Download 《Strategic Management》Course Outline

《Strategic Management》Course Outline
1. Aim, Tasks and Applicability
（1）Aim
The course provides students basic analyze methods upon corporation
strategy, such as value chain analysis, SWOT and BCG matrix analysis. The
course focuses on the environment of the enterprise, the strategic planning
and its implementing.
（2）Tasks
The students are expected to analyze actuality of corporation as a case
study, establish a strategy, then implement and control it. Thus,
students’ abilities of strategy analyze and decision making toward
specific environments are improved.
（3）Applicability
This outline is applicable for the undergraduate of International Business.
2. Contents and Progress
Chapter 01 Strategic Management and Strategic Competitiveness
（1）Basic Concepts
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the strategic management process.
In this chapter, the authors introduce a number of terms and models that
students will study in more detail in Chapters 2 through 13. Stress the
importance of students paying careful attention to the concepts introduced
in this chapter so that they are well-grounded in strategic management
concepts before proceeding further.
（2）Requirements
 Define strategic competitiveness, strategy, competitive advantage,
above-average returns, and the strategic management process.
 Describe the competitive landscape and explain how globalization and
technological changes shape it.
 Use the industrial organization (I/O) model to explain how firms can
earn above-average returns.
 Use the resource-based model to explain how firms can earn above
average-returns.
 Describe vision and mission and discuss their value.
 Define stakeholders and describe their ability to influence
organizations.
 Describe the work of strategic leaders.
 Explain the strategic management process.
Chapter 02 The External Environment: Opportunities, Threats,
Industry Competition and Competitor Analysis
（1）Basic Concepts
This chapter can be introduced with a general statement regarding the
importance of understanding what is happening outside of the firm itself
and how what is happening can affect the firm’s ability to achieve
strategic competitiveness and earn above-average returns. This importance
is illustrated by the Opening Case, which discusses the impact events in
the external environment can have on a firm’s performance, despite efforts
to adjust to industry dynamics.
（2）Requirements
 1. Explain the importance of analyzing and understanding the
firm’s external environment.
 2. Define and describe the general environment and the industry
environment.
 3. Discuss the four activities of the external environmental
analysis process.
 4. Name and describe the general environment’s six segments.
 5. Identify the five competitive forces and explain how they
determine an industry’s profit potential.
 6. Define strategic groups and describe their influence on the
firm.
 7. Describe what firms need to know about their competitors and
different methods (including ethical standards) used to collect
intelligence about them.
Chapter 03 The Internal Organization: Resources, Capabilities,
Core Competencies and Competitive Advantages
（1）Basic Concepts
Chapter As indicated in Chapter 1, firms follow two competing models
to generate the inputs needed to formulate and implement strategies.
Chapter 2 focused on the external environment, which is the foundation of
the I/O model. The emphasis in Chapter 3 is on internal resources and their
potential to create competitive advantage for the firm, which falls in line
with the resource-based model. This orientation is perhaps best captured
by the elements of Figure 3.1, which should be emphasized.
（2）Requirements
 Define
 Explain the need for firms to study and understand their internal
organization.
 Define value and discuss its importance.
 Describe the differences between tangible and intangible resources.
 Define capabilities and discuss how their development.
 Describe four criteria used to determine whether resources and
capabilities are core competencies.
 Explain how value-chain analysis is used to identify and evaluate
resources and capabilities.
 Define outsourcing and discuss the reasons for its use.
 Discuss the importance of identifying internal strengths and
weaknesses.
Chapter 04 Business-Level Strategy
（1）Basic Concepts
Firms that perform well, even in very competitive industries, will
follow some pattern of decision-making and execution that is internally
consistent. That is, the firm will line up its resource commitments in a
way that reinforces the direction of the enterprise. If these decisions
are inconsistent, the outcome will be resource commitments that work
against one another and hinder the progress of the business. This chapter
will lay out the basic strategy patterns that can lead to competitive
advantage. Knowing these will help students understand how to make the most
of the firm’s potentials.
（2）Requirements
 Define business-level strategy.
 Discuss the relationship between customers and business-level
strategies in terms of whom, what, and how.
 Explain the differences among business-level strategies.
 Use the five forces of competition model to explain how above-average
returns can be earned through each business-level strategy.
 Describe the risks of using each of the business-level strategies.
Chapter 05 Competitive Rivalry and Dynamics
Competitive Advantage
（1）Basic Concepts
The competitive landscape of the twenty-first century will be
characterized by increasing globalization, advanced technological
development, and other factors that will lead to an environment that is
more dynamic and charged with rivalry. Firms will act and react in a dance
of sorts, but one involving very high stakes—even survival. This chapter
introduces terms and concepts relevant to the conversation about
competitive behavior in a variety of markets. Figure 5.2 is central to the
discussion of most of the chapter.
（2）Requirements
 Define competitors, competitive rivalry, competitive behavior, and
competitive dynamics.
 Describe market commonality and resource similarity as the building
blocks of a competitor analysis.
 Explain awareness, motivation, and ability as drivers of competitive
behavior.
 Discuss factors affecting the likelihood a competitor will take
competitive actions.
 Discuss factors affecting the likelihood a competitor will respond
to actions taken against it.
 Explain competitive dynamics in slow-cycle, fast-cycle and
standard-cycle markets.
Chapter 6 Corporate-Level Strategy
（1）Basic Concepts
Chapters 4 and 5 looked at strategy at the level of the business and
focused on the factors and approaches that can lead to competitive advantage
and superior performance. Chapter 6 takes this a step further by standing
back to consider strategy at a higher level—corporate strategy. The
concern here is for the performance benefits that are derived from putting
together an effective “portfolio of businesses”—that is, putting
businesses together in a way that makes sense and can generate synergies
between units. The discussion of this chapter builds toward a summary
presented in Figure 6.4. It might be helpful to review that figure
carefully before starting into the material of the chapter.
（2）Requirements
 Define corporate-level strategy and discuss its purpose.
 Describe different levels of diversification with different
corporate-level strategies.
 Explain three primary reasons firms diversify.
 Describe how firms can create value by using a related
diversification strategy.
 Explain the two ways value can be created with an unrelated
diversification strategy.
 Discuss the incentives and resources that encourage
diversification.
 Describe motives that can encourage managers to over diversify a
firm.
Chapter 7 Strategic Acquisition and Restructuring
（1）Basic Concepts
With continued merger and acquisition activity, this chapter is very
important. The chapter’s material is summarized in Figure 7.1, which can
be used to help students mentally organize what they learn in the chapter
about mergers and acquisitions.
（2）Requirements
 Explain the popularity of acquisition strategies in firms competing
in the global economy.
 Discuss reasons why firms use an acquisition strategy to achieve
strategic competitiveness.
 Describe seven problems that work against developing a competitive
advantage using an acquisition strategy.
 Name and describe attributes of effective acquisitions.
 Define the restructuring strategy and distinguish among its common
forms.
 Explain the short- and long-term outcomes of the different types of
restructuring strategies.
Chapter 8 Global Strategy
（1）Basic Concepts
This chapter examines opportunities facing firms as they seek to
develop and exploit core competencies by diversifying into global markets.
In addition, it addresses different problems, complexities, and threats
that might accompany use of the firm’s international strategies. Although
national boundaries, cultural differences, and geographical distances all
pose barriers to entry into many markets, significant opportunities draw
businesses into the international arena. A business that plans to operate
globally must formulate a successful strategy to take advantage of these
global opportunities. Furthermore, to mold their firms into truly global
companies, managers must develop global mind-sets. Especially in regard
to managing human resources, traditional means of operating with little
cultural diversity and without global sourcing are no longer effective.
These themes are all emphasized in the chapter.
（2）Requirements
 Explain traditional and emerging motives for firms to pursue
international diversification.
 Identify the four major benefits of an international strategy.
 Explore the four factors that provide a basis for international
business-level strategies.
 Describe the three international corporate-level strategies:
multidomestic, global, and transnational.
 Discuss the environmental trends affecting international strategy,
especially liability of foreignness and regionalization.
 Name and describe the five alternative modes for entering
international markets.
 Explain the effects of international diversification on firm returns
and innovation.
 Name and describe two major risks of international diversification.
Chapter 9 Cooperative Implications for Strategy
（1）Basic Concepts
This chapter provides students with a slightly different perspective
on strategic management. It represents a shift from achieving strategic
competitiveness and above-average returns through competitive strategy to
achieving them through cooperative strategies—i.e., competitive
advantage gained by cooperating with other firms.
（2）Requirements
 Define cooperative strategies and explain why firms use them.
 Define and discuss three types of strategic alliances.
 Name the business-level cooperative strategies and describe their
use.
 Discuss the use of corporate-level cooperative strategies in
diversified firms.
 Understand the importance of cross-border strategic alliances as an
international cooperative strategy.
 Explain cooperative strategies’ risks.
 Describe two approaches used to manage cooperative strategies.
Chapter 10 Corporate Governance
（1）Basic Concepts
The purpose of this chapter is to present and discuss how shareholders
(owners) can ensure that managers develop and implement strategic decisions
in the best interests of the shareholders (owners) and not be primarily
self-serving (working for the best interests of managers only, to the
detriment of shareholders). In the absence of effective internal
governance mechanisms, the market for corporate control—an external
governance mechanism—may be activated. While it is a subject most
frequently associated with firms in the U.S. and the U.K., the effectiveness
of governance is gaining attention throughout the world. The chapter
begins by describing the relationship that provides the foundation on which
the modern corporation is built—i.e., the relationship between owners and
managers. However, the majority of this chapter is devoted to an
explanation of various mechanisms owners use to govern managers and ensure
maximization of shareholder value.
（2）Requirements
 Define corporate governance and explain why it is used to monitor
and control managers’ strategic decisions.
 Explain why ownership has been largely separated from managerial
control in the modern corporation.
 Define an agency relationship and managerial opportunism and
describe their strategic implications.
 Explain how three internal governance mechanisms—ownership
concentration, the board of directors, and executive
compensation—are used to monitor and control managerial decisions.
 Discuss the types of compensation executives receive and their
effects on strategic decisions.
 Describe how the external corporate governance mechanism—the
market for corporate control—acts as a restraint on top-level
managers’ strategic decisions.
 Discuss the use of corporate governance in international settings,
especially in Germany and Japan.
 Describe how corporate governance fosters ethical strategic
decisions and the importance of such behaviors on the part of
top-level executives.
Chapter 11 Organizational Structure and Controls
（1）Basic Concepts
As students will recall, the discussion in the previous chapter
(Chapter 10) described how governance mechanisms are used to align the
interests of a firm’s top-level managers with those of the firm’s owners.
It also described how those mechanisms influence the firm’s ability to
execute strategies that have been implemented successfully as the firm
strives to achieve a competitive advantage in the new competitive landscape.
The same could be said of organizational structure, the focus of the current
chapter.
（2）Requirements
 Define organizational structure and controls and discuss the
difference between strategic and financial controls.
 Describe the relationship between strategy and structure.
 Discuss the functional structures used to implement business-level
strategies.
 Explain the use of three versions of the multidivisional (M-form)
structure to implement different diversification strategies.
 Discuss the organizational structures used to implement three
international strategies.
 Define strategic networks and discuss how strategic center firms
implement such networks at the business, corporate and international
levels.
3. Schedule
Chapter
Chapter 01：What is Strategic Management?
Chapter 02：Exploring the External Environment: Competition and
Opportunities
Chapter 03:Examining the Internal Organization: Activities,
Resources, and Capabilities
Class hours
4
4
4
Chapter 04：Building the Sustaining Competitive Advantage
4
Chapter 05 Strategy at the Business Level
6
Chapter 6 Corporate-Level Strategy
6
Chapter 7 Acquisition and Restructuring Strategies
4
Chapter 8 International Strategy
4
Chapter 9 Cooperative Strategy
4
Chapter 10 Corporate Governance
4
Chapter 11 Organizational Structure and Controls
4
Total
48
4. Focus and difficulties
Focus: Strategic Actions-Strategy at the Business Level and Corporate
Level.
Difficulty: Analyze Methods on external and internal environment to
determine the Strategy at the Business Level and Corporate Level.
5. Teaching and examination methods
Credit Hours: 48
Lecture, 3 hours per week for full semester.
Tutorial, 1 hour per week (starting from week 2).
Class Participation & Attendance
10%
Homework assignments
30%
Final Examination
60%
6. Textbooks and Recommended Texts
Textbook：
《Strategy Management》,Michael A. Hitt,Renmin university press, 2013.
Recommended Texts：
 《Strategy Management》, Thompson，A.A.Jr, China Machine Press, 2010.
 《Strategy Brand Management》, Kevin Lane Keller, Renmin university
press, 2010.