Undergraduate study

Strategic Management

Year: 2018-19
Course code: MGT4023
Course credits: 15
Taught: Semester 1
Course co-ordinator: Dr. Peter Keenan
Entry requirements: Normally admission to an honours programme in Business & Management
Available to visiting students: Yes
Contact for more information: Cherisse McLaren

Course description

This course will cover the core areas of Strategic Management, the levels of strategy and how to assess the competitive environment, giving attention to the application of key concepts and tools as well as the main concepts and theories contained in Strategic Management as a discipline.

Aims

To become familiar with Strategic Management concepts, practices and theories. This course sits at the start of the honours programme to provide the student with the core knowledge to assess the strategy of an organisation and the skill to produce potential courses of action for an organisation in the future. The knowledge transferred in the course comprises the three levels of strategy: i.e. business level, corporate level and network level; and as such it provides the basic skeleton of strategy that will enable students to either study further or develop professionally. Strategic management will form their basic understanding of business performance.

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of this programme students will be able to:

1. Criticise and contrast theories and concepts of strategic decision-making
2. Recognise and evaluate the importance of strategy to an organisation’s decision-making processes
3. Appraise an organisation’s external and internal environment by drawing on appropriate economic and strategic management theories and frameworks.
4. Identify, design and explain and strategies an organisation may adopt in order to establish and maintain competitive advantage.
5. Critically evaluate factors that potentially impact strategic decision making.
6. Discuss why strategies fail and analyse the potential for developing turnaround strategies.
7. Judge the impact different organisational actors may have on strategy and an organisation’s strategic direction.

Learning and teaching methods

Lectures: 2hrs x 10 weeks
Tutorials: 1hr x 7 weeks

Please refer to MyCampus for timetable

Course texts

The prescribed text for this course is the Johnson, Whittington and Scholes (2011), but most Strategy textbooks should suffice. Nevertheless, there are other key materials you are strongly advised to read. You are advised to look at the articles and books recommended and decide from which ideas you could learn from and expand you knowledge of Strategy.  Individual reading is the key to doing a good exam. It is your responsibility to locate and read the key material.

Assessment