Course List Semester 3

Strategy - Classic and Contemporary Views, 15 credits

"Strategy - Classic and Contemporary Views" is a course with "roots" in international business strategy and corporate strategy. The course presents different aspects of strategy and strategic issues. Not just straightforward and unambiguous answers. In a complex and ambiguous world it takes more to act successfully. The field of strategy is sometimes divided according to three interrelated dimensions; Content, concepts and context. This course will focus on content, or the "what" of strategy, i.e. different concepts of and approaches to competitive advantage and value creation.

The aim of the course is to enhance students’ capabilities to act and work in contemporary and future organizations. A course ambition is to educate discerning consumers of strategic thought, i.e. students able to reflect upon fads and fashions and achievements of management research and writings. The students will be expected to: Reproduce central strategic concepts and thoughts as well as the development of the field of strategic management. Illustrate and explain differences and similarities between major ways of strategic thinking. Make use of models and concepts. Differentiate between and select appropriate theories and models for different situations. Be able to compare, relate and synthesize thoughts and elements from different schools of strategic thinking. Evaluate and make judgements about strategies and ideas on strategy.

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Project, People and Processes, 15 credits

will be replaced autumn 2012 by Innovation & Project Management!
 

Project, People and Processes consists of two main parts. The first part is a theoretical introduction and thereby provides a theoretical fundament for the subject. It will start with the concept of strategy, with a focus on the conditions and challenges for modern enterprises. Thereafter, a change perspective on organisations and management is introduced. We will particularly focus on the organisation of change and the implications which change has on corporate culture. Here, the aspects of structure, change and context will be central to our discussions, and the empirical foundation consists to a great extent of material from ongoing research projects at our department.

The second part of the course focuses on the firm as a knowledge producing entity, as well as on related organisational structures and control mechanisms. One important question in this context is the balance between long-term knowledge development and short-term knowledge exploitation. Here, the aspects of project organisation as well as of human resource management will be central to our discussions. In this part, we will study the management of single projects as well as the management of project-intensive companies.

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Innovation & Project Management, 15 credits

This course takes its point of departure in the knowledge-based theory of the firm to suggest that the ability of firms to integrate the knowledge of various specialists is vital for innovative and new product development activities to be successful. From such a point of departure research on knowledge integration in and between development projects are discussed. Further, the particular challenges of project-based organizations, which are commonly used to organize innovative and new product development activities, are discussed.

So far, the focus has been one innovation and new product development which takes place within the boundaries of a single firm. However, during the last decade many firms have opened up their innovative activities to include e.g. customers, suppliers or even competitors and we therefore discuss the implications of this development and particularly discuss and analyze different kinds of collaborative R&D projects and how they can be governed and coordinated.

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