040020 KU Business Strategy (MA) (2021S)

Dear students: Please note that this course will use Zoom as video-conferencing tool for its digital sessions. We strive to offer you online-sessions of the same quality as our regular sessions, and while there might be other video-conferencing tools available, Zoom is currently the only widely used one that offers the full range of functionality we need for this course. Zoom will allow us to conduct case-based online-sessions that very closely mirror our regular, highly interactive seminar sessions.
However, Zoom is hosted and stores data outside of the EU, namely on US servers. We are thus not able to guarantee the storage and use of your data in full accordance with the GDPR, and cannot hold Zoom accountable for it either. Therefore we ask that you keep this in mind when registering and participating in this course.
To inform yourself on how Zoom processes and uses personal data, you may want to have a look at the Zoom Privacy Statement here: https://zoom.us/privacy#_Toc44414842
If your concerns about Zoom’s data security prevent you from registering for our courses we are regretful, but understand that you may want to take other courses/pursue a different minor instead.

This Core Strategy Course addresses the following questions:
What is a firm strategy?
Why does a firm need one?
How does the external environment determine the firm's strategy?
How does the internal environment affect it?
Which organizational structures support a strategy?
How do strategies change over time?
How do I implement a strategy?

To complete the Minor/Major in Strategic Management, a Bachelor’s Degree in Business is highly recommended.

Pre-requisites:
Admission to the Master's programme

• Learn about appropriate tools and frameworks to analyze a firm’s business strategy.
• Apply analytical frameworks to real-world case studies.
• Lean how companies can deal with disruptive changes in their external environment and why some companies succeed or fail in doing this.
• Gain the ability to develop business strategies and make recommendations on how to improve existing ones.

Business Strategy is about how organizations achieve sustainable competitive advantage by creating, capturing, and maintaining value -- a central managerial issue at all organizational levels in our globalized and tumultuous world. "Strategic management is the integrative management field that combines analysis, formulation, and implementation in the quest for competitive advantage. Mastery of strategic management enables you to view a firm in its entirety" (Rothaermel, 2016, p.6).
You will learn to analyze organizations from different perspectives, using a variety of tools, both at the industry level and firm level. After this class, you will be able to understand the underlying mechanisms of firm competition and cooperation, and to apply strategic management tools and frameworks to real-world business scenarios, using them to inform strategic decision-making (e.g., five forces, business models, value chain and activity systems) in organizations as well as in your personal life.

TEACHING STYLE AND COURSE DESIGN: This course is taught entirely online; consisting of both live sessions (-> expect mandatory attendance) and asynchronous exercises and assignments [I will send to all registered students a syllabus with further details at the end of February through email].
I designed the course in a way to be very interactive (and hopefully fun) to maximize your learning outcomes. Such a concept depends on your active participation: 1) You’ll have to attend and actively give input during sessions; this means that you’ll be to some extend exposed when sharing your opinion, giving/receiving feedback to/from others, asking questions or sharing other details. This requires openness, curiosity, treating others respectfully and some discipline. 2) We’ll use a variety of tools to support this and communicate in our live sessions (including also external software tools, such as padlet, miro, doodle, google forms, break-out discussion rooms in BBB/ BBCollaborate, potentially also zoom; some of these tools require you to set up an account/ install software). By signing up for this course, I assume your consent with this; please do contact me up-front before the first session via email in case you have any concerns.
3) We will apply theories and concepts to contemporary managerial problems and challenges. To guide such discussions, there will be reading assignments of current articles, company cases and conceptual papers. Furthermore, there will be exercises and elements you’ll have to work on, both during as well as between live sessions.

** Self-study is a fundamental element of this course, enabling you to learn both more effectively as well as more efficiently. I’ll provide materials and expect you to independently acquire some knowledge and skills at home. This leaves more precious time during live sessions for interactions and your questions, for deepening your understanding and giving you feedback on your learning progress. **

** This course has 4 ECTS-Credits, i.e. an overall workload of roughly 100-120 hours: Live sessions require ~25hours, each(!) live session (of 4 hours) requires the same additional amount of time for self-study, revision of class discussions/ slides and preparation for the next session (+4hours, in total about ~25 hours). You further need to work ~25 hours for the individual assessment/exam and ~25 hours on the team project. **
==> Live sessions are very intense and dense in March. You need to reserve 4-5 hours for self-study and work after each session (and before the next one!) **

We’ll immediately deep-dive into contents and tool-supported interactions in the first session. Therefore, I’ll distribute the syllabus a couple of days before the first sessions (via email) and ask you to read it and come prepared; the first session may already contain some smaller assignments, contributing to your participation score.

I’m looking forward to seeing you online in class!