Course Title: Introduction to Strategic Management

Part A: Course Overview

Course Title: Introduction to Strategic Management

Credit Points: 12.00

Terms

Course Code	Campus	Career	School	Learning Mode	Teaching Period(s)
BUSM3890	City Campus	Postgraduate	630H Management	Face-to-Face	Sem 2 2006, Sem 2 2007

Course Coordinator: Dr Peter O/Neill

Course Coordinator Phone: +61 3 9925 5941

Course Coordinator Email: peter.oneill@rmit.edu.au

Course Coordinator Location: 108.16.51

Course Coordinator Availability: By Appointment

Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities

BUSM 3886 Business and Government in the Global Environment.

Students should be conversant with differing management theories and the interpretation and application of theses theories in a variety of national contexts.

Course Description

The course provides the strategic management tools and theoretical concepts to analyse firms in different industries, make strategic decisions and justify these decisions with supporting evidence. The course covers a wide spectrum of business management activities and decisions, both at corporate and divisional level including management, production, information systems, marketing, and finance.

This course will enhance your appreciation of strategic management both in theory and in practice and equip students with the language and skills to identify, define, analyse, and articulate good strategy in at least national professional work contexts.

Students will learn to think analytically about strategic management processes and to analyse and plan strategies across political, economic, technological, social, cultural and business domains. Students will also learn to evaluate the development and application of firm resources to achieve at least national competitive advantage.

Students will develop critical thinking skills in this course to the point where they are able to argue contemporary strategic management issues at the theoretical level while still being able to explain these issues to a contemporary lay audience.

Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development

The capabilities that are developed through the master’s program are described in the Program Guide. This course contributes to the development of the master’s capabilities in the following way:

• Contribute to decisions within diverse political, economic, environmental and social contexts
• Communicate ideas, intentions and outcomes clearly to a variety of audiences
• Contribute to the management of business in contemporary organizations
• Analyse information and data
• Synthesise information
• Propose course of actions according to the analysis and synthesis.

Learning outcomes of this course will enable the student to:

• Discuss alternative theoretical frameworks for strategy design; their assumptions and implications on strategic choice.
• Analyse an industry by applying the theoretical frameworks provided in this course. That is, participants will identify, analyse and draw implications on the industry life cycle stage, critical success factors in the industry, forces that affect organizations, identify, and assess its attractiveness.
• Identify problems and opportunities organizations face and will design strategies to address them.
• Discuss guidelines when particular strategies are most appropriate to pursue.
• Recommend course of actions to address issues and opportunities a company faces.

Overview of Learning Activities

Lecturer inputs:

A range of learning experiences are planned for students including seminars, group problem solving exercises and group debates. The problem solving case studies/exercises and group debates in particular develop your analytical skills drawing on knowledge (i.e. theories, concepts, & frameworks) offered in the seminars. A structured program is provided to give students the opportunity to explore strategic management issues in greater depth through active participation in small discussion groups.

Student inputs as learners:

Your active and constructive participation in group discussions is expected in addition to weekly reading, group and individual exercises and careful planning and completion of assessment tasks. Presentations and written case analyses, together with class discussions will allow students to develop their skills in presenting complex ideas.

Overview of Learning Resources

Students have access to course materials on the online RMIT Learning Hub, including access to seminar slides, external internet links and access to PDF readings via an extensive array of RMIT Library on-line databases & resources.

Overview of Assessment

The seminar structure will provide opportunities for discussion of contemporary national strategic management issues and a forum to exchange ideas about how the world of business can be managed more sustainably.

Specifically the assessment aims to extend student’s capability to think, analyse, argue and write about strategic management issues through assignments, case study analysis (class discussion and written reports), plus tutorial assignments, and an exam.