Strategic Thinking and Action

This course develops students’ ability to analyze the organizational and external factors essential for crafting and executing a firm’s strategy for sustained success. The course draws heavily from the key concepts, frameworks, and tools of strategic management. Taking an action orientation, it reinforces and revitalizes the general-management perspective¾the core mission of the school. Because of increasing global interdependence and an ever-shifting business environment, it emphasizes both the dynamics and the global aspects of strategic management. Topics include developing and evaluating strategy, building firm capability and sustaining competitive advantage, analyzing industry evolution and global rivalry, and linking strategy and execution. Course objectives are accomplished through exposure to cases from a range of industries and managerial settings. By providing students with an opportunity to apply analytical skills they learn in various first-year courses, the course fosters an integrative mind-set that will enable MBAs to operate at multiple levels and in different functions in their business careers.