MBS - Business Strategy - 2008 Term 2

MBS- Business Strategy 2010

Syllabus

The basic structure of the course is as follows:

Week 1: Introduction. What is Strategy?
Weeks 2-4: Industry Analysis: Porter’s five forces, cost leadership versus differentiation strategies, and value chain analysis.
Weeks 5-8: Developing internal capabilities and the resource based view.
Week 9: Game theoretic approach. We will revisit what you learnt in Managerial Economics from a CEO perspective.
Weeks 10-12 are about putting it all together
- Week 10: New Trends in Strategic Management
- Week 11: Syndicate project presentations
- Week 12: Postmortem of syndicate projects and discussion of previous exams. Wrap-up

Weekly Schedule

Week	Dates	Topic	Readings and Cases	Optional &Fun
1	25 & 26 May	What is Strategy? Course Overview	Lewis, “The Case Study Method of Learning”. Ghemawat, “Competition and Business Strategy in Historical Perspective”, HBS Press, 1997. Case: Argyle Diamonds	Video: The Oppenheimer Diamond Empire & Artificial Scarcity (1994) Discovery and Mining of the Argyle Deposit
2	1 & 2 June	Industry Analysis - Porter's Five Forces	Grant, “Industry Analysis: The Fundamentals”, Chapter 3 in ‘Contemporary Strategy Analysis’, 6th Edition. Ghemawat & Rivkin, “Creating Competitive Advantage”, HBS 9-798-062. Case: Crown Cork & Seal Company, Inc (HBS 378-024)	Video interview with Michael Porter CCS website
3	8 & 9 June	Competitive Positioning via Cost Leadership	Besanko, et al., Strategic Positioning for Competitive Advantage, Chapter 11 in Economics of Strategy, 4th Edition. Only pages 343 – 378. Case: Honda A. HBS-9-384-049(1989) Quantitative Exercise - Learning curves (download from LMS) Argote & Epple (1990), article in Science on Experience Curves.	Honda Honda adverts Honda CB350 Recent Honda ad (The Cog)in which 2 of only 6 existing hand-made Accords are taken apart and used . Honda Choir: original vs spoof Optional Articles: Wikipedia on Learning and Experience Curves. Economies of Scale: see Sharon Oster's book on Modern Competitive Analysis.
4	15 -16 June	Competitive Positioning via Differentiation	Revisit the Besanko reading N.Kumar (2006), Strategies to Fight Low-cost Rivals, Harvard Business Review Dec 84(12):104-112. Case: Ducati: In Pursuit of Magic (A). IESE Case 168 by Mitchell & Cassiman	Ducati Ducati Legacy Don't try this at home! Ducati Financials 2001 Ducati info on Wikipedia Advanced: Saloner, Shepard and Podolny book: Appendix of Chap. 7, A model of product differentiation.
Syndicate Project handed out on Friday 19th June.
5	22-23 June	Resource Based View - Internal Competencies and Capabilities	Read: Saloner, Shepard & Podolny, “Strategic Management”, 2001, Chapter 3, pp39-63. Read: Robert S Kaplan and David P Norton, "Having Trouble with your Strategy? Then Map It", Harvard Business Review, Sep-Oct 2000. Stalk, Evans and Shulman, Competing on Capabilities: The New Rules of Corporate Strategy, Harvard Business Review (1992). Case: Wal*Mart Stores, Inc. HBS-9-794-024.	WalMart Walmart- High Cost of Low Price Wikipedia: Wal-mart Google Finance: Wal-mart Wal-mart Investor Information Optional: Peteraf (1993), The Cornerstones of Competitive Advantage: A Resource-Based View, Strategic Management Journal Vol 14(3), pp 179-191. Strategy Maps: A Step-by-Step Guide, Journal of Business Strategy 2006(3), pp 12-19.
6	29 & 30 June	Dynamic capabilities and Sustainability	Helfat, et al., 2007. Dynamic Capabilities, Chapter 4 Porter, M.(1996), What is Strategy? Harvard Business Review, p 61-78. Kim and Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy: HBR, Oct 2004 Article and Chapter 2 of their book. Optional: Coyne, K.P. (1997), Is Your Core Competence A Mirage? McKinsey Quarterly, pp 40-56. Optional: McGahan, 1999. Competition, Strategy and Business Performance. California Management Review. Case: Now Everybody can Fly: AirAsia, IESE Case IES123.	Optional: Doug Dow, “An Introduction to the 5C's”. These are powerpoint slides, not an article.
7	6 & 7 July	Knowledge as a Strategic Capability	Read: Gans and Stern (2003), "The Product Market and the 'Market for Ideas': Commercialization Strategies for Technology Entrepreneurs", Research Policy 32(2) Case: David Weston and Kwanghui Lim, Blackberry, IPRIA/WIPO Case 2008.	BlackBerry vs NTP BlackBerry Parody Crackberry ieee article CNN article Intellectual Property IP Australia: intro to patents, trademarks, designs Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia (ipria.org) WIPO He, Lim and Wong (2006), "Entry and Competitive Dynamics in the Mobile Telecommunications Market", Research Policy, 20th Anniversary Special Issue of "Profiting from Innovation" by David Teece. Earlier version (IPRIA)
8	13 & 14 July	Acquiring and Integrating New Capabilities	Read: Rahul Kapoor and Kwanghui Lim (2007), "The Impact of Acquisitions on the Innovation Performance of Inventors at Semiconductor Companies", Academy of Management Journal Case: Skype 2010 Mckinsey Quarterly, Interview with Richard Rumelt (requires free registration)	TBD TBD Capabilities Someone amazing. When you lack some resources, innovate to develop new capabilities!
9	20 & 21 July	Game Theoretic Approach	Read: Joshua Gans, Game Theory Chapter 5. Read: Brandenburger and Nalebuff, "The Right Game: Use Game Theory to Shape Strategy", Harvard Business Review (July-Aug 1995). Case: Google, Inc. HBS-9-910-036(2009). Google's Innovation Machine, HBR April 2008	Optional: Erhun & Keskinochak (2003), Game Theory in Business Applications, Stanford Working Paper, pp 1-35 only. Gametheory.net Boeing/Airbus Example by Nicholas Economides Ramon Casadesus-Masanell: interesting examples (Wintel, itunes vs filesharing, microsoft vs opensource) Game Theory and Strategy: Core Economics War Games And Business Strategy (Economist.com) Bob Gibbons (MIT): Intro by Dixit and Nalebuff
10	27 & 28 July	New Challenges in Strategic Management	Each year I pick a current topic that is affecting strategic management. This year we look at climate change Guest Speakers: Ross Wyatt, General Manager, Netbalance Foundation, and Andy Jones, MBS Alumni and Director of Group Sustainability at Amcor Ltd Videos are available on the Course Materials page. Read: Green to Gold, selected pages Case: Maria Yee: Making Green Furniture in China, Stanford SI-110 (2009) Optional: Garnaut Report, particularly the Introduction plus chapters 6 and 11. Jones & Levy (2007), North American Business Strategies towards Climate Change. Pew case studies and surveys on climate change strategy.	Videos of Ross Wyatt and Andy Jones
Syndicate-based Case writeup due on FRIDAY 30th July at 5pm.
11	3 & 4 Aug	Syndicate Assignment Discussion	Presentation and discussion of Syndicate Assignments. Each syndicate will discuss the report written by another syndicate. Optional to help you get started with your syndicate assignment: Chapter 1 from The McKinsey Mind. Good summary of The McKinsey Way (not the same book): http://www.scribd.com/doc/398612/The-McKinsey-Way.
Deadline to submit your entry for the Best Strategy Application Contest.
12	10 & 11 Aug	Syndicate assignment postmortem Summary and Review, Implementation.	Summary/review and approach towards exams Past exam questions are on the LMS In-class: How to "do" strategy. Collis + Rukstad, Can you say what your Strategy Is, HBR, April 2008 Hamel & Prahalad, “Strategic Intent”, HBR, 1989. Mintzberg, “Crafting Strategy”, HBR, 1996. Voting for the contest entries Q&A on topics covered this semester; discussion of the syndicate assignment	Steve Jobs discusses the path dependent nature of his becoming a CEO Jeff Bezos, Amazon Bill Greene, Accenture CEO Akamai: From Theory to Practice
Exam: 2pm on 16 August.