1. BUS 401
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT I
Fall 2009
LECTURES:
Beyza Oba (boba@bilgi.edu.tr), Office: E8 205
CLASSES:
Kerim Paker (kpaker@superonline.com), Office: E8
Elvin Yelgeçen (eyelgecen@bilgi.edu.tr), Office: E8 103
Scope of the course
Strategic management is an integrative activity forcing managers and various other stakeholders to pool
expertise of different business functions to choose and implement a strategy for the unit they are
responsible from. Thus, strategic management is a multidisciplinary task and strategic management
course is a “capstone” course that can be studied only after students have fulfilled the requirements of
specializations like finance, marketing, P&O and managerial economics. Similarly, studying and mastering
strategic management deems a lot of drill and practice as well as theoretical work. So, this will be a
course, based on extensive reading and case study related to various aspects of strategic thinking and
acting. The course aims to give students the necessary tools needed to think and act strategically.
Expected learning outcomes for the course
On successful completion of this course, you will be able to;
• describe the strategic management process, tools and techniques used in strategic management
and their connectedness to real world situations,
• undertake a stakeholder analysis as a means of identifying viable strategies that will reflect a
balance between the role, expectations, interest and power of different stakeholders,
• identify key drivers in an industry analysis and evaluation of strategic capabilities of firms,
• explain bases of achieving sustainable competitive advantage both at business and corporate
level,
• evaluate suitability, acceptability and feasibility of various strategies in terms of firm structure,
culture and resources,
• carry out a strategic plan for a real life case,
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2. • present their plan in the form of a report,
• use secondary and primary data collection procedures for doing a strategic plan.
Text Book
Barney and Hesterly (2009), Strategic Management and Competitive Advantage, Prentice Hall,
N.J...
Assessment
Student evaluation will be based on;
a) Final exam: 40 %
b) Coursework: 60 % (Mid-term 30 % & Team Project 30 %)
Assessment details:
1. Team Project (30 %)
Students will build up their own teams with 4 or 5 people and the project topic will be given by
instructor. Each week teams are expected to prepare a report about what they have learned in
lecture the week before the submission. Feedback of the reports will be provided to each team
individually during the classes. At the end of semester each team will submit the final project
which should include the revised form of all reports and the last additions.
3. Final and mid-term (40 + 30 = 70 %)
Exams are essay type of exams with a problem to be tackled where students must show their
knowledge and critical thinking on the exam paper.
IMPORTANT NOTE!
Honesty and trust are important to all of us as individuals. Students and faculty adhere to the following
principles of academic honesty at İstanbul Bilgi University:
1. Individual accountability for all individual work, written or oral. Copying from others or providing
answers or information, written or oral, to others is cheating.
2. Providing proper acknowledgement of original author. Copying from another student’s paper or
from another text without written acknowledgement is plagiarism.
3. Authorized Teamwork. Unauthorized help from another person or having someone else write
one’s paper or assignment is collusion.
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3. A note on PLAGIARISM
The Oxford Dictionary defines plagiarism as ‘to take and use as one's own the thoughts, writings,
or inventions of another’. All of the following are considered plagiarism: turning in someone
else's work as your own; copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit; failing
to put a quotation in quotation marks; giving incorrect information about the source of a
quotation; changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit;
and copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work,
whether you give credit or not. Please note that plagiarism is considered as an act of ‘fraud’ in
most countries and may lead to various punitive/preventive measures including, in severe cases,
expulsion. Most cases of plagiarism can be avoided, however, by citing sources. Simply
acknowledging that certain material has been borrowed, and providing your audience with the
information necessary to find that source, is usually enough to prevent plagiarism (this
information has been ‘reproduced’ from www.plagiarism.org). For more information, see also:
David Gardner, ‘Plagiarism and How to Avoid It?’ http://ec.hku.hk/plagiarism/introduction.htm;
Indiana University, ‘Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It’,
http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml;
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, ‘Plagiarism’,
http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/plagiarism.html)
Cheating, plagiarism, and collusion are serious offenses resulting in failure in the relevant component of
the course (F grade) and disciplinary action. Cheating, attempting to cheat and plagiarism of any kind will
be officially recorded by the academic staff and reported to the Student Affairs Office which will refer
the case to the relevant Faculty for disciplinary action.
For more information about Academic Integrity and Disciplinary Policies of the University including
Conduct in the Classroom and in the Examination Room please check p: 17 of the Undergraduate
Student Handbook 2009-2010.
BUS 401 web pages will be the main communication medium, where weekly assignments will be
announced. So please check regularly http://online.bilgi.edu.tr announcements, course material &
assignments.
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4. COURSE OUTLINE
Week 1 (14 September, 2009)
Chapter 1 – What is strategy and strategic management process?
No Class
Week 2 (28 September, 2009)
Chapter 2 - Evaluating a firm’s external environment
Class: How to write and evaluate cases?
Week 3 (5 October, 2009)
Chapter 2 - Evaluating a firm’s external environment
Class: Sample Case Analysis & Build up Teams
Week 4 (12 October, 2009)
Chapter 3 – Evaluating a firm’s internal capabilities
Class: Sample Case Analysis & Project Topics
Week 5 (19 October, 2009)
Chapter 4 – Business level strategies: cost leadership
Class: External Analysis Drafts
Week 6 (26 October, 2009)
Chapter 5 - Business level strategies: product differentiation
Class: External Analysis Submissions
Week 7 (2 November, 2009)
Mid-term Exam
Class: Internal Analysis Drafts
Week 8 (9 November, 2009)
Business level strategies: tacit collusion
Class: Internal Analysis Submissions
Week 9 (16 November, 2009)
Chapter 6 - Corporate strategies: vertical integration
Class: Problem Identification
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5. Week 10 (23 November, 2009)
Chapter 7 - Corporate strategies: corporate diversification
Class: Suggestions for Possible Solutions
Week 11 (7 December, 2009)
Chapter 8 – Organizing to implement corporate diversification
Class: Suggestions for Possible Solutions
Week 12 (14 December, 2009)
Chapter 9 - Corporate strategies: Strategic alliances
Class: Project Revision
Week 13 (21 December, 2009)
Chapter 10 - Corporate strategies: Mergers and acquisitions
Class: Final Project Submission
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