Llicenciatura en Economia (3322)
Llicenciatura en Administració i Direcció d'Empreses (3323)
Temes Actuals en Política d'Empresa(11882)
The objective of this course is to expose the students to concepts and frameworks that are useful for analyzing and understanding the management of organizations. The perspective taken throughout the course is that of the general manager, the individual whose primary responsibility is the success of the organization as a whole. The fundamental rationale for the course is that an understanding of concepts and frameworks in strategy formulation and implementation from the general manager's perspective can serve as a valuable cornerstone to a business education. The course falls into two parts. The unifying theme of the first part is the formulation and implementation of strategy. In order to formulate and implement a succesful strategy, managers must have an understanding of five broad sets of questions: Firm boundaries, industry analysis, positioning and dynamics, internal analysis and nonmarket environment. The first part of the course is organized around the study of these five sets of questions.
The second part of the class will focus on the interaction between firms. The main objective of the second part of the course is to enhance the students' skills in the analysis of industries and competitive strategy. It builds on the industry analysis studied in the first part of the course. This second part draws upon contemporary work in industrial economics, strategic management, and game theory to present a set of tools and concepts to help students better understand the evolution of industry structure and the link between industry structure and the intensity of rivalry within an industry.
A major theme of this second part of the course is that effective formulation of competitive strategy requires anticipating the actions of competitors. This is what separates the material in this part of the course from traditional, static firm and industry analysis. In a static framework, a firm is depicted as a rational profit maximizer, doing the best it can by taking the structure of the industry as fixed. This framework does not explicitly incorporate the possibility that the firm's rivals might also be rational profit maximizers whose actions can significantly constrain what the firm can do. A key focus of this part is on anticipating rivals moves and countermoves in the context of a variety of competitive battles involving pricing, advertising and new product introductions. Some of the topics covered in this part are: sustaining competitive advantage, oligopoly pricing decisions, the value of flexibility, strategic commitment, product variety, entry and exit, market signals, innovation and competition.
The course relies on lectures, problem solving and case discussions. The text for the course is The Economics of Strategy by David Besanko, David Dranove, and Mark Shanley. Other reading materials will be included in a case packet.