Strategic Management (MBA 800-AE) Fall 2010

Strategic Management (MBA 800-AE) Fall 2010 Time: Tuesday evenings 4:30PM - 7:10PM in Sawyer 929 Instructor: Prof. Mark Lehrer, PhD, Dept. of Strategy and International Business Office: S666 Office hours: T 3:00 4:15pm and by appointment Telephone: 617-573-8338 Email: mlehrer@suffolk.edu Prerequisites: All core MBA courses and MBA 780. Required Text and Readings: 1. Customized textbook: Chapters 1, 4, 8, 9, 2 from A. Marcus, Strategic Management: Achieving Sustained Competitive Advantage 2. Additional cases and articles (provided on Blackboard) 3. Wall Street Journal articles relevant to strategy topics (I will assign weekly) 4. Capsim Capstone simulation 5. Five modules that will be posted on Blackboard by the second week of class: Module #1: Value Chain Analysis by Mark Lehrer Module #2: Business Models by Mark Lehrer Module #3: Industry Life Cycle by Mark Lehrer Module #4: Industry Value Chains by Mark Lehrer Module #5: Corporate Strategy by Mark Lehrer 1. Course Description and Objectives... p. 2 2. Required Material... p. 2 3. Teaching Approach and Class Format... p. 3 4. Performance Evaluation / Grading... p. 3 5. Course Requirements... p. 5 6. Contact & Communication... p. 6 7. Session Topics and Assignments... p. 7 Acknowledgment: I am highly indebted to my colleague Prof. Behnam for help in implementing the Capsim Capstone simulation in this course and have extensively borrowed from his method and syllabus. 1

1 COURSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES Welcome to MBA 800! The course is designed to help you integrate your knowledge of the functional areas of business into an overall view of the firm, analyze the environment, and anticipate the future direction of the firm. Additionally, the field of strategic management has developed a number of concepts and models unique to a general management view. You will learn about why some firms survive and prosper while others do not. A second purpose of the course will therefore be to apply the course concepts from the standpoint of the practicing manager. We will build the analytic and communicative skills required by top managers in decisionmaking situations through a business case simulation. This course covers theories of strategy that are both prescriptive (what firms ought to do strategically) and descriptive (how firms actually act strategically and why). An important part of this course concerns the social process of the formulation and implementation of strategy within firms. As you will discover, strategic management is more than simply making recommendations. Making strategy is a messy, emergent process.. Your active participation in class is essential. This is not a traditional lecture-based course. The course will consist of participant-centered discussions, simulation exercises, and lectures. You are expected to attend and be well prepared for each class, having read the required conceptual material. I also expect you to play an active role in class discussion. If all class members prepare for and actively participate, we will all learn more from each other and enjoy the course more. I will ask you to speak even if you have not volunteered, so please be ready for discussion every class. All slides of each session will also be posted on Blackboard by the following noon after the session. 2 REQUIRED MATERIAL 2.1 Reading Materials See the very first page of this syllabus. 2.2 Capstone Business Simulation Team Member Guide 2010 and website registration at www.capsim.com. Register under industry C39435. Make sure you register with the correct industry, as there are several listed under Suffolk University. The guide will be handed out the first day of class. Go to http://www.msimediaplayer.com/registration.htm for an audio visual demonstration of how to register for the simulation and how to access your simulation website for Getting Started. The last step of registration will be for you to pay for the simulation using a credit card or checking account online. The price is $44.99. 2.3 Fifteen-week student subscription to the Wall Street Journal Cost: $29.99. This incredible bargain gives you the print and online version for $2 per week, plus access to many assigned archived WSJ articles for which I will supply the URL once your subscriptions begin. Most WSJ articles cannot be accessed online without a subscription, except on campus via the library. We will use the WSJ intensively, so do consider the benefits of convenience through personal subscription. 2

3 TEACHING APPROACH AND CLASS FORMAT The course will combine theoretical thinking with practical, hands-on learning mostly through the business simulation. Additionally there will be oral and written assignments. You will work within a team for your assigned business simulation and classroom presentation. The simulation will oblige you to make strategic decisions in multiple rounds of competition, applying the concepts and frameworks covered in lectures and the text. The text and assigned readings will be supplemented by discussion of new emerging trends in business, hence the vital role of the Wall Street Journal in providing live cases to talk about. You are encouraged to bring your own interests to these discussions so that they best supplement your own learning investments. Generally speaking, each class session will start with lecture/discussion of concepts from the chapter readings, proceed to the assigned articles of the Wall Street Journal and will conclude with substantial time for the simulation. However, we will vary this format from time to time during the semester as the need arises. You will be provided time each week in class for teamwork on the strategic management simulation. I will be available as a consultant to teams during this time period. However, you will also need to spend considerable time outside of class each week on the simulation. At the beginning you will experience a heavy workload as your team gets organized and familiarizes itself with how the simulation works. This will typically ease over the course of the semester as you develop a routine that works. 4 PERFORMANCE EVALUATION / GRADING 4.1 CAPSIM Strategic Management Simulation (40%: team grade) The simulation will involve multiple rounds of competition among teams competing in a hypothetical electronic sensor industry. The competition will test both your ability to create shareholder value (your earning performance) and your ability to conceptualize and implement corporate and business strategies (your learning performance). During the first week of class, teams will be organized for participation in the simulation game. Teams will be responsible for engaging in out-of-class face-to-face or electronic meetings (e.g. Skype), making decisions to implement decisions for two practice rounds and subsequently eight cumulative rounds of competition, and preparing an oral and PPT presentation to be given on the last day of class. Grades will be awarded according to each team s relative learning performance at the end of the game. The overall performance of the team at the end of the game constitutes 40% of the final grade (as reported in the Analyst Report of the simulation but often moderated by special circumstances such as the ability to stage an amazing turnaround after a rough start). Though this 40% component is generally a team grade, there may be individual exceptions. Your individual contribution will be evaluated both by me (through monitoring the team and simulation activity of the individual student) and by the team (providing peer group evaluation and feedback to each other and to me). Hence, free riders who do not contribute to their team s weekly simulation assignments will receive lower evaluations for the CAPSIM than the rest of their team. Similarly, superstar contributors to their team s learning and performance will be recognized and rewarded accordingly. A superstar can receive an A- even if the rest of a comparatively low-performing yet hard-working team receives a B. 4.2 Final Presentation on an Industry of Your Choice (10%: team grade) Since not all industries are like the sensor industry, your team should select another industry to read about (e.g. in the Wall Street Journal), especially an industry you would wish to apply for a job in. Then your final presentation should essentially answer the following questions: What lessons from the Capstone simulation would apply to this industry? What special skills have you acquired in this course that would qualify you for a top management post in the target industry in a couple years? And why? By the same token, what would be different about managing in the target industry than in the sensor industry? With regard to the last question, a 3

mediocre presentation merely describes differences in products and markets ( Airplanes are different from sensors ). A thoughtful presentation makes reflective inferences about the different types of strategic decisions and different decision-making challenges that would be needed in R&D, Marketing, Finance, Production, etc. ( The role of finance in airplane manufacturing would involve a completely different set of decision parameters, especially. ). 4.3 Reflective Journal (30%: individual grade) by email It is not enough just to obtain simulated business experience running a firm. You also need to reflect on this experience. The reflective journal will serve as a learning vehicle to apply different concepts to your simulation experience. You will write 6 essays on 6 different topics and reflect upon how they relate to the simulation and your strategic decision making processes. Your journal should be about 1 page for each topic; 6 pages in all), plus an optional cover sheet. The journals should be typed, 12pt font Arial, 1 inch margin around, 1,5 spacing, page-numbered and sent to me via email: mlehrer@suffolk.edu as a Word document. The journals are due before our last class session and will account for 30% of your grade. Topics: the six topics will be as follows. Topics 1-4: you can select any four (4) strategy topics from the course other than industry evolution (which is a homework assignment). You can select them either from the lecture topics (e.g. foresight), from the Marcus chapters (e.g. strategic moves), and/or from the modules 1-5 (e.g. value chain). I will evaluate them according to depth of insight. A trite or superficial essay, even if 100% correct, will not merit a top grade. The depth of reflection is more important than the mechanical regurgitation of course material. Feel free to challenge or disagree with the lectures / textbook / modules, or to develop your own original perspective. I especially laud students who bring my attention to gaps in the topics we cover in this course. Topics 5 and 6 are as follows. Tentatively (I may slightly adjust these topics), Topic 5 is assigned as the special skill requirements of top management teams and how this affects your own career planning. Reflect on the way members of a top management team (as in your simulation) came to routinize and perfect their teamwork, and on what you learned about the qualities needed to be a top manager. Tell me the consequences for your own personal career development plans. The second round of the survey in Week 13 will give you some data you can use in writing up this reflective analysis. Tentatively, Topic 6 is assigned as Leadership: Theory and Reality. You have taken leadership courses at Suffolk. I am curious as to how the Capsim simulation confirmed or altered the theories of leadership you were exposed to. In the first paragraph (20%-30%) of the essay, very briefly outline 1-3 major conceptions or theories of leadership you had gained from previous coursework. In the remainder of the essay, explain how the Capsim simulation either confirmed, or deepened, or complemented, or contradicted what you had previously learned about leadership at Suffolk. NB: leadership refers to the behavior of followers as well as leaders! 4.4 Homework (10%: individual grade) hard copy on paper In October and again in November you will have 1½-page essays due on your firm s strategy (October) and on the evolution of your sensor industry (November). See the schedule (section 7) for details. I prefer hard copies so I can give some feedback easily. The deal is this. If you submit by email, you get a grade but no feedback. If you submit a paper copy, you get a grade and feedback. Emailed submissions take more time to access, locate and print out. I absolutely do also grade your ability to fulfill the actual assignment! 4.5 Class Participation (10%: individual grade) Participation in class discussions is a critical factor in your own and your classmates learning. It is important that you have studied the assigned chapter and exercise materials on your own, so that we can use class time most effectively. It is particularly important that you have thought about how the assigned chapters and exercises relate to your own experience and to your simulation company. 10% of the evaluation is based on each individual s contributions to class discussion of weekly topics. Essentially you will be evaluated on the extent to which you contribute to class-wide learning. You contribute little, obviously, when you are physically or mentally absent. So even if your excuses are fantastic, you cannot realistically expect a 100% grade on this component if you have any absences or read emails during regular class. 4

4.6 Grade Calculation Essentially I use a curve. I normalize the scores of the different components where deemed necessary, add them up, and then display the total student scores from highest to lowest. I look at discrete breaks that make it logical to distinguish between ranges of A, A-, B+, B, etc. I also make a decision about how good a class this was as a whole. The higher my evaluation of my class as a whole, the greater the percentage of students who will fall into the A and A- category. 5 COURSE REQUIREMENTS 5.1 Attendance You are expected to attend all class meetings and also to be punctual. Because learning in this course occurs primarily through interactions with other participants during class, it is not easy to compensate for an absence. There is no substitute for being present, prepared, and participating in the class discussion. Please note that I take an extremely unfavorable view of students who come to class late either at the start of class or after breaks. I reserve the right to treat chronic lateness as an absence, and therefore it will likely affect your final grade. If you do miss class, it will be your responsibility to get notes, find out what was discussed, etc. from one of your classmates. Here s how the policy breaks down: If you miss more than 2 classes, your final grade will be marked down a third of a letter grade for absence #3 and again for absence #4. That means that with 3 absences you would receive a B-minus if you would have otherwise received a B; a B+ if you would have otherwise received an A- minus, etc. Please note that if you miss more than four classes you will likely receive an F in the course. Thus, I encourage you to take this course at another time if you think you ll have other commitments such as job-related activities that might prevent you from being in class. 5.2 Honor Code I take violations of academic integrity very seriously. If you engage in any form of cheating such as (but not limited to) copying someone else s answers, plagiarizing (if you re unsure what constitutes plagiarism, refer to the student manual), having someone else write or prepare an assignment for you in part or in whole, buying a paper, etc., you will be referred to the Dean of Students. This could mean a grade of F for the entire course. 5.3 University Disability Statement Suffolk University is dedicated to a full university education for all its students and ensures that all students have access to university services. If you have a learning, physical, medical, or psychiatric disability that may impact your coursework, and are seeking classroom accommodations under the American with Disabilities Act, you are required to 1) meet with me to discuss possible needs, and 2) register with the Dean of Students Office, 73 Tremont Street, 12th floor, 617-573-8239. I must receive verification from the Dean of Students Office before accommodations are granted. All information and documentation is confidential. 5.4 Other Administrative Details Check Blackboard regularly. Mobile phones, smartphones, laptops, etc. must be turned off before class (don t just put them on silent mode). Reading your email during class lectures & discussion is very unprofessional and distracting to other students and therefore will justly reduce your participation grade; grades should reflect, in part, my assessment of your maturity and self-control. In contrast, what is appropriate behavior during your team s conferral time for the simulation is more up to you and your team to decide. 5

Do not wait until the end of the semester to see me regarding problems with the course material or your performance. Your performance in this class is important to me, so please see me early. Any assignments must be submitted on time. As managers, you will not be afforded the luxury of missing deadlines (think of deadlines as windows of opportunity ). Late assignments will be penalized 20% for each day past the deadline and will not be accepted more than 3 days late. The decisions for your company MUST be uploaded to the simulation website on time since the simulation moves forward to the next round after the pre-determined deadline. Like managers executing actual strategies, we may find that the course syllabus must be amended slightly as the semester progresses. 5.5 Course Catalogue Description This course focuses on corporate-level and business-unit level strategy formulation and implementation. Students develop a multi- functional general management perspective that requires the integration and application of knowledge and techniques from earlier courses. Students will learn about the principal concepts, frameworks, and techniques of strategic management. They will develop the capacity for strategic thinking, and they will examine the organizational and environmental contexts in which strategic management unfolds. Students will achieve these course objectives through a variety of learning activities. 6 CONTACT & COMMUNICATION I currently have office hours planned for Wednesdays, 3:00 p.m. 4:15 p.m., and will hold additional office hours by appointment. The best way to contact me is via email (mlehrer@suffolk.edu). I typically check my email twice a day. Similarly, I would encourage you to check your email at least once a day, as I tend to communicate through emails during the course of the semester. Please ensure that your Suffolk email account works. In addition, please contact me if you have any concerns or can foresee unusual circumstances. Those with potential work or family-related conflicts should see me during the first week of the semester to talk through these issues. I cannot promise that accommodation is always feasible. 6

7 SESSION TOPICS AND ASSIGNMENTS (DUE BEFORE EACH CLASS STARTS) Week 1: Sept. 7 Course Introduction and Survey Capstone Introduction Team Set-Up Break students into Company Management Teams Week 2: Sept. 14 Introduction: Managing Amidst Uncertainty Marcus, ch. 1 and assigned WSJ articles (email) Register for Capstone at www.capsim.com as a New Student under industry C39435 Then log in and go to the Getting Started menu. Read the Introductory Lesson (and take the quiz), read the Online Team Member Guide if you did not get one in class, then complete the Rehearsal Tutorial consisting of a quiz followed by a process round. Have a look at the Capstone Courier. Finally, join the company you are assigned to. Week 3: Conceptualizing the Firm as a Whole: Value-Chain Strategies Sept. 21 Teamwork: Begin to Prepare Practice Round 1, due on 9/27 Module #1: Value Chain Analysis, and assigned WSJ articles (URLs only provided by email) In the Getting Started menu, complete the Situation Analysis. This is a key familiarization exercise for Capsim. Next, familiarize yourself with the basic strategies (see also Ch. 10 of the Team member Guide). On this class day, you and your team members must agree on a basic strategy for the practice rounds. Week 4: Cost Structures, Margins, and Business Models Debrief Practice Round 1 Sept. 28 Teamwork: Begin to Prepare Practice Round 2, due on 10/4 Module #2: Business Models, and assigned WSJ articles Practice Round 1 due 9/27: Team decisions due the (Monday) night before class at 9 pm! Week 5: Foresight Debrief Practice Round 2 Oct. 5 Teamwork: Begin to Prepare Competition Round 1, due on 10/11 This class session will be asynchronous online. You will be given multiple video links with instruction on foresight techniques. You will turn in individual or group homework (your choice) to show you have watched the videos and performed the exercises legislated therein. Practice Round 2 due 10/4: Team decisions due the (Monday) night before class at 9 pm! 7

Week 6: Competitor Analysis and Competitive Tactics -- DEBRIEF COMP. ROUND 1 Oct. 12 Teamwork: Begin to Prepare Competition Round 2, due on 10/18 Marcus, Ch. 4, and WSJ articles ESSAY TO HAND IN: Your own understanding of your team s basic strategy and your individual role in operationalizing this strategy as well as the biggest challenges you expect to face; what is hardest about your job? (1.5 pages on a single sheet, printed front and back) Competition Round 1 due 10/11: Team decisions due the (Monday) night before class at 9 pm! Week 7: Strategic Innovation and Reinvention -- DEBRIEF COMP. ROUND 2 Oct. 19 Teamwork: Begin to Prepare Competition Round 3, due on 10/25 Marcus, Ch. 8, and assigned WSJ articles Each student completes the Peer Evaluation form prior to processing the round. Competition Round 2 due 10/18: Team decisions due the (Monday) night before class at 9 pm! By now you have the idea, so I will not repeat this anymore for competition rounds 3-8 Week 8: Anticipating Industry Evolution -- DEBRIEF COMP. ROUND 3 Oct. 26 Teamwork: Begin to Prepare Competition Round 4, due on 11/1 Module #3: Industry Life Cycle and Module #4: Industry Value Chains, and WSJ articles Week 9: Strategy Implementation, Leadership, Mission, Vision -- DEBRIEF COMP. ROUND 4 Nov. 2 Teamwork: Begin to Prepare Competition Round 5, due on 11/8 Marcus, Ch. 9, and assigned WSJ articles Week 10: Industry Analysis -- DEBRIEF COMP. ROUND 5 Nov. 9 Teamwork: Begin to Prepare Competition Round 6, due on 11/15 Marcus, Ch. 2, and assigned WSJ articles ESSAY TO HAND IN: Your vision of 1) how this industry has evolved, i.e. the core drivers of change and competition; within the context of this, 2) a statement of team s original strategy vs. revised or emergent strategy; 3) how has your own role changed on the team? (1.5 pages, 3 parts of not necessarily equal length) 8

Week 11: Corporate Strategy -- DEBRIEF COMP. ROUND 6 Nov. 16 Teamwork: Begin to Prepare Competition Round 7, due on 11/22 Module #5: Corporate Strategy, and WSJ articles Week 12: Global Strategy -- DEBRIEF COMP. ROUND 7 Nov. 23 Teamwork: Begin to Prepare Competition Round 8, due on 11/29 CMR article by Lehrer and Delaunay (2009); readings on corruption These will be posted on Blackboard Each student completes the Peer Evaluation form prior to processing the round. Week 13: Nov. 30 DEBRIEF COMP. ROUND 8, Survey (Repeat), Group Presentations Week 14: Dec. 7 Group Presentations and Final In-Class Peer Evaluation Reflective Journals Email the journals as Word attachments to me before start of class on 12/7 (Alternatively, a paper copy is OK, but please, refrain from doing both) Please remember also to bring and hand in your two completed surveys 9