Assignment – (3000 words, exclusive of bibliography, references, title page, or appendices)
For the assessment, you are required to select an organization for analysis of its strategic management. You are required to critically evaluate a recent strategic decision that your chosen organisation has taken.
You should analyse this decision within the context of your chosen’s organisation’s environmental context.
The areas that you should consider are the strategic fit between the organisation’s external environment, its competitive and marketing environments, and the organisation’s resources and capabilities.
Additionally, you are required to evaluate how the decision was implemented and the overall impact it had on your chosen organisation. This may include discussing such areas as competitiveness, access to resources, stakeholder management, mission, and values.
You are expected to use the theories and models that are discussed in this course and provide primary and secondary data to support your critique where appropriate.
Strategic Management – Course work summary
Applicable Literature
Johnson, G., Whittington, R., Regnér, P., Scholes, K., and Angwin, D. (2017). Exploring Corporate Strategy: Text and cases.
Module 1 –Theories of Business and the Operating Environment
Summarized
- explain the strategic position of an organization (Pestel Analysis)
- describe the different levels of strategy
- analyse the impact of an organisation’s external environment on strategy
Module 2 – Competition and co-operation analysis
Summarized
- use Porter’s competitive five forces framework to analyse industries or sectors
- apply various concepts and techniques to recognise threats and opportunities in the industry and marketplace
- undertake stakeholder analysis to identify the power and attention of different stakeholder groups.
Module 3 – Resources, capabilities and organizational culture
Summarized
- identify organisational resources and capabilities and how these relate to the strategies of organisations
- diagnose resources and capabilities by means of VRIO analysis, value chain analysis, activity systems mapping, benchmarking, and SWOT analysis
- evaluate how strategy is developed, implemented, and disseminated through an organisation.
Module 4 – Business or corporate strategies and business modules
Summarized
- assess business strategy in terms of the generic strategies of cost leadership, differentiation, focus, and hybrid strategy
- identify and apply business model components: value creation, configuration, and capture
- discuss the relationship between corporate and business levels of an organisation.
Module 5 – Developing a strategy
Summarized
- make appropriate choices between organic development, mergers and acquisitions, and strategic alliance
- identify the key success factors of different growth options
- assess the performance outcomes of different strategies in terms of direct economic outcomes and overall organisational effectiveness.
Module 6 – Implementing strategies and strategic change
Summarized
- describe deliberate and emergent strategy development
- identify deliberate processes of strategy development in organisations, including the role of strategic leadership, strategic planning systems, and externally imposed strategy
- identify and assess different leadership styles, as related to strategic change
