Growing Outside the Core

• Growing Outside the Core

Growing Outside the Core Specialization Courses

Overview

This advanced corporate strategy course explores the implications of broad societal trends for corporate growth strategies in the 21st century. It builds on the corporate strategy module of the core phase by considering the organizational challenges of strategies such as diversification, mergers, acquisitions, strategic alliances and global outsourcing, as well as considering their possible consequences from the perspectives of financial markets, corporate social responsibility and government. Thus, this course is designed to broaden strategic thinking skills from a narrow view of designing clever corporate strategies that produce growth and competitive advantage, to a broader view that includes a consideration of the impact of these strategies on the organization’s various stakeholders and their ability to affect the success of these strategies.

The course is organized around a number of key tensions or paradoxes that affect the development of effective corporate growth strategies today. Through case studies, class debates, and guest speakers, we will consider tensions such as, for example, identifying synergy potential across different businesses on the one hand, and the difficulties of actually realizing this potential on the other; between the need for control over strategically core processes and global outsourcing trends for increased efficiency; the pressure for shareholder value maximization versus the societal push for corporate social responsibility etc. By considering such tensions from different angles the course teaches students how to systematically grapple with the real life complexities involved in corporate strategy development in the 21st century.

Learning outcomes

Students should be well equipped to be able to resolve some of the key paradoxes of corporate strategy in the 21st century by:

• Evaluating the consequences of strategic choices in relation to corporate growth and the role of the corporate center from multiple stakeholder perspectives
• Assessing the possible impact of various internal and external stakeholders on the likely long-term success of different corporate growth strategies
• Balancing the firm’s needs and stakeholder needs to develop successful and sustainable corporate growth strategies