Stra­tegic Man­age­ment

Course content

This is the first course in strategic management of the study program. The aim of this course is to provide students with a strong theoretical foundation in the strategy field. Consequently, the course offers a variety of strategy topics and views in order to provide a holistic view of the strategy field.

Strategy deals with the management of businesses and product-market activities within the umbrella of the larger, typically multinational, enterprise. Hence, the course focuses on business strategy perspectives concerned with competitive advantages in industry specific product-markets. Managers need a strong theoretical foundation to design and improve strategic choices. Upon completion of this course the student should be well equipped to address essential strategy issues and analyze a variety of different strategies through different theoretical lenses. The theory-guided approach facilitates critical reflection of firm practices and the identification of new, entrepreneurial opportunities. 

The course will use a mixture of theory and case studies to engage students in fruitful classroom discussions. In order to have an optimal mix of theoretical frameworks and perspectives, 10 lectures will be accompanied by 8 exercise sessions. The course will challenge students to develop a logical reasoning for strategic decisions, think about the boundaries of existing theoretical frameworks and envision useful extensions. Topics and readings for each session are published as course outline via Canvas.