University of Alberta School of Business Department of Strategic Management and Organization

SMO 641
Business Strategy Winter 2012 Instructor: Office: Telephone: E-mail: Class: Marvin Washington BUS 3-40E 2-2311 washingt@ualberta.ca BUS 3-10 Wednesday 2-4:50 pm BUS 3-5 Thursday 6:30-9:30

Office hours: Before and after class and by appointment INTRODUCTION Strategic Management is intended to be a challenging and exciting capstone course for the MBA curriculum. The material in this course is designed to keep your interest and attention. In my mind, the glamour of strategizing and managing an organization down the road of success makes the course exciting to take and fun to teach. I hope this course will be the best you have ever had and that it will be instrumental in helping to make you more successful in your career and much wiser about the secrets of successful management. OBJECTIVES The primary objective of this course is to introduce you to the analysis and formulation of strategic problems and decisions facing managers and leaders. This class will focus on both the making and implementation of business strategy. The diagnosis of business problems is only a small component of a successful competitive strategy. Making a particular strategy work, for a specific firm in a particular market, is a critical and underemphasized element of strategic management. You will be encouraged and challenged to work through the implementation of any prospective strategies. To this end, we will analyze cases pertaining to strategic management issues and discuss a variety of readings on the topic of strategic management Another objective of this course is to provide you with a final capstone experience to your MBA career. As such, you will, working in a group environment, analyze a live organizational strategic case. By live, I mean that a company has volunteered their organization as a living laboratory complete with history, objectives, problems and potential solutions. Your job will be to understand their desire, analyze their situation, and recommend a strategic course of action. To help you with this activity, there will be a group of co-facilitators who will discuss specific issues of strategic management (implementation, globalization, finance, marketing, etc.) and act as mentors for your project.
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The last major object of this course is to improve your teamwork skills and your written and oral communication skills. Contemporary managers are valued not only for their skills at technical analysis and problem solving, but also for their ability to communicate their solutions, persuade others of the viability of their insights and construct creative solutions in a group context. After completing your MBA in general, and this class in particular, you should be able to think critically in new and unfamiliar circumstances through the application of conceptual and theoretical understandings of core business fundamentals. You should also be able to apply relevant qualitative and quantitative techniques to problem solving.

REQUIRED MATERIALS Successful Organizational Transformation: The five critical elements. Washington, Hacker & Hacker, 2011. Business Expert Press Course Packet of cases (CP) There will also be readings from Harvard Business Review. However, as you get an electronic version of this material for free, I will not include these articles in your course packet, but will provide the reference to the articles in the week that they are assigned. RECOMMENDED MATERIALS In addition to the required readings, we will discuss many strategy topics from the business press. As such, to help you increase your knowledge of current strategy issues and topics, I recommend the following magazine and email sites: strategy+business.com Economist Wall Street Journal Business Week COURSE REQUIREMENTS Live Case Written Report Final presentation Evaluation of your team members Individual Exam Individual Current Event Class contribution Reflection paper Total Points 200 125 50 25 100 50 100 50 500 Covers great essays on a variety of business topics Great periodical (with a website) that covers US, international business, and political issues

DESCRIPTION OF COURSE REQUIREMENTS INDIVIDUAL EXAM As this is a masters level course, I expect you all to be familiar with basic strategic management concepts. If this is your first strategic management course (your undergraduate degree is not in business for example), I would recommend that you buy the current undergraduate strategic management book at the bookstore. To aid in helping you recall this material, I have material placed on ulearn titled basic strategic concepts. That being said, it is your responsibility to learn or recall this material. The individual exam will be a case that you will have to solve using theoretical material from strategic management. CURRENT EVENT Starting February 15/16, you will have the opportunity to present your knowledge about various concepts in the class as they relate to popular media. The presentation could be about Business Strategy principles found in newspapers (Wall Street Journal), websites (MSN.com), or business popular press magazines (Business Week). The assignment will be a 10-minute presentation OR a 4-5 page report to be turned in at the time of the presentation. You will get to decide if you want to make a verbal presentation or turn in a written report during the 2nd class. About 1-3 presentations will be made each week. Students will work in teams of two. LIVE CASE PROJECT Individuals (with strong guidelines from the instructor) will form a group of 5 or 6 members. The project will vary by the company, but all of the companies were told that their project has to be strategic in nature, has to be integrative across multiple functional areas (finance, operations, marketing, human relations, etc.) and should be able to be completed in 10-12 weeks. The teams (and the companies) should expect 3 meetings with their respective organization during the semester. We will have a formal check-in at least 2 times during the semester where you will get a chance to discuss aspects of your project in class. The project report should be no more than 35 pages of text, not including the appendix. Note all projects must follow research ethics board guidelines found at http://www.business.ualberta.ca/reb/ LIVE CASE REPORT In addition to the final report, each group with make a formal presentation based upon their project. The presentation should be 20 minutes long and allow for 5 minutes of questions (25 minutes in total). The presentation should cover the key elements of the project: the mail problem / issue, the analysis, the recommendation, and the implementation. In addition, the presentation needs to follow a story line and be creative. Slides and handouts are encouraged (however, be mindful that more technology does not always lead to a better presentation) CLASS CONTRIBUTION True learning can only be achieved if each student is actively participating. To stimulate participation, class contribution will count toward the final grade. As such, attendance is mandatory it is your chance to ask questions, learn from the other
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students, and integrate the material in the course. I expect that the material will be read prior to coming to class. EVALUATION OF YOUR TEAMMEMBERS 60% of your grade is determined by your work in a group setting. Thus, each group member will anonymously evaluate themselves and their group members performance throughout the semester. Specifically, you will be given $10,000 times the number of members in your group (if there are 5 members you will have $50,000 to work with). You will be asked to split the money based upon the contribution each team member made to the group (including yourself). In addition to the monetary amount, you are also asked to provide a rationale. This will be due April 11/12. REFLECTION PAPER This course is a capstone class, integrating concepts from all of your management courses. This assignment, 3 pages maximum, gives you a chance to reflect on the learning you have gained from the class discussion, lectures and assignments. You are to write, in detail, 3 learnings that you have gained from this class about strategic management. One of the learnings has to deal with the live case. This is due April 4/5 All written assignments should be typed or word-processed, double-spaced, pages numbers on the bottom, with reasonable fonts and margins (11-12 point, 1), and stapled in the top left corner. No need for any sort of folders or binders around your papers, and do keep a back-up copy. Grade A+ A AB+ B BC+ C CD+ D F Descriptor Excellent Excellent Excellent Good Good Satisfactory Satisfactory Failure Failure Failure Failure Failure Point University Guideline for Value a 600-level course 4.0 4.0 3.7 3.3 3.0 2.7 2.3 2.0 1.7 1.3 1.0 0 15 15 15 17 16 10 7 2 1 0 1 1

COURSE POLICIES In accordance with the Student Affairs Handbook and the Code of Student Conduct, plagiarism, cheating, or any other form of dishonesty will be addressed and may result in a course grade of F. The professor reserves the right to make changes in daily assignments. All changes will be announced in class prior to the changes. If you have a disability and wish to discuss academic accommodations, please see me as soon as possible. Due to the nature of the lectures, eating is not permitted in class. University policy statement Policy about course outlines can be found in Section 23.4(2) of the University Calendar. (GFC 29 SEP 2003) The University of Alberta is committed to the highest standards of academic integrity and honesty. Students are expected to be familiar with these standards regarding academic honesty and to uphold the policies of the University in this respect. Students are particularly urged to familiarize themselves with the provisions of the Code of Student Behaviour (online at www.ualberta.ca/secretariat/appeals.htm) and avoid any behaviour, which could potentially result in suspicions of cheating, plagiarism, misrepresentation of facts and/or participation in an offence. Academic dishonesty is a serious offence and can result in suspension or expulsion from the University. (GFC 29 SEP 2003). Nothing in any course outline, syllabus or course web site may override or contravene any Calendar regulation or GFC policy. In resolving any discrepancy, GFC policy and Calendar regulations will take precedence. (GFC 29 SEP 2003) Course standing and grade distribution: You are welcome to discuss your class performance and standing in the course with me. Late assignments: As a rule, I do not take late assignments. If you know that you will be missing a class where an assignment is due, I suggest you let me know in advance so we can work out an appropriate arrangement in terms of getting the assignment to me. I understand, however, that sometimes an absence from class cannot be avoided (illnesses, emergencies) In that case, I would suggest you contact me as soon as possible so that we can find a workable solution; this might result in completing a different assignment. Your grade will be based partly on your absolute performance in the class and partly based on your performance relative to the other students in the class. Differences in absolute marks between the top of the class and the bottom can be small because MBA students are talented and perform well. The University of Alberta recommends for 600-level courses a mean grade of 3.33, or "B+". In general, grades will be assigned based on university guidelines. Grades below C+ are failures at the Master's level and are given when there are significant problems with that student's performance in the class. A passing grade in this course is 75%.

Criteria for written work Below is the generic template that I use for evaluating written assignments (reflection paper, individual exam, current event presentation, group project) and for presentations 1) Data a) Were the facts clearly and correctly presented? 2) Theory a) Were concepts used from the course to examine the situation? b) Were the concepts used correctly? c) Is the terminology used correctly? 3) Creativity a) Did the concepts correctly explain the situation? b) Could a different concept have been used have been more relevant? c) How novel or insightful was the analysis, insight, drawn from using the concept? d) How were issues of implementation dealt with if recommendations were made? 4) Written work a) How clear was the writing? b) Where there grammatical mistakes? c) Did the paper comply with page-limits? 5) Presentation a) Was multi-media used effectively? i) Slides spelled correctly ii) No technological glitches iii) Slides easy to read b) Did the presentation appear polished? i) How were transitions handled? ii) Proper spoken grammar, tone, and speed iii) Appropriate "eye contact" iv) Did the presentation comply with time-limits

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COURSE OUTLINE Topic

January 11/12 INTRODUCTION TO STRATEGY Kim, W. Chan; Mauborgne, Rene. 2004. Blue Ocean Strategy. Harvard Business Review, 82 (10): 76-84 Collis, David J.; Rukstad, Michael G.. 2008. Can you say what your strategy is? Harvard Business Review, 86 (4): 82-90 Kim, W. Chan; Mauborgne, Rene. 2009. How strategy shapes structure. Harvard Business Review, 87 (9): 72-80 Hamm, John. 2006. The five messages leaders must manage. Harvard Business Review, 84 (5): 114-123 Case Discussion o Charlie Browns Christmas January 18/19 REVIEW: CORPORATE AND COOPERATIVE STRATEGY Ghemawat, Pankaj; Ghadar, Fariborz. 2000. The Dubious logic of Megamergers. Harvard Business Review, 78 (4): 65-72. Garvin, David A.; Levesque, Lynne C.. 2008. The multi-unit enterprise. Harvard Business Review, 86 (6): 106-117 Nolop, Bruce. 2007. Rules to acquire by. Harvard Business Review, 85(9): 129139 Aiello, Robert J.; Watkins, Michael D.. 2000. The fine art of friendly acquisition Harvard Business Review, 78 (6): 100-107 Bower, Joseph L.. 2001. Not all M&As are alike and that matters. Harvard Business Review, 79 (3): 92-101 Useem, Michael. 2006. How well-run boards make decisions. Harvard Business Review, 84(11): 130-138 Sonnenfeld, Jeffrey A. 2002. What makes great boards great. Harvard Business Review, 80 (9): 106-113 Case Discussion o The Godfather (video) January 25/26 STRATEGY IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR Guest Facilitator Trish Reay Kotter, John P. 2007. Leading Change. Harvard Business Review, 85 (1): 96103 Meyerson, Debra E. 2001. Radical change: The Quiet Way. Harvard Business Review, 79 (9): 92-100 Case Discussion o TBA February 1/2 STRATEGY AND FINANCE Guest Facilitator- Vikas Melhotra Special Presentation: Use of library resources in live projects Readings-TBA Case Discussion o Rogers chocolates

February 8/9 REVIEW: INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL ANALYSIS Case Discussion Princess Bride (video)

February 15/16 REVIEW: GENERIC STRATEGIES & COMPETITIVE DYNAMICS Christensen, C. M., Raynor, M., & Verlinden, M. 2001. Skate to where the Money will be. Harvard Business Review. 79 (10): 72-81 Greenwald, Bruce; Kahn, Judd. 2005. All strategy is local. Harvard Business Review, 83 (9): 94-104 Case Discussion o Pizza Franchises (in-class discussion)

February 22/23 READING WEEK February 29 / March 1 STRATEGY AND MARKETING Guest Facilitator- Paul Messinger Readings-TBA Case Discussion o Pan Boricua March 7/8 FIVE ELEMENTS OF TRANSFORMATION: PART 1 Successful Organizational Transformation. Pgs. 1-41 Kotter, John P. 2001. What leaders really do. Harvard Business Review, 79 (11): 85-96 Case Discussion o Lululemon case March 14/15 STRATEGY AND GLOBAL Guest Facilitator- Barry Scholnick Readings-TBA March 21/22 FIVE ELEMENTS OF TRANSFORMATION: PART 2 Successful Organizational Transformation. Pgs. 43-88 Case Discussion o Lululemon revisited

March 28/29 No class Exam due 5pm March 30 April 4/5 PRESENTATIONS

April 11/12 PRESENTATIONS