Module Code - Title:

MG6122 - STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Year Last Offered:

2025/6

Hours Per Week:

Lecture

2

Lab

0

Tutorial

0

Other

0

Private

8

Credits

6

Grading Type:

N

Prerequisite Modules:

Rationale and Purpose of the Module:

Strategic Management is both a capstone and a foundation subject for a successful career at a senior level in both business and the public sector. The subject deals directly with an organizations corporate strategy for survival and growth. This module integrates fundamental cognate disciplines, e.g. economics, organizational behaviour, with functional subjects, e.g. marketing, accounting, HRM, into a cohesive whole necessary to manage an organization at the corporate level.

Syllabus:

Strategy as a multi-perspective discipline. The schools of strategy. The value of strategy. Dimensions of strategic thinking. Measuring of strategy. Strategy and environments - external and internal. Positivist and interpretist/cognitive views. Expectations, purpose and values in organizations. Stakeholder analysis and management. Option evaluation and management. Implementation of corporate strategy. Issues of control, resource allocation, innovation and structure. Rational and non-rational perspectives of realized strategy. Strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions. Strategic change. Corporate social responsibility.

Learning Outcomes:

Cognitive (Knowledge, Understanding, Application, Analysis, Evaluation, Synthesis)

a) Identify the dimensions of corporate strategy - process, content and context. b) Recognize the theories and application in practice of competitive advantage. c) Operationalize major concepts and techniques of contemporary strategic analysis, option evaluation and choice to both private and public sector scenarios.

Affective (Attitudes and Values)

a) Synthesise theories of organizations as both rational profit/welfare maximizing entities and socially constructed experiences. b) Relating ideas in a) to reach an awareness of the ambiguity and paradox inherent in managing strategically.

Psychomotor (Physical Skills)

This is not applicable to a strategy type module

How the Module will be Taught and what will be the Learning Experiences of the Students:

The module is delivered by a mixture of methods: 1) Formal Lectures 2) Workshops 3) Course Projects The students learning experience moves through dependant/directed learning based on lectures, workshops, texts/papers and audio visual material; through to independent learning sourced from application of material to real strategic issues and encouraged wider reading and reflection.

Research Findings Incorporated in to the Syllabus (If Relevant):

Prime Texts:

G. Johnson, K. Scholes and R. Whittington (2008) Exploring Corporate Strategy (8th Edition) , Prentice Hall

S. Sugal-Horm (ed) (2006) The Strategy Reader (3rd Edition) , Open University

M. Hall, R. Freeman and J. Harrison (ed) (2004) Handbook of Strategic Management , Oxford University

Other Relevant Texts:

R. Grant (2006) Contemporary Strategy Analysis , Blackwell

H. Volberdan and T. Elfring (2001) Rethinking Strategy , Sage

Programme(s) in which this Module is Offered:

Semester(s) Module is Offered:

Module Leader:

Nuala.Ryan@ul.ie