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2024/2025  KAN-CGMAO1002U  Strategy and Organization

English Title
Strategy and Organization

Course information
Language English
Course ECTS 7.5 ECTS
Type Mandatory
Level Full Degree Master
Duration One Semester
Start time of the course Autumn, First Quarter
Timetable Course schedule will be posted at calendar.cbs.dk
Study board
Study Board for cand.merc. and GMA (GMA)
Course coordinator
  • Giacomo Marchesini - Department of Strategy and Innovation (SI)
  • Jane Bjørn Vedel - Department of Organization (IOA)
Main academic disciplines
  • Management
  • Organisation
  • Strategy
Teaching methods
  • Face-to-face teaching
Last updated on 25-06-2024

Relevant links
Learning objectives
  • Develop well-reasoned strategies, or "corporate theories", for firms by integrating strategy tools to identify competitive advantages and opportunities for new advantages.
  • Identify key sources of organizational complexity in firms’ contexts through systematic, comprehensive analysis across field, organizational, and inter-organizational levels.
  • Discuss how "corporate theories" (strategies) can be improved by integrating organizational complexity, acknowledging the contrasts and synergies between rational choice and bounded rationality approaches.
  • Select and apply academic concepts with precision.
Examination
Strategy and Organization:
Exam ECTS 7,5
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, see also the rules about examination forms in the programme regulations.
Individual or group exam Individual oral exam based on written group product
Number of people in the group 4-5
Size of written product Max. 20 pages
Assignment type Essay
Release of assignment Subject chosen by students themselves, see guidelines if any
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
Grading scale 7-point grading scale
Examiner(s) Internal examiner and second internal examiner
Exam period Autumn
Make-up exam/re-exam
Same examination form as the ordinary exam
Course content, structure and pedagogical approach

Firms and other organizations operate in increasingly unpredictable and turbulent environments. This course aims to develop the students’ capabilities in value creation, decision-making, and effective management in complex organizational environments defined by multiple stakeholders and competing logics. This goal is achieved by training the students’ capacities to develop and integrate well-reasoned strategies, or “corporate theories”, and comprehensive analyses of organizational complexity in firms’ environments.

 

The course will introduce the students to key steps in developing corporate theories (strategies) for firms and analyzing organizational complexity. We will examine these steps across different sectors and organizational forms and draw on both classic and cutting-edge scholarship within strategy and organization. The course emphasizes the students’ critical reflection in applying concepts from strategy and organization and discussing the assumptions and relevance of these concepts across contexts.
Description of the teaching methods
The course will be delivered through lectures, exercise classes, and feedback sessions. Lectures will cover key concepts within strategy and organization. Exercise classes will allow the students to work in their groups on their chosen cases under guidance from their teachers. At the end of the course, a feedback session will enable the students to pitch their work to a faculty panel and receive feedback.
Feedback during the teaching period
Students will receive feedback during both lectures and exercise classes. Moreover, there will be a designated feedback module at the course’s end. Here, the students will submit a 5-page synopsis of their exam essay to a peer review tool, providing and receiving feedback from their peers. Finally, students will pitch their synopsis to a faculty panel for further feedback.
Student workload
Preparation 96 hours
Teaching 33 hours
Exam 77 hours
Expected literature

Preliminary literature

Barney, J. (1991). Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1), 99–120.

Felin, T., & Zenger, T. R. (2017). The Theory-Based View: Economic Actors as Theorists. Strategy Science, 2(4), 258–271.

Grant, R. M. (2021). Contemporary Strategy Analysis. John Wiley & Sons.

Gray, B., & Purdy, J. (2018). Collaborating for Our Future: Multistakeholder Partnerships for Solving Complex Problems. Oxford University Press.

Jancsary, D., Meyer, R. E., Höllerer, M. A., & Barberio, V. (2017). Toward a Structural Model of Organizational-Level Institutional Pluralism and Logic Interconnectedness. Organization Science, 28(6), 1150–1167.

Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G. (1978). The External Control of Organizations. A Resource Dependence Perspective. Stanford University Press.

Lawrence, P. R., & Lorsch, J. W. (1967). Differentiation and Integration in Complex Organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 12(1), 1–47.

Navis, C., & Glynn, M. A. (2010). How New Market Categories Emerge: Temporal Dynamics of Legitimacy, Identity, and Entrepreneurship in Satellite Radio, 1990–2005. Administrative Science Quarterly, 55(3), 439–471.

Porter, M. E. (2008). The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy: Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business Review, 86(1), 78–93.

Powell, W. W., White, D. R., Koput, K. W., & Owen‐Smith, J. (2005). Network Dynamics and Field Evolution: The Growth of Interorganizational Collaboration in the Life Sciences. American Journal of Sociology, 110(4), 1132–1205.

Thornton, P. H., Ocasio, W., & Lounsbury, M. (2012). The Institutional Logics Perspective: A New Approach to Culture, Structure and Process. OUP Oxford.

Todd Zenger. (2013). What Is the Theory of Your Firm?: Focus less on competitive advantage and more on growth that creates value. Harvard Business Review, 91(6), 72–78.
Last updated on 25-06-2024