Seminar: Strategic Management

Course content

The purpose of the seminar is to train students in applying strategy models on companies and industries and to make recommendations to management regarding the company's overall and long-term development. Examples of seminars could be:

1) To develop a concrete business strategy for a company consisting of e.g. a competitive and growth strategy based on analysis of the company's environment and internal circumstances.

2) To develop an analysis of a specific industry in order to identify the future winners and losers of that industry.

3) To analysis a specific department’s or specific business area's activities, resources and competencies in order to propos how the areas resources and competencies could be strengthen for the future.

Education

MSc programme in Economics

The seminar is primarily for students at the MSc of Economics.

 

Grundet overlap af pensum er det ikke muligt at deltage på dette seminar, hvis man allerede har deltaget og bestået den danske version: Strategisk ledelse (AØKK08347U).

Det danske seminar udbydes ikke i efteråret 2020.

 

 

Learning outcome

In addition to the learning outcome specified in the Master curriculum the student is after completing the seminar expected to be able to:

 

Knowledge:

  • Account for concepts and models within the field of strategic management.
  • Reflect on the industry and the company that is under investigation.
  • Account for relevant choices of models within the field of strategic management.

 

Skills:

  • Identify and formulate a clear goal with associated problems for the seminar.
  • Use the concepts and models within the field of strategic management to solve the (identified) problem(s).
  • Analyze on relevant and sufficient empirical data and summarize each analysis in a clear sub-conclusion.
  • Evaluate and discuss an industry's current and future attractiveness and, where appropriate, evaluate who would be the future winners and losers.
  • Assess and debate a company's strategic advantages (activities, resources and competencies) and assess whether it has significant strategic disadvantages.

 

Competences:

  • Develop and implement strategies for a company (or for groups of companies) based on analyzes of the company and its environment and discuss the possibilities for maintaining and implementing the developed strategies.

At the seminar the student is trained independently to
- identify and clarify a problem,
- seek and select relevant literatur,
- write a academic paper,
- present and discuss own paper with the other students at the seminar.

The aim of the presentations is, that the student uses the presentation as an opportunity to practice oral skills and to receive feedback. The presentations is not a part of the exam and will not be assessed.

Mandatory activities in the seminar:
- Kick-off meeting
- Finding literatur and defining the project
- Writing process of the seminar paper
- Presentation of own project and paper
- Giving constructive feedback to another student´s paper
- Actively participating in discussions at the presentations and other meetings.

There is no weekly teaching/lecturing and the student cannot expect guidance from the teacher. If the teacher gives a few introduction lectures or gives the opportunity for guidance, this as well as other expectations are clarified at the kickoff meeting.

Process:
It is strongly recommended that you think about and search for a topic before the semester begins, as there is only a few weeks from the kick-off meeting to the submission of the project description/ agreement paper.

The seminar project paper must be uploaded in Absalon before the presentations, as the opponents and the other seminar participants have to read and comment on the paper. It is important that you upload a paper that is so finalized as possible due to the fact that the value of feedback and comments at the presentation is strongly associated with the skill level of the seminar paper.

After the presentations, you can with a few corrections improve the seminar paper by including the feedback and comments emerged during the presentations. It is NOT intended that you rewrite or begin the writing of the full project AFTER the presentation has taken place.

“Exploring Strategy - Text and Cases – Twelfth Edition”, by Johnson, Whittington, Scholes, Angwin & Regnér published by Pearson Education 2020, 12th edition.  ISBN 978-1-292-28251-0

The seminar covers the practical application of strategic models and concepts on specific industries and/or companies.

It is recommended to have followed the course Strategic Management before or in parallel to the seminar but is not a prerequisite.

BSc in Economics or similar

Schedule of the seminar:

• Kick-off meeting: 31 August 2020 from 13.15 – 14.00
• Commitment paper: Not later than 1st of October or when decided by the supervisor.
• Individual supervision: 15th to 18th of September
• Upload of the seminar paper to Absalon no later than October 20 at 10 AM
• Presentations: 2th, 3th, 4th of November (full days)

All information regarding the seminar is communicated through Absalon including venue. So it is very important that you by yourself logon to Absalon and read the information already when you are registered at the seminar.

Oral
Individual
Collective
Feedback by final exam (In addition to the grade)

 

Each student receives individually oral feedback on the paper and at the presentation from peers and supervisor

ECTS
7,5 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written examination
A seminar paper in English that meets the formal requirements for written papers stated in the curriculum and at KUNet for seminars.
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Aid
All aids allowed

for the seminar paper.

The teacher defines the aids that must be used for the presentations.

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Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
External censorship
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Criteria for exam assessment

Students are assessed on the extent to which they master the learning outcome for the seminar and can make use of the knowledge, skills and competencies listed in the learning outcomes in the Curriculum of the Master programme.

 

To receive the top grade, the student must with no or only a few minor weaknesses be able to demonstrate an excellent performance displaying a high level of command of all aspects of the relevant material.

  • Category
  • Hours
  • Project work
  • 186
  • Seminar
  • 20
  • English
  • 206