Course content
Course Description
The course aims to provide knowledge about how firms use external growth strategies to fulfill their corporate goals. In particular, Alliances and Acquisitions have characterized the economic scenario in many industries, not only at the level of industrial dynamics, but also when looking at financial markets. During the ’80s and the ’90s waves of alliances and acquisitions depicted most of the global industries, in particular high-tech industries, as valid (and preferred) alternatives to organic growth. Yet, more than 50% of such agreements fail in generating corporate value. As strategic responses to increases success chances of external growth, corporations have mainly focused on: i) set up venture capital funds (i.e. Corporate Venture Capital funds – CVC) ii) international expansions in new geographies and, iii) redesign corporate diversification approach towards value creation.
Recent studies show that managers do not distinguish clearly under which conditions they would need to consider the most appropriate mode for external corporate growth. In particular, alliance or acquisitions as alternative options are still a black box for most of the firms. And, this could likely explain part of the performance implications of these complex strategies. Therefore, this course will bring together perspectives from Marketing, Finance and Entrepreneurship into the main domain of Strategy, in particular Corporate and Competitive, to more deeply understand rationales and mechanisms related to external corporate growth strategies.
Ideally, the course will be based on the following main questions:
- In which businesses should a corporation compete?
- Which activities should be carried out inside the firm’s boundaries and which should be outsourced?
- How does the institutional context affect a firm’s diversification and organization?
- What are the most appropriate mechanisms for growth in different settings (i.e. mergers, acquisitions, alliances, equity investments)?
- How do M&As create/destroy value?
- What might influence the choice between organic and external growth?
- What is an alliance? What is an acquisition? How does a manager choose between and alliance and an acquisition?
- What are the performance implication of alliances and acquisitions? How do we measure the performance of an alliance or an acquisition?
- How do alliance and acquisition matter for innovation?
- What is the role of alliances and acquisitions for corporate international expansion?
- How corporate entrepreneurship in the form of corporate venture capital contribute to the corporate growth?
- What are the competitive implications of corporate venture capital?
- What is the value of corporate accelerators and incubators?
- Is the Venture Client model a real "winner takes it all" approach to corporate-startup collaborations?
The main objective of this course is to familiarize students to the matters that impact a firm's choice of strategy, scope, and organization. The course builds on classical and recent theoretical contributions in the fields of industrial organization and organizational economics. Along with these theoretical perspectives, the course ultimately is designed to focus on the essential issues and problems of corporate strategy as experienced by managers.
Course Contents, Topics and Structure
- An introduction to Diversification Strategies
- Corporate Scope: Horizontal vs. Vertical Integration
- Corporate Development I: Cooperative Strategies and Acquisitive Strategies
- Growth through Entrepreneurship I: Corporate Intra- and Entrepreneurship and Corporate Venture Capital
Nordic 9
Among the 9 Nordic lines, this course primarily relates and builds on:
1. You have deep knowledge placed in a broad context
2. You are analytical with data and curious about ambiguity
3. You recognize humanity's challenges and have the entrepreneurial knowledge to help resolve them
See course description in course catalogue