BUSINESS STRATEGY ADVANCED COURSE

The aim of the course is to provide the student with a toolkit to understand and analyze strategic issues and to fully appreciate the complexities related to strategic management both in terms of strategy formulation and of its organizational implications. 
Through the course students will learn how to rigorously analyze a firm's competitive environment, its internal resources and its business-level as well as corporate-level strategies. The conceptual foundations and toolkits gained during the course will be systematically used to interactively analyze real case studies and to practice formulating well-thought analyses and recommendations. Theories and constructs in strategic management will be mobilized and used to make sense of problematic situations brought about by uncertainty as in the current pandemic situation.

1 KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
- Know the most advanced conceptual frameworks emerged in the field of strategic management;
- Know the roles of different decision-makers within an organization;
- Possess knowledge related to the implications of uncertainty on strategizing.
2 APPLYING KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
- Apply the fundamental theoretical constructs in the field of strategic management to different situations;
- Identify and recognize the strategic intent of an organization;
- Know how to identify and assess bottlenecks and inertias responsible for strategic lock-ins in organizations.
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3 MAKING JUDGEMENTS
- Know how to formulate hypotheses and judgement on the effectiveness of different strategic alternatives;
Know how to identify constraints and problems in the execution of a strategy.

A bachelor-level course in strategy - or an equivalent knowledge of main strategy topics - is strongly advised. In particular, students would benefit from reading a basic strategy handbook such as Grant, R. (2010), “Contemporary strategy analysis”, Wiley. Suggested topics to be read in advance are: 
1. The concept of strategy (introduction); 
2. Industry Analysis (chapter 3)
; 3. Analyzing resources and capabilities (chapters 5 and 6)
; 4. The nature and sources of competitive advantage (chapters 8, 9, 10).

1. Strategy in an age of uncertainty
2. Strategy and organizational processes: from euristhics to algorithms
3. Scaling up: the challenge of growth
4. Strategic and organizational change: mobilizing resources.

Students will be provided with a coursepack at the beginning of the course on Moodle. The only resource that will not be freely available is the book "post-Corona" by Scott Galloway, available on the major e-book and e-commerce platforms. The coursepack consists of scientific articles, press clippings and other material selected by the instructor.
Attendance to classes is strongly advised, since team-projects, case discussions and the critical analysis of readings constitute the core elements of the course. 



Written. The exam consists of 10 Multiple choice questions on the contents of the coursepack and two open questions on the main themes of the course.
Attending students will be evaluated on the results of the exam (70%) and on the outcomes of a team project that will be developed in class (30%).
Non attending students will be exclusively evaluated on the final exam.

The course is designed so that participation and discussion enable the learning process. Much of the course will be based on thorough discussions of readings and case-related materials that students will review in advance. We will use real business cases that provide a forum for students to apply the concepts and tools they will be exposed to. Each case discussion aims at providing students with a thorough understanding of the strategic nature of the situation, at helping them in defining the key issues and in proposing strategic alternatives and/or recommendations. In addition, during the five weeks, students will work in groups on a team project related to the use of algorithms in organizations.

English

written