BSc Management (Innovation, Strategy and Entrepreneurship) with Industrial / Professional Experience / Course details

Looking to sharpen your strategic edge and stand out in today’s fast-moving markets? This final-year course takes you on an immersive journey through the entire strategy process from incisive analysis to innovative formulation, decisive execution, and robust control. Through interactive case studies, you’ll discover the strategic capabilities that separate market leaders from also-rans. Expect real-world challenges, high-stakes decision-making, and leadership insights designed to ignite your critical thinking and equip you to drive competitive advantage in any dynamic environment. 

BMAN24630 (ITMB students) is a pre-requisites for BMAN32312 for ITMB students. BMAN24442 is a pre-requisite for those registered on BSc Mgmt/Mgmt (Specialism), IM and IMABS.

The aim of this course unit is to equip students with the advanced knowledge and critical skills required to analyse the factors involved in the effective strategic management of business organizations operating in complex, dynamic and competitive business environment and develop courses of action that enable executives to sustain organizational performance.

• Strategic analysis in dynamic environments: Advanced environmental scanning techniques, industry and competitor analysis, and firm and managerial capability assessments.
• Origins and sources of competitive advantage: Investigating the foundations of firm-level advantage, including resource-based perspectives, dynamic capabilities, and network effects, to craft enduring strategies for superior performance
• Strategy processes: Managing the strategy process, from strategic analysis to strategy formulation and implementation
• Organizational structures and strategy execution: Aligning organizational design, culture, and leadership with strategic intent.  
• Strategic decision-making & strategic leadership: Analytical tools, decision-making models, and individual and collective contributions to effective strategic leadership.  
• Barriers to and enablers of strategic adaptation: Tools and techniques for understanding and influencing organizational strategic change processes.
• Innovation and sustainability: Integrating emerging technologies, responsible governance, and stakeholder engagement for long-term value creation.

The course uses a mix of traditional lectures and interactive workshops. Weekly workshops provide a forum for preparing a case analysis of a real world strategic problem facing a chosen firm or industry. The workshops are important and are unlike a typical seminar - you will need to do bits of work to prepare and work actively with colleagues and the lecturer while in class. 

Lectures 
Workshops
Written, multimedia and interactive content delivered through the virtual learning                                                         Independent study
Content is delivered synchronously and asynchronously

• Demonstrate mastery of advanced strategic management concepts and frameworks for analysing complex business environments. 
• Critically evaluate the origins of competitive advantage encompassing resource based perspectives, dynamic capabilities, and network effects to develop sustainable strategies. 

• Synthesize diverse data sources and theoretical perspectives to formulate coherent, evidence based strategic recommendations.
• Critically assess alternative strategic options by integrating advanced analytical techniques, thereby evaluating feasibility and potential impact on long term organizational performance.

• Understand how to make effective strategic decisions, including the use of tools and techniques for facilitating strategic decision making processes, with a view to enhancing the quality and impact of strategic choices. 

• Demonstrate the ability to leveraging strategic analysis insights to communicate complex ideas and drive collective decision-making.
• Develop a mindset for effective strategic leadership to inspire high-performance outcomes for business enterprises in dynamic environments.

Formative Assessment

Individual written assignment analysing a provided case (1,000 Words).

Summative Assessment

Individual students research and write their own case study (3,000 Words) - 100%

Written Feedback via Canvas

There is no single textbook for advanced strategy. This is an advanced final year course and students are expected to read widely around each substantive topic covered in the lectures. For this reason, the lecture schedule lists core and supplementary readings associated with each topic. However, the books listed as course texts below are useful for background on strategic management.

Mintzberg, H., Ahlstrand, B., & Lampel, J. 2009. Strategy Safari, second edition. London: Prentice Hall.

Provides a readable and insightful overview of the schools of thought that dominate thinking and practice in strategy. In particular, chapter six ('The cognitive school') explains how the core ideas of this course lie at the centre of a comprehensive understanding of strategy. If you read this chapter and contrast it with the other schools, then you will have a grounded picture of where behavioural strategy sits.  

Finkelstein, S., Hambrick, D. C. & Cannella, B. 2008. Strategic Leadership: Theory and Research on Executives, Top Management Teams, and Boards. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Reviews theory and research on how top executives influence organizational performance, focussing on top management teams and the influence of values, personality, motives, and demography. Provides a sophisticated overview of the 'upper echelons' view of firms.

Duhaime, I. M., Stimpert, L., & Chesley, J. A. 2012. Strategic thinking: Today's business imperative. New York: Routledge.

One of few general texts that attempts to integrate standard ideas from business strategy (e.g. industry analysis, competitive positioning, resources, capabilities) with principles of managerial and organizational cognition (e.g. mental models, managerial beliefs).

Pre-requisite course units have to be passed by 40% or above at the first attempt unless a higher percentage is indicated below.

Pre-requisites: BMAN24442 Foundations of Strategy and Innovation OR BMAN24630 Business Analysis (ITMB students only)

Programme Restrictions: BSc Management and Management (Specialisms), BSc International Management and BSc ITMB.