Strategic Management Spring Semester
Registration for Strategic Management in Spring Semester 2024:
Due to didactic reasons, the number of participants is limited to 80. Please register through myStudies to enroll for the course. Slots are assigned based on a first-come first-serve policy (in the order of the registration date on myStudies).
Please be aware that many students cancel their registration and you will move up the list over time.
This course conveys concepts and methods in strategic management, with a focus on competitive strategy. Competitive strategy aims at analyzing and establishing position of firms within an industry, securing firm performance. Thus, the course focuses on a number of important topics, such as the evolution of industry, industry structure, the analysis of a firm's resources- and knowledge, and innovation.
Instructors: Prof. Dr. Fredrik Hacklin
Teaching Assistant: Manuel von Krosigk
Goals of the course
Strategic Management is designed to teach relevant competences in strategic planning and -implementation, for both professional work-life and further scientific development. The course provides an overview of the basics of strategy as well as the most prevalent concepts and methods in strategic management.
Format
The course is a combination of lectures about concepts/methods, and case studies where the students solve strategic issues of the involved companies. In two sessions, the students will also be addressing real-time strategic issues of firms that are represented by executives.
Schedule
In-class sessions: Thursdays, 16:00 - 18:00 (5:00pm - 6:00pm) in CAB G51
Case debate: Thursday, 18:00 - 20:00 (6:00pm - 8:00pm) in CAB G51
The sessions only take place at the specified dates below.
The details of the exam can be found on the program webpage:
https://mtec.ethz.ch/studies/programme-framework/performance-assessments/examination-dates.html
Administrative
Credit: 3 ECTS Credit Points
Performance Assessment:
- 50% end-of-semester examination
- 50% case assignments
The grade is calculated by 50% end-of-semester examination and 50% case assignment (compulsory continuous performance assessment). The case assignment must be passed on its own and will be performed in a group of maximum 5 students.
Exam
The exam will be in the form of a "End-of-semester Examination", closed book.
The exam date is announced via the D-MTEC website
Please find a protected pagesample examlock here.
Literature Strategy Concepts
Please access all links via the ETH network (from outside: VPN).
Entering the field
Required readings:
- external pagePorter; Michael. 2008. The Five Competitive Forces that Shape Strategy. Harvard Business Review. 86 (1): 78-93.call_made
- external pageMintzberg; Henry. 1994. The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning. Harvard Business Review. 72 (1): 107-114.call_made
Optional readings:
- external pagePorter; Michael. 1996. What is Strategy. Harvard Business Review. 74 (6): 61-78.call_made
- external pageSpanos, Y. E., & Lioukas, S. (2001). An examination into the causal logic of rent generation: contrasting Porter’s competitive strategy framework and the resource-based perspective. Strategic Management Journal, 22(10), 907–934.call_made
- external pageRonda-pupo, Guillermo Armando, and Luis Angel. (2012). "Dynamics of the Evolution of the Strategy Concept 1962–2008: A Co‐word Analysis." Strategic Management Journal 188: 162–88.call_made
- external pageVon Krogh, G., and Raisch, S. (2009). "Focus Intensely on a Few Great Innovation Ideas." Harvard Business Review, October 2009.call_made
Literature Strategy and Technology Dynamics
Required readings:
- external pageChristensen, C.M.; Suarez, F. F.; Utterback, J. M. 1998. Strategies for Survival in Fast-Changing Industries. Management Science. 44 (12): 207-220.call_made
- external pageKim, W. C; Mauborgne, R. 2004. Blue Ocean Strategy. Harvard Business Review. 82 (10): 76-84.call_made
- external pageHacklin, F., Battistini, B., & von Krogh, G. (2013). Strategic Choices in Converging Industries. MIT Sloan Management Review, 88(1), 65–73.call_made
- external pageTrantopoulos, K., von Krogh, G., Wallin, M., & Wörter, M. (2017) External Knowledge and Information Technology: Implications for Process Innovation Performance. MIS Quarterly.call_made
- external pageGarriga, H., von Krogh, G., & Spaeth, S. (2013). How constraints and knowledge impact open innovation. Strategic Management Journal, 34(9), 1134-1144.call_made
- external pageAnthony, S. D., & Putz, M. (2021). How leaders delude themselves about disruption. MITSloan Management Review. 61 (3): 56-63.call_made
- external pageChristensen, C. M., Hall, T., Dillon, K., & Duncan, D. S. (2016). Know your customers’ jobs to be done. Harvard Business Review, 94(9), 54-62.call_made
Optional readings:
- external pagevon Hippel, E.; von Krogh, G. 2015. Identifying Viable “Need–Solution Pairs”: Problem Solving Without Problem Formulation. Organization Science. 27 (1): 207-221.call_made
- external pageReeves, M., Love, C., & Tillmanns, P. (2012). Your strategy needs a strategy. Harvard Business Review. 90 (9): 76-83.call_made
- external pagevon Hippel, E.; von Krogh, G. 2003. Open Source Software and the 'Private-Collective' Innovation Model: Issues for Organization Science. Organization Science. 14 (2): 209-223.call_made
- external pageChesbrough, H. (2007). Why companies should have open business models. MIT Sloan Management Review, 48(2), 22–28.call_made
- external pageGarriga, H.; von Krogh, G.; Spaeth, S. 2013. How Constraints and Knowledge Impact Open Innovation. Strategic Management Journal. 34 (9). 1134–1144.call_made
- external pageSpaeth, S., von Krogh, G., He, F. (2015). Perceived Firm Attributes and Intrinsic Motivation in Sponsored Open Source Software Projects. Information Systems Research. 26 (1). 224-237.call_made
Literature Resource-Based Theory
Required readings:
- external pageBarney, J.B. 1991. Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage. Journal of Management. 17 (1): 99-120.call_made
- external pageCollis, D.; Montgomery, C.A. 2008. Competing on Resources. Harvard Business Review. 86 (7/8): 140-150.call_made
- external pageLeiblein, M. J., & Madsen, T. L. 2009. Unbundling competitive heterogeneity: incentive structures and capability influences on technological innovation. Strategic Management Journal, 30(7): 711–735.call_made
- external pagePisano, G. P. 2015. You need an innovation strategy. Harvard Business Review, (June 2015).call_made
Optional readings:
- external pageNewbert, S. (2008). Value, rareness, competitive advantage, and performance: a conceptual‐level empirical investigation of the resource‐based view of the firm. Strategic Management Journal, 29, 745–768.call_made
- external pageHoopes, D.; Madsen, T.L. 2003. Toward a Theory of Competitive Heterogeneity. Strategic Management Journal. 24 (10): 889-902.call_made
- external pageJosefy, M.; Kuban, S.; Ireland, R.D.; Hitt, M.A. 2015. All Things Great and Small: Organizational Size, Boundaries of the Firm, and a Changing Environment. Academy of Management Annals, 9, 715-802call_made
- external pageLungeanu, R.; Zajac, E. 2015. Venture Capital Ownership as a Contingent Resource: How Owner/Firm Fit Influences IPO Outcomes. Academy of Management Journal, Advance online publication. doi: 10.5465/amj.2012.0871call_made
Literature Knowlede-Based Theory
Required readings:
- external pageGrant, R.M. 1996. Toward a Knowledge-Based Theory of the Firm. Strategic Management Journal. 17 (Winter Special Issue: Knowledge and the Firm): 109-122.call_made
- external pageNonaka, I. 2007. The knowledge-creating company. Harvard Business Review. 85 (7/8): 162-171.call_made
- external pageNonaka, I., Toyama, R., & Konno, N. (2000). SECI, Ba and Leadership: a Unified Model of Dynamic Knowledge Creation. Long Range Planning, 33(1), 5–34.call_made
- external pageKogut, B.; Zander, U. (1992). Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities, and the Replication of Technology. Organization Science, 3 (3), 383-397.call_made
- external pageHaenlein, M., & Kaplan, A. (2019). A brief history of artificial intelligence: On the past, present, and future of artificial intelligence. California management review, 61(4), 5-14.call_made
Optional readings:
- external pageNonaka, I.; von Krogh, G. 2009. Perspective-Tacit Knowledge and Knowledge Conversion: Controversy and Advancement in Organizational Knowlegde Creation Theory. Organization Science, 20 (3), 635-652.call_made
- external pageKing, A.W.; Zeithaml, C.P. 2003. Measuring Organizational Knowledge: A Conceptual and Methodological Framework. Strategic Management Journal. 24 (8): 763-772.call_made
- external pagePugh, K., & Prusak, L. (2013). Designing effective knowledge networks. MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2013, 55(1), 79–88.call_made
Literature Strategy and Industry Evolution
Required readings:
- external pageBryce, D.; Dyer J.H. 2007. Strategies to crack well-guarded markets. Harvard Business Review. 85 (5): 84-92.call_made
- external pageHarrigan, K.R., 1981. Barriers to entry and competitive strategies. Strategic Management Journal 2 (4): 395–412.call_made
Optional readings:
- external pageSantos, F.M. and Eisenhardt, K.M. 2009. Constructing Markets and Shaping Boundaries: Entrepreneurial Power in Nascent Fields. Academy of Management Journal. 52 (4): 643-671.call_made
- external pageYoung, G.; Smith, K.G.; Grimm, C.M. 1996. "Austrian" and Industrial Organization Perspectives on Firm-level Competitive Activity and Performance. Organization Science. 7 (3): 243-254.call_made
- external pageChen, MJ, and Miller, D. (2014). Reconceptualizing Competitive Dynamics: A Multidimensional Framework. Strategic Management Journal. EarlyView published online.call_made