Resources

Essential Information

Offered:

  • SP1, 2008
  • SP2, 2008
  • SP3, 2008

Core Unit for:

Elective Unit for:

Assessment:

  • Assignment 40%
  • Examination 60%

Pre-Requisites:

UNIT 306: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT


Overview

The term 'strategy' is one which has become frequently used (and abused) in management. Strategic management may be defined as:

"The process of identifying, choosing and implementing activities that will enhance the long term performance of an organisation by setting direction and by creating ongoing compatibility between the internal skills and resources of an organisation and the changing external environment within which it operates."

This unit encourages you to develop a strategic plan for your organisation and shows you how to implement, evaluate and control that plan.

Aims

After studying this unit you should be able to:

  • define strategy and explain how strategic management can build and sustain a competitive advantage in different organisational contexts
  • define core competencies and explain how they can build and sustain an organisation's competitive advantage
  • summarise the different strategy formulation processes organisations use and evaluate their relevance to particular organisational contexts
  • analyse the external environment of an organisation to enable it to take advantage of potential market opportunities and guard against potential harmful threats
  • evaluate the internal skills and resources of an organisation to enable these to be harnessed effectively to achieve organisational objectives
  • contribute to the design of effective organisational strategies and evaluate and select the most appropriate strategies for particular organisations and environments
  • plan how to optimise and implement a selected strategy at different organisational levels
  • plan how resistance to change will be managed
  • select and implement suitable metrics to control performance against strategic objectives
  • encourage and foster organisational innovation and, where appropriate, use technology to enhance your organisation's competitive position
  • apply a range of strategic management tools and techniques to analyse and gather the information required to develop your organisation's strategy.

Topics

  • An introduction to strategic management
  • The strategy formulation process
  • External analysis
  • Internal analysis
  • Strategic choice
  • Strategic directions
  • Strategy optimisation
  • Strategy implementation
  • Managing strategic performance
  • Strategic perspectives on technology

Unit Chair & Study Guide Author

Stuart Orr
BE (Hons), MEngSci, PhD

Stuart Orr is currently a Professor in the Faculty of Business and Law at Deakin University. He was previously MBA director at Deakin, and has also worked at Monash University and operated a management consulting firm. He has also held positions at a number of other leading universities, including the universities of Cambridge and Munich.

Professor Orr's areas of teaching and research are strategic management, operations and technology management, organisational behaviour and international education management. Professor Orr also regularly presents executive level programs to industry. His research projects have been conducted in both the Australian and international contexts and he has published the results of his work widely in magazines, industry reports, refereed journal articles and a teaching text.