INSTRUCTOR             Dr W. Acar, A413 BSA, 672-1156 – Home: 673-6514

                                                            E-mail:  wacar@.kent.edu

                                                Office hours: 5:00-6:00 pm & 9:50-10:20 pm M-W and by appointment                  

 

TEXTS  

            (Required)      •       Lester A. Digman:

                                         STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT: Concepts, Processes, Decisions

                                         Dame Publications – 6^th edit. – 2002  [ISBN 0-87393-910-7]

                                                   •                 Lester A. Digman:

                                         STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT: Cases

                                         Dame Publications – 5^th edit. – 1999  [ISBN 0-87393-793-7]

 

                     • Nicholas C. Georgantzas & William Acar:

                                                                        SCENARIO-DRIVEN PLANNING: Learning to Manage Strategic Uncertainty

                                                                        – Quorum Books (GPG) 1995

                                                •           Paul J. H. Schoemaker:

                                                                        PROFITING FROM UNCERTAINTY – The Free Press, 2002.

                                         •      Richard A. D’Aveni:

                                                                        Hypercompetition – The Free Press, 1994

                                         •      Henry Mintzberg:

                                                                        The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning – The Free Press, 1994

                                         •      William Acar & Brian Wilson:

Out of the Segmentation Jungle: reconciling Porter's generic strategies with marketing segmentation.

 

                       

COURSE OBJECTIVES

 

                                                This "capstone" course pulls together your general knowledge gathered from your readings and living in this society, and the various elements of disciplinary knowledge you have accumulated during your various prior studies.  It is intended to introduce MBA students to the principal concepts of strategic management as well as sensitize them to the overriding issues in this age of increasing globalization.  We will work together so that you will come to see that, since they are the main producers as well as distributors of wealth, it behooves firms to better manage their resources and their future in light of potential environmental change.

 

 

COURSE PREREQUISITES

 

                                                This course assumes that you are close to completing most of your MBA requirements.  In order not to risk deregistration, in case of doubt please check with the GSM office.

If registration errors aren’t corrected by Thursday 14 June, even though you may continue to attend classes, you are now advised that you would not receive a grade at the end of the semester.

 

 

COURSE PRINCIPLES

 

                                                Strategy formulation can be approached in different ways.  This course will stress the theoretical relationship between "strategizing" and analysing the environment.  In a nutshell, a manager has to be able to gauge the threats and opportunities to both his and her past and present strategies.  Considering its skills and the raw materials available, a firm also possesses a combination of strengths and weaknesses.    

           

                                                As many of you already know, basic texts recommend grouping these into a 4-quadrant display called the "SWOT matrix".  An elementary approach to strategy evaluation and design may simply entail devising strategies based on a global and qualitative evaluation of the entries displayed in a SWOT table. This much you've already seen in your introductory courses.  However, the apparent symmetries among them may be misleading since strengths and weaknesses belong to the firm, while threats and opportunities pertain to its environment. Can one do more than learn to avoid threats; could one ever hope to learn to turn them into opportunities? Organizational consultants are now spreading the faddish belief that environmental turbulence can best be handled by last-minute incrementalism; this course will make you learn to think in terms of strategic possibilities and opportunities.

 

 

COURSE PROCEDURE

 

                                                Meet with your team members outside class hours and bring your ideas to class!  This type of course cannot be ingested passively, but requires your active participation in and before class.  This will render the course more rather than less interesting, since what you get out of a course is in direct relation to the effort that goes into it.  Students will organize themselves into teams of 3-4 people (our version of "quality circles") for class and project preparation, as well as class discussion.  More importantly, the class discussion is an integral part of this course.  Students will be expected to reflect on their readings from the following four sources:

 

i)                      The theories and rationales found in the course material or presented in class.

ii)         The theoretical knowledge derived from your earlier courses.

iii)        Information gleaned from reading the business press (e.g., Business Week).

iv)        General knowledge gleaned from your prior organizational experience.

 

 

 

CLASS ATTENDANCE & PARTICIPATION

 

                                                An interactive class presupposes beforehand preparation and regular attendance.  A 90% attendance rate will allow you to make allowance for emergencies.  In such eventuality, do not call your instructor; simply ask your quality-circle teammates to take notes for you.

 

 

 

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

 

University policy 3342-3-18 requires that students with disabilities be provided reasonable accommodations to ensure their equal access equal access course content.  If you have documented disability and require accommodations, please contact the instructor at the beginning of the semester to make arrangements for necessary classroom adjustments.  Please note, you must first verify your eligibility for these through the Student Accessibility Services (contact 330-672-3391 or visit  www.kent.edu/sas  for more information on registration procedures).

 

 

GRADING

 

Individual class participation will be counted toward 20% of the grade, the remaining 80% being divided among seven case write-ups.  The weights of the 7 cases are as follows:

·         Case 1  =  5  pts

·         Case 2  =  7  pts

·         Case 3  =  9   pts

·         Case 4  = 11  pts

·         Case 5  = 13  pts

·         Case 6  = 15  pts

·         Case 7  = 20  pts.

 

                *      Team members should complement each other.  It would be wasteful or even infeasible for them to duplicate each other's work.  To provide for greater choice and flexibility, teammates do not all have to end up with the same grade.  Each team member will be evaluated by his or her peers by means of the division of a pie of 10 points (or 1.00 in decimal notation) in among the team members [see attached example].  This will allow the instructor to derive a multiplier to scale the group grade up or down for each individual according to his/her peer review.

 

                *      Alternatively, groups who unanimously make this choice may simply submit together a sheet signed by all members listing EACH person's percentage contribution to the group work.

 

            The final grading will conform to (or possibly be more lenient than) the following numeric scale conversion: A = [90-100], B = [80-89], C = [70-79], D = [60-69], F < 60.

 

 

OPTIONAL PRESENTATIONS

 

            To allow the students to participate even in designing the course contents, extra credit can be earned through class presentations approved by the instructor (maximum: 2 presentations per student).

 

            - Individual presentation:         3%  extra.

            - Group presentation      :         2%  extra for each presenter.

 

 

LAST DATE TO WITHDRAW            Monday 2 July 2007

 

 

ACADEMIC HONESTY  

 

Plagiarism is the misrepresentation of the source, nature or conditions of one’s academic work.  The use of the intellectual property of others without giving them due credit is considered a serious academic offense.  Cheating also occurs when two or more people cooperate in such misrepresentations. It is the University’s policy that cheating or plagiarism results in receiving a failing grade for the work or course.  Repeat offenses result in dismissal from the University.

NOTE 1          Due to the fact that a number of best-selling books and even movies on business, business takeover/restructuring, entrepreneurial/intrapreneurial and even corporate responsibility issues have been broadly publicized, this session will not rely on video presentations.  They tend to constrict the time available; since many of you have already been exposed to this information, class time could be better used for reflecting upon and digesting the overload of information to which you are exposed.

 

NOTE 2          Papers should be turned in at the beginning of the class in which they are due.  Class absences due to working on late papers will not be excused.

 

 

 

 

            INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE

 

6-11      - Opening discussion: Why do companies fail?

            - Organization into groups

            - Distinguishing strategic information and strategic theory [instructor]

            - Presentation of the course and the texts

- Overview of strategic management [Chapter 1]

            - The controversy regarding planning in an uncertain environment [class discussion]

            - Distinguishing between Business Strategy (Strategic Management) and Organization Theory

 

 

            THE FUNDAMENTALS OF STRATEGIC THINKING

 

6-13      -     Strategic management: essence, types and plans (read) [Chapter 2]

             -     Strategic management: processes and practices (read) [Chapter 3]

-     Achieving competitive advantage: competencies, resources, culture, etc. (scan)  [Chapter 8]

-     Strategic alternatives and decisions (scan) [Chapter 17]

            THE HEART OF THE MATTER:  UNDERSTANDING THE ENVIRONMENT

 

6-18      -    Essentials of successful organizations (scan) [Chapter 6]

             -    The relevant general environment [Chapter 9]

            -    The industry environment and competition [Chapter 10]  

            -    Case analysis:  Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream case [C7.1-21]

 

 

 

            DEVISING STRATEGY

 

6-20      -    Organizational learning: dealing with complex and chaotic futures [Chapter 5]

             -    Case analysis: the Perdue Farms case [C26.1-19]

 

6-25      -    Business-unit strategies [Chapter 13]

             -     Multibusiness and corporate strategies [Chapter 16]

            -     Case analysis: the Clearly Canadian Beverage Corporation [C6.1-23]

 

6-27      -     Functional strategies: innovation, value chain, quality, process improvement [Chapter 14]

             -     Case analysis: the Waste Industry [C3.1-27] and Browning-Ferris Industries [C4.1-22]

 

 

 

            THE INFORMATION ADVANTAGE IN PLANNING STRATEGY

 

7-2        -      Information and planning systems [Chapter 21]

            -      Case analysis: Coca-Cola and the carbonated soft-drink industry [C8.1-55]

 

 

7-4       -      Independence Day – NO CLASS

 

 

 

            STRATEGY EVALUATION AND IMPLEMENTATION

 

7-9        -      Strategy implementation: processes and plans [Chapter 18]

             -      Strategic evaluation and control [Chapter 19]

             -     Case analysis: Continental Airlines [C32.1-24] and Southwest Airlines [C33.1-14]

 

 

 

            SUMMING IT UP

 

7-11       -     The future of strategic management [Chapter 24]

              -     Post mortem review of the main concepts

            -    Case analysis: The Brooklyn Brewery and the beer industry [C21.1-34]

-                                 John Labbatt and Birra Moretti [C22.1-22]

 

W. Acar

 

You are to evaluate your team members three different ways. You also can provide individual or personal comments. When evaluating your colleagues, you need to be careful, fair and objective. Base your evaluation on: personal effort/hard work, team cooperation (being present at meetings, working together), leadership, quality of ideas, analytic methodology and teaching teammates.

 

 

A.    Distribute a pie of 1.00 point among your team members, including yourself, down to the second decimal of a point. Points are to be given on the basis of performance on the joint project work.

 

B.     Rank-order each team member on the basis of the project work (1 the best, 4 the worst). Note: no two members can receive the same ranking.

 

C.     Rank each member’s class participation on a scale of 0-10 (with 10 being high). This time, performance evaluation is relative to all teams and individuals in this class; here it is possible to score everyone high or low or mixed.

Team Members:                                                                               A                                                                                 B                                                                                             C

                                                                                                                        Score of relative                                                          Tie-breaking                    

    performance in group                  ranking on                                     Contribution

        project work.                                                       project work.                         to class.

 

 

(This is an example of a “peer review” or “teammate evaluation” sheet, which will serve to determine each student’s personal multiplier. This multiplier will transform the student’s group grade into his or her personal grade for the group projects.)