78357 - Strategic Management

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course students are able to manage strategic issues at the business level; moreover, this course aims to endow students with the theoretical constructs and methodological techniques needed to design an effective corporate strategy. The business definition, the critical factor of success, competitive analysis, internal resources, strategic positions and growth strategies are discussed to define profitable and successful strategies in markets that can have different degrees of maturity and technological innovation. This course also highlights strategies and architectures to capture the opportunities offered by the external marketplace and the different applications of technology to support strategic choices.

Course contents

Module 1: Business Strategy

• Strategy and its meanings
• Economic and financial evaluation of strategy. Goals, values and performances.
  
• Business definition and business models
• Industry analysis
  
• Firm strategy and the role of external factors
  
• Firm strategy and the role of internal factors
• Value proposition and sources of competitive advantage
• Cost leadership and differentiation
  

Module 2: Corporate Strategy

• The industry life cycle
• Corporate strategy
• Vertical integration and the scope of the firm
• Global strategies and multinational companies
  
• Diversification strategy and the management of the multibusiness corporation
• Current trends in strategic management

Readings/Bibliography

Robert M. Grant. Contemporary Strategy Analysis 11th Edition Wiley.

Detailed information about specific chapters of the textbook, readings, cases studies and other materials will be available in a syllabus at the beginning of the course and distributed in class through Virtuale.

Some of them include:

Porter ME 1996. What is strategy? Harvard Business Review, 74(6): 61-78.

Johnson MW, Christensen CM, and Kagermann H. 2008. Reinventing your business model. Harvard Business Review, 86(12): na.

Kim WC, Mauborgne R. 2004. Blue ocean strategy. Harvard Business Review, Vol. 82, Fasc. 10, (Oct 2004): 76-84.

Teaching methods

• Lectures on the topics included in the syllabus
• Deployment of business cases in order to apply the concepts and tools of the theoretical lectures
• Guest lectures (organized as seminars) on behalf of practitioners
• Exercises and quiz to apply tools
• Active participation of students through individual and team work presented and discussed in class.

Assessment methods

There are no differences for Erasmus students.

For the exam in presence: written exam with multiple choices.

For online exams, if explicitly indicated by the University of Bologna for extraordinary reasons: oral exam on MS Teams.

It is possible to refuse the grade of the exam more than once.

The grade will be assigned according to the following scale:

• <18 insufficient
• 18-23 sufficient
• 24-27 good
• 28-30 very good
• 30 with laude excellent

Teaching tools

We will use the following tools:

• Case studies
• Lecture slides
• Mentimeter
• electronic spreadsheets (xls)
• Openboard
• Virtuale

In case of online lectures:

• Microsoft Teams

Office hours

See the website of Antonio Giuliani