COURSE OUTLINE

BSP3001 Business Policy & Strategy

Semester 1, 2011-2012

Lecturer: Dr. Marleen Dieleman

Office: Mochtar Riady Building, #06-51
Contact: marleen@nus.edu.sg ; 6516 3005

Course Description
This course gives an overview of all essential aspects of business policy and strategic
management. The intention is to provide students with strategy insights; reflect on strategic
dilemmas; and practice strategy tools to enable students to become strategic thinkers. The course
will cover strategy analysis, formulation of strategies at different levels of the organization, and
strategy implementation. We will also reflect on the purpose of organizations, their governance,
and their role towards shareholders, stakeholders and society in general.

Course Objectives
Many students enter business schools hoping to quickly pick up the tricks of the trade, without
spending too much energy on the laborious task of thoroughly understanding organizations and
their environments. Often, tools and techniques are more highly valued than developing a
strategic problem-solving ability. However, this may lead to superficiality as there are no short-
cuts to learning to think strategically. Within the field of strategy there are many contradictory
paradigms. Frameworks that fit one firm may be useless for another. In this course, the emphasis
is not on filling in frameworks and applying standard recipes. On the contrary, students will be
expected challenge recipes, question received wisdom, and exhibit unconventional thinking.
These are objectives set for this course:

Knowledge. To encourage the understanding of the many, often conflicting, schools of thought
and to facilitate the gaining of insight into the assumptions, possibilities and limitations of each
set of theories and tools;
Skills. To develop the student's ability to think strategically, understand the language of
business, craft strategies on paper and verbally in class discussion, critically reflect on existing
theories and tools, to creatively combine or develop frameworks and tools and use them where
useful;
Asia focus. To provide insights into strategies of Asian companies through cases, speakers
and in-class examples.

Course Format & General Standards

The format of the course is based on a mixture of lecture, cases, readings and guest speakers. It is
my belief that understanding both practice and theory, and acquiring the skill to apply one to the
other, should be the core of this course. Classes will not be used to review readings (students
should prepare readings before coming to class), but will be employed to give clarifying
examples, discuss salient questions in management, for guest speakers, and for case discussion.

Case discussion: I apply a 3-stage approach to learning with cases: 1. students thoroughly
prepare the case at home; 2. in class students discuss their analysis in a small group; 3.

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 there is a plenary discussion in class. This will allow students to compare and ideas and
learn from each other. Learning comes not only from understanding new concepts and
applying analytical skills. Debating with others will sharpen someones analytical skills
considerably and will help students to communicate their ideas clearly.
Readings: In each of the classes the students should come prepared by reading the
required materials in advance. The students should be ready to be asked to volunteer to
open the discussion, do a short presentation, or answer specific questions regarding the
case or other readings.
Guest speakers: Considerable preparation time has gone into inviting several high-level
executives to share experiences in class. These guest speakers are typically highly
appreciated by students as they give insights into real-life strategy issues in companies.
However, given their busy schedules, last-minute schedule changes are possible. Your
understanding for any last minute changes is appreciated!
General standards:
o Active participation from students is a condition for the success of the course.
o During class time mobile phones and other gadgets should be off and movement
(leaving and entering class) should be minimal.
o Please behave professionally, in particular when guest speakers are invited
(arrive on time, appropriate dress, ask questions, etc).
o All assignments submitted for this course will be checked for plagiarism.
o Feel free during the semester to e-mail me or approach me if you have any
questions on the topics discussed in class, your individual performance, or if you
would like to give feedback on the course.

Preliminary Course Schedule

Week 1: Introduction to strategy
Topics: Course Introduction, What is Strategy, Strategic Management.
Readings: Barney, J.B. & Hesterly, W.S. (2010) Strategic Management and Competitive
Advantage. Prentice Hall. Chapter 1 (p. 2-25).
Case: SMIT

Week 2: External Analysis

Topics: Industry Analysis & Trends, PEST Analysis, 5 Forces Analysis, Blue Ocean Strategy.
Readings: De Wit, Bob, and Ron Meyer (2010), Strategy - Process, Content, Context: An
International Perspective, 4e, London: Thomson Learning. Chapter 8 (p. 425-442).
Porter, M.E. (2008). The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard Business
Review, 86(1): p78-93.
Kim, W. C. & Mauborgne, R. (2004). Blue ocean strategy. Harvard Business Review,
82(10), p76-84.
Case: IOI Group from Malaysia

Week 3: Internal Analysis

Topics: Competitive Advantage, Core Competence, Organizational Structure, Process, Culture.
Readings: C. K. Prahalad & G. Hamel (1990). The core competence of the corporation, Harvard
Business Review, 68 (3): 79-93.
Collis, D.J. & Montgomery, C.A. (2008). Competing on Resources. Harvard Business
Review, 86(7/8), 140-150.
Case: KAO Corporation

Week 4: Designing Business Level Strategies

Topics: Cost Leadership, Differentiation.

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Readings: De Wit, Bob, and Ron Meyer (2010), Strategy - Process, Content, Context: An
International Perspective, 4e, London: Thomson Learning. Chapter 5 (p.236-260)
Case: tba

Week 5: Designing Corporate Level Strategies

Topics: Diversification, Vertical Integration, Portfolio vs Synergy, BCG Matrix.
Readings: De Wit, Bob, and Ron Meyer (2010), Strategy - Process, Content, Context: An
International Perspective, 4e, London: Thomson Learning. Chapter 6 (p. 303-322).
T. Khanna & K. Palepu, 1997, Why focused strategies may be wrong for emerging
markets, Harvard Business Review, 75 (4): 41-50.
Case: Rodamas Group from Indonesia

Week 6: Network Level Strategies

Topics: Alliances, Joint Ventures, Competition vs Cooperation, Organizational Dependencies.
Readings: De Wit, Bob, and Ron Meyer (2010), Strategy - Process, Content, Context: An
International Perspective, 4e, London: Thomson Learning. Chapter 7 (365-385)
Case: KLM Air France (p.823-836)

Week 7: Global Strategies

Topics: Internationalization: Motivations & Patterns, Building Transnational Corporations
Readings: Bartlett, C., Ghoshal, S. and Beamish, P. (2008). Transnational Management, McGraw
Hill, 5e. Chapter 1 (p. 1-13) & Chapter 4 (p333-349)
Tomorrows global giants BHR Ghemawat, Hout
Case: Philips versus Matsushita (p.350-365)

Week 8: Strategy Implementation & Strategic Change

Topics: Strategy Implementation, Re-Positioning the Organization, Strategic Change.
Readings: Marcus, A.A. (2011). Management Strategy, McGraw Hill, Chapter 9 (p. 197-213).
Nielson, G., Martins, K. & Powers, E. (2008). The Secrets to Successful Strategy
Execution. Harvard Business Review, 86(6), 60-70.
Case: COSCO

Week 9: Leadership & Corporate Governance

Topics: Shareholders vs Stakeholders, Corporate Boards, Leadership Roles.
Readings: Heracleous, L. & Lan, L.L. (2010). The Myth of Shareholder Capitalism. Harvard
Business Review, 88(4), 24.
Singapore Corporate Governance Code
Case: tba

Week 10: Corporate Social Responsibility

Topics: Ethics, Theories of Capitalism, Corporate Social Responsibility.
Readings: Bartlett, C., Ghoshal, S. and Beamish, P. (2008). Transnational Management, McGraw
Hill, 5e. Reading 8-2 (p. 793-802).
Case: NOKIA in China (documentary film)

Week 11: Project Presentations

Week 12: Project Presentations
Week 13: Final Test

NB: pls check the latest updates on IVLE.

Grading and Assignments

The final grade for this course will be computed based on the following:

Class participation & discussion forum 20%

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Take-home mid-term group assignment 10% (deadline: Friday Sept 23, 3pm)
Group project & presentation 30%
Final in-class test (case analysis) 40%

Class Participation. Grades will be based on the quality and quantity of participation, but the
focus will be on quality. However, absence from class sessions or seldom speaking up during
class discussions will result in a low participation score. Please try to participate regularly.
Mid-Term Group Assignment: the assignment will require application of ideas or models
covered in class and will be made available on IVLE.
Group Project. While teaching often makes use of cases, real life problems are never neatly
summarized and presented in the form of a case. Strategy problems are messy and the way you
research them is important in solving these messes. The group project gives you an
opportunity to research a company or organization, apply your consultancy skills, and make a
strategic plan for the CEO. More details regarding the group project will be made available in
class.
Final Test. The final exam will consist of a case with a small number of questions. The
questions will require students to be able to apply their knowledge (dilemmas, theoretical
concepts, tools, frameworks) to the practical case situation. This final test is open book and is
preferably done on your laptop and uploaded on IVLE. This test does require deep
understanding of the strategy concepts and extensive practice in the application of theory to a
business situation. The best preparation for both is class participation.

Literature
This course strives to be paper-less where possible. Readings and cases for each session have
been placed in the IVLE. Some readings are placed in the section e-resources. Please note that
these may only be downloaded only once for copyright purposes.

There is no need for students to purchase a textbook. For reference purposes, below is a list of
books we will draw from during this course:

De Wit, Bob, and Ron Meyer (2010), Strategy - Process, Content, Context: An
International Perspective, fourth edition, London: Thomson Learning.
Bartlett, C., Ghoshal, S. and Beamish, P. (2008). Transnational Management, McGraw Hill, 5e.
Barney, J.B. and Hesterly, W.S. (2010) Strategic Management and Competitive Advantage, third
edition. Prentice Hall.
Marcus, A.A. (2011). Management Strategy, McGraw Hill, second edition.