Prerequisites

Students must complete COMM 2035/MM1, COMM 2045/OR1 and COMM 2055/OM1 before enrolling in this course.  There will be no exceptions to this regulation.

Description and purpose

Strategic Management and Policy will introduce you to the process of strategic management in organizations from the perspective of top management who must be concerned with the overall long-term effectiveness of the organization. The concepts covered in this course can be understood as a framework within which senior management takes an integrative approach to the various functional disciplines of accounting, finance, human resource management, marketing, and operations, in diagnosing and solving critical problems in complex situations. Although the senior management perspective is emphasized, this course applies equally to functional specialists who are increasingly expected to demonstrate an understanding of the entire organization and how their function contributes to the realization of the organization’s mission and objectives.

Strategic management advances a holistic perspective of organizations, that is, an understanding of the interactions among the various functions and their integration, producing a coherent and effective system. By aligning this system with opportunities in its external environment, the organization establishes an optimal fit, a necessary condition for effective long-term performance.

The presentation of course concepts has been organized to emphasize the systematic dimensions of the strategic management process. The first part of the course provides an overview of the strategic management process, including the elements of strategy development and the impact of complex business environments. In the second part of the course, you consider what organizations can do to maximize the likelihood of successful strategy implementation and execution.

You are encouraged to balance the linear properties of strategic management with a holistic perspective of organizations. Often, reading ahead as much as possible helps to reveal how various concepts are linked.

The course is designed to assist you in developing professional competence and skills to:

• apply relevant strategic management concepts to organizations facing long-term performance problems

• critically examine and analyze strategic management problems

• generate strategic management recommendations and plans that are intended to resolve long-term performance problems, and

• justify strategic management interventions.

The course integrates extensive online discussion and team-based case analysis of concepts and tools emerging from the textbook readings.

Structure

The course comprises 11 modules that can be studied over a 12-week period, one module per week. Each module should take between 15 and 20 hours to complete, the majority of that time for the study of cases and participation in online discussions, open-book chapter quizzes, the GLO-BUS strategy game, and related activities.

Sometimes it is necessary to update the course and its materials. The Instructor, CGA-Canada and Laurentian University reserve the right to make changes to the course (content, schedule, assessments, evaluation and assignments and so on) at any time. These changes will be provided in the News area of the course or provided by your instructor in the discussion environment. Please monitor these areas for course updates.

Material

The textbook for this course:

        Arthur A. Thompson, Jr.,  A.J. Strickland III, and John E. Gamble, Crafting & Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage, Concepts and Cases, with premium web content, Seventeenth Edition (New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2010)

You are responsible for  purchasing the GLO-Bus password. Instructions will be provided by your instructor.

Assessments

There are six assessment components in this course:

• Individual participation in group discussions

• Individual case studies

• Online quizzes

• Group case report, critique of another group's report and response to critique

• GLO-BUS strategy game

• Final examination

This assessment plan may change. You will be advised of any changes at the beginning of the course. You must complete all assignments to receive a passing grade.

No interruptions are expected to occur in several components delivered by new technology (for example: the GLO-BUS and online quizzes) but in the event an interruption occurs, the instructor reserves the right to reallocate marks or provide alternative assignments.

You must complete all assignments and all six assessment components to receive a passing grade. This means that you must write the final examination and complete all online quizzes as well.

Schedule

(LU reserves the right to make changes to this schedule)

Update Aug 13 2012