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BSc Degree Examinations 2019-2020

THE YORK MANAGEMENT SCHOOL

Strategic Management

Time allowed: 2 hours

Candidates should answer two questions

Each question to be answered on a separate page.

Candidates are allowed to bring two sides of notes on A4 paper. There are
no restrictions on what can be on the notes or if they are typed or
handwritten.

The two sides of A4 must be attached to the answer booklet and handed
in at the end of the examination

TURN OVER
Answer two questions from the list of five questions below. Your answer
should be theoretically grounded and use worked examples.

Question 1 (100 marks)

Critically contrast at least two schools of strategic management

Question 2 (100 marks)

Discuss if the design and planning school is still relevant in the 21 st

century.

Question 3 (100 marks)

An emergent strategy is strategic. Discuss.

Question 4 (100 marks)

What is the role of corporate governance and business elites in strategy

making?

Question 5 (100 marks)

Can organizational violence provide a sustained competitive advantage?

END OF EXAMINATION PAPER

NOTES FOR EXAMINERS

Answer two questions from the list of five questions below. Your
answer should be theoretically grounded and use worked examples.

Question 1 (100 marks)

Critically contrast at least two schools of strategic management

This module examines four core approaches to strategic management, the

planning/design school, the positioning school, the cultural school/resource
based view and the emergent school/strategy without design. With this
question students are invited to critically contrast two of them, which may
embrace a variety of approaches. Good answers will engage with the issues
inherent with any of the models and use this to link to another school.
Exceptional answers will embrace debates in the literature in their answers
and demonstrate a critical approach to the question.

Question 2 (100 marks)

Discuss if the design and planning school is still relevant in the 21 st

century.

This question invites students to consider the oldest approaches to strategic

management, the design and planning schools, and if they are still relevant in
the 21st century despite their 1960s origins. Answers should discuss the
changing environment outside of an organization and the issues with
remaining static and having an unadaptable strategy. More advanced
answers may incorporate elements of the Andrews/Mintzberg basic design
school model and discuss issues around managerial values and corporate
responsibility, and perhaps incorporate a discussion of the usefulness of
models like the Ansoff Matrix and the Strategy/Structure paradigm.
Outstanding answers will incorporate elements of Mintzberg’s 1990 critique
of the design school, and possibly discuss issues such as Strategic Planning
as an oxymoron from Mintzberg.

Question 3 (100 marks)

An emergent strategy is strategic. Discuss.

This question invites students to consider the value of emergent strategies,

which may in some cases suggest having no strategy at all. Good answers
will discuss this in relation to ideas from the planning or positioning schools
and cover how relatively few strategies are ever fully realized. Answers
should also consider what it means to be strategic, and how having an
unrealized strategy may be problematic. Exceptional answers may touch on
Chia and Holt’s notion of strategy without design, and the role of
organizational learning.

Question 4 (100 marks)

What is the role of corporate governance and business elites in strategy

making?

For this question students are invited to consider two of the advanced topics
from the module and discuss the connections between them and strategy
making. Answers should include a discussion of what corporate governance
is, and the different approaches to this explored in the module, stakeholder
theory and shareholder value maximization, and the role of elites in
connection to corporate governance. More advanced answers should
discuss how elites and corporate governance arrangements may enable or
constrain strategic choice, and how the aspirations of elites may limit their
strategic choice. Exceptional answers would be expected to incorporate
suitable worked examples and may discuss the role of elites in approaches
such as the design and planning school.

Question 5 (100 marks)

Can organizational violence provide a sustained competitive advantage?

Answers should discuss the core issues of organizational violence and the
unethical approaches to achieving competitive advantage, and what
constitutes a sustained competitive advantage. More advanced answers
may discuss how organizational violence may provide a short-term
competitive advantage, but a sustained competitive advantage may be
illusive. Exceptional answers may discuss the differences between
organizational and individual approaches to organizational violence.