AØKA08100U Advanced Strategic Management

The idea of the course is to provide students with an understanding of how managers make decision and how strategy evolves in different types of companies and contexts as for instance in organizations located in a dynamic and complex environment facing genuine uncertainty. A further idea is to make the students aware of not only the economic but also the political, social, and psychological aspect of managing an organization and how these aspects affect the development of strategies in organizations both in the private and public sector.

First, we look at different perspectives on strategy, management and organization, including the different elements of an organization and its context (environment) as well as on how organizations are structured depending on the context in which they operate.

This is the starting point of a more detailed presentation and discussion of five different organizational archetypes: The entrepreneurial organization; the large mature/older production/service company; the expert organization, the innovative organization; and the divisional form. For each of these archetypes we go in depth on how the organization is structured, how it is managed, how we work and develop strategies within it, and what specific problems and opportunities each of them contain. Finally, we will for each of the five archetypes investigate the business model (business logic) it is built upon. This part of the course concludes with an overview of how the organizational archetypes evolve over time from one archetype to another archetype as the organization grows and matures.

In the third part of the course, we look at a number of forces which determine and influence the development of strategies in organizations. Here we look at how companies can handle the uncertainty associated with the development of new technologies, the emergence of new values ​​/ norms and globalization and the management of strategic alliances, etc. In addition, we also look at how intended and emergent strategies develop over time and how we can organize and manage strategic change processes.

The course provides a comprehensive tool for diagnosing an organization, as a manager, a consultant, or as a job seekers, and up front know the kind of opportunities and challenges this organization typically is faced with concerning leadership, strategy and organizing.