COMSATS University Islamabad

Lahore Campus
DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCES

COURSE HANDBOOK*
1 Course Title Strategic Management
2 Course Code MGT 501
3 Credit Hours 3(3,0)
4 Semester 8
5 Resource Person Dr. Syed Nauman Ahmad
6 Supporting Team Members Not applicable
7 Contact Hours (Theory) 3 Hours per week
8 Contact Hours (Lab) Not applicable
9 Office Hours By appointment (syednauman@cuilahore.edu.pk)

10 Course Introduction
Strategic management is an exciting and challenging capstone course that would allow students to professionally carry out their

responsibility as an owner, manager, a general manager, or a chief executive officer (CEO) of an organization. The course will

help students appreciate and understand the process of strategic decision making in the perspective of business organizations.

Strategic decision-making is performed in every type of organization: from gigantic multinational to a small local store.

Decisions to expand geographically or to diversify are a few examples of strategic decisions for an organization. Strategic

decisions determine the future and competitive position of an organization in the long run. No matter how hard employees of

an organization perform, the organization could be in real trouble, if strategic decisions are not effectively made and efficiently

implemented and appropriately evaluated. Different stages of strategic management, with a special focus on strategy

formulation, will be discussed.

11 Learning Objectives
By the end of the course, the students should be able:
 To develop a comprehension to identify central issues and problems in a complex business situation
 To understand and develop analytical and decision-making skills for dealing with complex strategic management problems
 To suggest alternative course(s) of action in the given circumstances and chose the best option for implementation

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 To understand relevance of the strategic management practices and their applicability in the local context
 To understand ethical perspective of formulation and implementation of strategic decisions

12 Course Contents
The course contents include: Introduction to Strategic Management, The Nature of Strategic Management, The Business Vision
and Mission, The External Assessment, The Internal Assessment, Strategies in Action, Strategy Analysis and Choice, and
Business Ethics/Social Responsibility/Environmental Sustainability.

13 Weekly Lecture Schedule

Text Book Reading
Week Topic of Lecture Assignment

Introduction to Strategic Management

 What Is Strategic Management?
 Stages of Strategic Management
Week 1 Page # 2-14
 Defining Strategic Management
 Strategic Management Model
 Key Terms
The Nature of Strategic Management
 Key Terms...Cont.
 Integrating Intuition and Analysis
Week 2 Page # 15-23
 Adapting to Change
 Benefits of Strategic Management
 Why Some Firms Do No Strategic Planning
The Business Vision and Mission
 What do we want to become?
Week 3 Page # 40 – 48
 What is our business?
 Importance of Mission Statement
The Business Vision and Mission...Cont.
 Importance of Mission Statement

Week 4  Characteristics of a Mission Statement Page # 48 – 53

 Components of Mission Statement
 Writing and evaluating Mission Statement
The External Assessment
 The Nature of an External Assessment
Week 5 Page # 58 –65
 The Industrial Organization (I/O) View
 Economic Forces
Week 6 The External Assessment...Cont. Page # 66 – 70

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  Social, Cultural, Demographic and Environmental Forces
 Political, Governmental and Legal Forces
 Technological Forces
The External Assessment
 Competitive Forces

Week 7  Competitive Analysis: Porter’s Five-Forces Model Page # 71–87

 Industry Analysis: The External Factor Evaluation (EFE) Matrix
 The Competitive Profile Matrix (CPM)
The Internal Assessment
 The Nature of an Internal Audit
 The Resource-Based View
Week 8 Page # 92 - 108
 Integrating and Culture
 Management
 Marketing
The Internal Assessment...Cont.
 Finance/Accounting
 Production/Operations

Week 9 & 10  Research & Development (R&D) Page # 108 – 127

 Management Information System (MIS)
 Value Chain Analysis
 The Internal Factor Evaluation (IFE) Matrix

Week 11 Midterm Examination

Strategies in Action
 Long-Term Objectives
 Types of Strategies
 Integration Strategies
 Intensive Strategies
Page # 130 – 165
Week 12
 Diversification Strategies
 Defensive Strategies
 Porter’s Five Generic Strategies
 Strategic Management in Non-Profit, Governmental Organizations and
in Small Firms
Strategy Analysis and Choice
Week 13 &
Page # 170 – 185
14  The Nature of Strategy Analysis and Choice

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  A Comprehensive Strategy Formulation Framework
 The Input Stage
 The Matching Stage...up to The SPACE Matrix
Strategy Analysis and Choice
 The Matching Stage...cont.
 The Decision Stage Page # 185 – 203
Week 15
 Cultural Aspects of Strategy Choice
 The Politics of Strategy Choice
Business Ethics / Social Responsibility / Environmental Sustainability
 Business Ethics
Week 16 Page # 308 – 325
 Social Responsibility
 Environmental Sustainability

Week 17 Final Examination

14 Course Assessment

As per the CUI system, the assessment of this module shall have the following breakdown structure:
Midterm Examination 25%
Quizzes & Assignments 25%
Final Examination 50%
The correspondence between letter grades, credit points, and percentage marks at CUI shall be as follows:

Grades Letter Grade Credit Points Percentage Marks

A (Excellent) 4.0 90 and above

A- 3.7 85-89
B+ 3.3 80-84
B (Good) 3.0 75-79
B- 2.7 70-74
C+ 2.3 65-69
C (Average) 2.0 60-64
C- 1.7 55-59
D (Minimum passing) 1.3 50-54
F (Failing) 0.0 Less than 50

David, F. R. (2011). Strategic management concepts and cases.

15 Recommended Text Book Prentice Hall.
16 Additional Readings BOOKS
Johnson, G., Scholes, K., & Whittington, R. (2008). Exploring

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 Corporate Strategy: Text and cases. Pearson Education.
Certo, S. C. (1988). Instructor's Manual for Strategic Management:
Concepts and Applications. Theoretical Support Material.
Hitt, M. A., Ireland, R. D., & Hoskisson, R. E. (2016). Strategic
Management: Concepts and Cases: Competitiveness and Globalization.
Cengage Learning.
JOURNAL ARTICLES
Adegbesan, J. A. (2009). On the origins of competitive advantage:
Strategic factor markets and heterogeneous resource
complementarity. Academy of Management Review, 34(3), 463-475.
Baetz, M. C., & Bart, C. K. (1996). Developing mission statements
which work. Long Range Planning, 29(4), 526-533.
Bartkus, B., Glassman, M., & McAfee, R. B. (2000). Mission
statements: are they smoke and mirrors? Business Horizons, 43(6), 23-
23.
Collins, J. C., & Porras, J. I. (1996). Building your company's
vision. Harvard Business Review, 74(5), 65.
Cummings, S., & Daellenbach, U. (2009). A guide to the future of
strategy? The history of long-range planning. Long Range
Planning, 42(2), 234-263.
Delmas, M. A., & Toffel, M. W. (2008). Organizational responses to
environmental demands: Opening the black box. Strategic Management
Journal, 29(10), 1027-1055.
Garnier, J. P. (2008). Rebuilding the R&D engine in big
pharma. Harvard Business Review, 86(5), 68-70.
Grant, R. M. (1991). The resource-based theory of competitive
advantage: implications for strategy formulation. California
Management Review, 33(3), 114-135.
Larwood, L., Falbe, C. M., Kriger, M. P., & Miesing, P. (1995).
Structure and meaning of organizational vision. Academy of
Management Journal, 38(3), 740-769.
Porter, M. E. (2008). The five competitive forces that shape
strategy. Harvard Business Review, 86(1), 25-40.
Sinha, R. K., & Noble, C. H. (2008). The adoption of radical
manufacturing technologies and firm survival. Strategic Management
Journal, 29(9), 943-962.
Zott, C., & Amit, R. (2008). The fit between product market strategy
and business model: Implications for firm performance. Strategic
Management Journal, 29(1), 1-26.

17 Plagiarism
Plagiarism involves the unacknowledged use of someone else’s work, usually in coursework, and passing it off as if it were
one’s own. Many students who submit apparently plagiarised work probably do so inadvertently without realising it because of
poorly developed study skills, including note taking, referencing and citations; this is poor academic practice rather than
malpractice. Some students, particularly those from different cultures and educational systems, find UK academic
referencing/acknowledgement systems and conventions awkward, and proof-reading is not always easy for dyslexic students
and some visually-impaired students. Study skills education within programmes of study should minimise the number of
students submitting poorly referenced work. However, some students plagiarise deliberately, with the intent to deceive. This

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intentional malpractice is a conscious, pre-mediated form of cheating and is regarded as a particularly serious breach of the
core values of academic integrity. Students will be required to submit Turnitin similarity index report along with their
assignments. CUI has zero tolerance for intentional plagiarism. Plagiarism can include the following:
1. Collusion, where a piece of work prepared by a group is represented as if it were the student’s own;

2. Commission or use of work by the student which is not his/her own and representing it as if it were, e.g.:
a. Purchase of a paper from a commercial service, including internet sites, whether pre-written or specially prepared for
the student concerned
b. Submission of a paper written by another person, either by a fellow student or a person who is not a member of the
university;
3. Duplication (of one’s own work) of the same or almost identical work for more than one module;

4. The act of copying or paraphrasing a paper from a source text, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form,
without appropriate acknowledgement (this includes quoting directly from another source with a reference but without
quotation marks);
5. Submission of another student’s work, whether with or without that student’s knowledge or consent;

6. Directly quoting from model solutions/answers made available in previous years;

7. Cheating in class tests, e.g.

a. When a candidate communicates, or attempts to communicate, with a fellow candidate or individual who is neither an
invigilator or member of staff
b. Copies, or attempts to copy from a fellow candidate
c. Attempts to introduce or consult during the examination any unauthorised printed or written material, or electronic
calculating, information storage device, mobile phones or other communication device
d. Personates or allows him or her to be impersonated.

8. Fabrication of results occurs when a student claims to have carried out tests, experiments or observations that have not
taken place or presents results not supported by the evidence with the object of obtaining an unfair advantage.

These definitions apply to work in whatever format it is presented, including written work, online submissions, group work
and oral presentations.
18 Attendance Policy
Every student must attend 80% of the lectures/seminars delivered in this course. The student falling short of the required
percentage of attendance of lectures/seminars etc., shall not be allowed to appear in the final examination of this course and
shall be treated as having failed this course.

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