage for subsidiaries. Based on the competitiveness assessment, the session explores: i) the dimensions to assess the choice of a new international market to enter into, ii) how to assess how strategic is that potential market, and iii) the choice of the entry mode appropriate to the market and firm characteristics.
Core readings and materials:
Further readings:
This session introduces external growth strategies with focus on alliances and acquisitions. After the introduction of what these growth strategies are, the session explores: i) how (market conditions and firm characteristics) to decide between these two strategic options, ii) international dimensions of alliances and acquisitions iii) how to assess the performance of these operations, also from an international perspective, and iv) the role of corporate venture capital as knowledge sourcing strategy in multinational corporation.
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Further readings:
The session looks at how regions are heterogeneous in providing challenges and opportunities to multinational corporations. More precisely, the session will reflect on: i) the assessment of the competitiveness of specific geographies ii) the concept of distance among regions is discussed to understand how it affects international business opportunities iii) knowledge as form of power in the HQ-subsidiary relationship, and iv) knowledge production in subsidiary and transfers within multinational corporation.
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This session investigates the ‘dark’ side of multinational corporations, especially their struggle in maintaining corporate social responsibility across the many domains they operate in. We do this in the specific context of offshoring and outsourcing, arguing that global strategic management can be viewed as a collection of modules sourced from within or outside an organisation, and within or outside a country.
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During this session we look at what can arguably be seen as the one remaining unexplored continent in global strategic management, Africa. We try to understand Africa from an opportunities perspective, while not ignoring its challenges.
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Further readings:
In the final session we specifically look at what individuals, you yourself included, do in global strategy, especially how they innovate in management practices. This involves some in-class group work. We then recapture the course.
Core readings and materials:
Further readings:
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