MG446E      Half Unit
Strategy, Organisation and Innovation (modular)

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

The course seeks to understand differences in profitability across (for-profit) firms with the objective of designing strategic recommendations for managers to improve (and defend) their firms' competitive positions. To do so we will first review industry-wide as well as firm-specific determinants of short-term profitability. On that foundation we will look at long-term determinants of profitability including dynamic capabilities and innovative ability. The course aims to balance exposure to general strategic principles and specific practical applications. To that purpose, we will use theoretical frameworks to analyse practical cases from a wide array of firms in varied countries.

Topics include business models, value proposition, strategic resources and inimitability, dynamic capabilities, disruptive innovation, power nodes strategy and scenario planning.

30 hours of teaching over two modules of the EGMiM programme. The teaching is highly participative and includes lectures, breakout discussion and exercises.

Debate / role play

Students work in teams and use information on a firm from a written case study (pre-read) to apply all course concepts and discuss live both the interdependent logic of the concepts and the in-depth use of each concept individually.

The course relies on journal articles, cases, and books (for example, Strategic Management Journal). A complete reading list will be provided at the start of the course. Sample texts include the following:

Christensen, C., Bower J. (1996) Customer Power, Strategic Investment, and the Failure of Leading Firms (Strategic Management Journal); Teece, D., Pisano, G., Shuen, A. (1997) Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management (Strategic Management Journal); Sosa, M.L. (2011) From old competence destruction to new competence access: evidence from the comparison of two discontinuities in anticancer drug discovery, Organization Science; Sosa, M.L. (2013). Decoupling market incumbency from organisational prehistory: locating the real sources of competitive advantage in R&D for radical innovation, Strategic Management Journal; De Kuijper, M. (2009) Profit Power Economics.

Course participation (10%)

Presentation (25%)

Essay (65%)