This course builds a foundation of knowledge on the broad understanding of strategy and strategic management. Students are introduced to what strategy is, and how it develops in contemporary organizations. They are also introduced to the criteria of a successful strategy and how to assess if a chosen strategy fits to the environment/industry and offers to the organization sustainable advantage. Porter’s generic strategies are presented and discussed in relevant case-studies along with the most common growth strategies.

At the end of this course the student should be able to:

• Understand what is strategy and strategic thinking
• Become familiar with the factors which drive. sustainable performance and the modes of strategic –making.
• Get familiar with the strategic analysis of the external and internal environment of an organization.
• Be able to identify and critique the generic strategies followed by different types of organizations.

At the end of the course the student will have further developed the following skills/competences:

• To define strategic issues and employ theory to critically analyze them.
• To identify corporate-level, business-level and functional strategies in organizations.
• To analyze the nature of competition in an industry and identify factors which contribute to its attractiveness.
• To apply theoretical frameworks to assess an organization’s sustainable advantage.
• To analyze how an organization differentiates itself and its products
• To appraise the trade-offs for an organization on how far to integrate and diversify

• The basic concepts related to strategy and strategic management, why strategy is important? How strategy happens?
• Strategic objectives, deferent levels of strategy, competitive and corporate strategies.
• Analyzing the environment and the nature of competition, the macro-environment.
• Assessing the industry competition, industry analysis- the five forces, strategic groups, the industry life-cycle.
• Assessing the sustainability of advantage, the value chain analysis the resource-based view, assets, capabilities and competences.
• Defining the organization’s vision and mission statement, values & belief systems and strategic intent fitting its strategic situation.
• Porter’s generic competitive strategies.
• Strategy implementation and evaluation.

Lectures (3 hours per week)

1. Team Assignment with presentation (40%)
2. Final Exam (60%)

e-class