Business Strategy an ...

This course comprises of two parts: Business Strategy and Business Ethics.

Strategy is considered to be the queen of the managerial disciplines and a key success factor in all areas of human activity. The purpose of strategy is to improve the ability to shape and adapt to unfolding circumstances. As such, strategic actions are purposeful, deliberate and meaningful, with the goal of linking now with a desired future state. Given their paramount importance, strategic decisions are rarely straightforward or simple. This is because they involve value judgments that depend to a large degree on people’s attitudes, perceptions and assumptions. This is why so many strategic decisions turn out to be ill-judged. In this respect, strategic management is concerned with complexity arising out of ambiguous and non-routine situations with organization-wide rather than operation-specific implications. Strategy has always been considered important. As early as 400 BC Sun Tzu wrote about strategy in his famous book Art of War "…it is a question of life and death". However, the conceptualization of ‘strategy’ as a construct is far more abstract than what is typically depicted in literature and practice. The word ‘strategy’ is now applied to almost every management activity to add misleading rhetorical weight. In contemporary business settings, strategy can provide the direction and scope of the organization over the long term, in order to achieve competitive advantage in a changing environment. Without a strategy the organization is like a ship without a rudder, going around in circles. In this respect, there are numerous examples of how a successful strategy can lead to success, even in cases where resources are limited and are not overwhelmingly superior to those of competitors.

The aim of the first part of the course is to help students understand and evaluate strategy and strategic choices, so as to answer the question “Why are some firms more successful than others?” To this end, students will learn specific tools and methods that can aid them in designing and evaluating appropriate strategies for different companies that possess disparate resources and capabilities and operate in diverse micro and macro environments. Furthermore, students will learn how to formulate implementation plans and control strategy execution so as to attain a sustainable competitive advantage. At a broader level, this course seeks to develop students’ capability for strategic thinking and creativity, enhancing their capacity to effectively tackle complex strategic situations.

 

Business Ethics refer to principles and standards that determine the way we act and interact in our professional environment. Today, modern organizations need to consider a broader set of stakeholders’ concerns in developing their strategies. This second part of the course is about the interdependence between a business and its economic, social and ecological environment. It is about how this interdependency can be managed for the better performance of a business and a society as a whole. Being, therefore, at the interface of strategic direction, business and society, this part of the course aims at increasing students’ awareness and handling of ethical and social issues & dilemmas in decision-making and management at the individual and organizational level. 

 

This part of the course begins with an introduction to ethics so that students can identify ethical issues/trade-offs at the individual and business level and develop their ethical reasoning capabilities. Next, it covers how modern corporations address or can address their social responsibilities. Today, firms are facing a lot and increasing expectations to behave ethically towards their stakeholders. These expectations create business trade-offs, which are even more intense under the various extreme institutional environments in today’s global economy, such as for example in the face of the sustainability megatrends, like climate change, natural resource scarcity, the growing wealth gap and the 4^th digital revolution. Consequently, an increasing number of corporations worldwide try to find ways to address or resolve their business trade-offs, redefine their business strategies and adopt practices that embrace not only financial but also environmental and social aspects. These efforts range from mainstream corporate social responsibility activities (e.g. philanthropies and donations), to more business-related initiatives, such as reducing energy use in operations, committing R&D resources to sustainable products, supporting the local producers, etc. Yet, only a relatively small number of firms have actually integrated social and environmental aspects into their business models and strategies that can have a long term economic, social and environmental impact. Students will get familiar with the key ethical, social and environmental challenges firms are facing today, will be able to act and manage with regard to the rising stakeholders’ expectations and will understand the transformation of corporate responses from peripheral activities and philanthropy to more strategic forms of CSR that can create long term value for all stakeholders.