MBA Online

Strategic Management
This course introduces the fundamentals of strategic management, both at the business and corporate levels. While exposing students to the host of conventional analytical tools for strategy design, this course takes the position that strategy design is not separable from strategy implementation. Consequently, it places an emphasis on understanding and enhancement of the process of strategy formation, i.e., the process in which deliberate and emergent strategies dynamically interact and eventually give rise to realized strategies. This course aims to help students:

(1) Acquire a body of concepts and frameworks for analyzing and facilitating strategy design and implementation.

(2) Develop the capability to exercise and integrative perspective of the general manager, utilizing their functional knowledge and experiences

(3) Appreciate the shared sense of corporate “ontology” (reasons for the firm’s existence) and the role of leadership in cultivating the effective dynamics of strategy formation.

ICS , Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy
[Term 3] Business Architecture (K. Kusunoki) (2009/Term 3&4 (Spring&Summer))

Business Architecture is positioned as an advanced course on strategy with the assumption that students who take this elective course already have some knowledge of Competitive Strategy and Organizational Capability.

Business Architecture is about “system consistency” as a source of sustainable competitive advantage. Both perspectives on strategy (the SP-based view and the OC-based view) assume that the essential source of sustainable advantage lies in the consistency of a “system” of activities (SP) or resources (OC). In the SP-based view, if a company can establish a consistent system of activities, it is difficult for competitors to imitate that system because of the existence of trade-offs. The idea of the system-based sustainability of competitive advantage is more salient in the OC-based view. Fundamental concepts concerning costly-to-imitate capability, such as interconnectedness, social complexity, causal ambiguity, and path dependency, are all related to the idea that what is truly difficult to imitate is not each individual element of capability, but the way in which elements are combined to create a whole system of capability. In a modern competitive environment, a consistent system of activities and capabilities often lies at the heart of sustainable advantage.

For instance, Dell has outperformed its competitors, not because it has excelled in two or three particular elements, but because it has created a unique system (Dell Direct Model) that contains and combines dozens of elements. Thus, the business system as a whole shapes Dell’s competitive advantage. In many other industries and companies, the real competitive dimension has been shifting from element-level to system-level advantage. That is the reason why the “business models” has come into fashion in the business world. Although it is popular and easy to say that achieving consistency across activities, capabilities, and other boundaries is a linchpin of sustained advantage, business architecture and the architectural aspect of competitive advantage are poorly understood, underdeveloped subjects.

Shaping such system consistency needs deep insight and knowledge about the interdependence, interaction, and integration of individual activities and capabilities. This course, Business Architecture, focuses on these three aspects of system consistency (interdependence, interaction, and integration), which result in sustainable advantage.
Course Structure

This course is divided into three parts:
• Architectural perspective of strategy
• Modularity of business models
• Evolution of business models

It is quite difficult to characterize and analyze business models because they shape a complicated pattern, including many activities and capabilities with interdependence and interactions. Based on recent developments in these studies, the third part of this course uses the concept of “modularity,” i.e., the dimension ranging from modular architecture to integral architecture, as a key dimension of analyzing business models. Both modular and integral architecture have strengths and weaknesses, depending on the competitive environment and product/industry characteristics. Using this dimension as a key to understanding system-based advantage, this course will provide students with perspective on the integration of a firm’s strategic parts into a harmonious whole.

As an emerging arena of strategy thinking, this course is not about clearly defined tools and techniques to achieve architectural consistency of strategy. Instead, the primary objective of this course is to give a heuristic perspective and logic to view strategies in a holistic way.
Teaching Method

Business Architecture is primarily case-based. Most cases will be discussed in the traditional manner of case discussion, but some will be used for case-based lectures. There is no textbook for this course, but we will use some articles and book chapters. This course will include a couple of presentation sessions by student groups on assigned topics.

ICS , Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy

[Term 2] Organizational Capability (K. Kusunoki) (2008/Term 1&2 (Fall&Winter))

Organizational Capability is positioned as an extension of the Competitive Strategy course with an aim to provide students with an integrative understanding of how to gain and sustain competitive advantage. Organizational Capability is well paired with Competitive Strategy as they are two sides of the same coin. Both courses are concerned with gaining and sustaining competitive advantage. The two courses, however, differ in perspective. Competitive Strategy is fundamentally a matter of effective positioning that differentiates a firm from competitors, and is based on a sophisticated understanding of external factors, such as industrial structure.

On the other hand, the perspective of Organizational Capability focuses on internal contexts of competitive advantage. Effective positioning alone is not sufficient to gain and sustain competitive advantage. There are two main routes to competitive advantage: SP (Strategic Positioning) and OC (Organizational Capability), and this course focuses on the latter route.

With these issues in mind, the course will push you to understand how a firm can fully exploit the potential advantage of differentiated strategic positioning. Theoretical aspects of the course are based on recent developments in the capability- (or resource)-based view of the firm. Since knowledge is the crucial ingredient for firm-specific, costly-to-imitate organizational capabilities, the course has substantial linkage to Knowledge Management.

Students who will take this elective course should recognize that this course is not about specific skills and tools for strategy formulation and implementation, but about a perspective to deepen understanding of strategy and competitive advantage. The capability side of competitive strategy is a new and emerging arena of strategy thinking, relative to the positioning-based strategy taught in Competitive Strategy. Different from positioning-based strategy, there are no common, well-developed concepts and frameworks for analyzing organizational capability like Five Force, Value Chain, and so forth. Furthermore, the idea of organizational capability mainly focuses on intangible aspects of competitive advantage, which are difficult to express as fully explicit knowledge. Nevertheless, I believe that Organizational Capability will provide tangible power as a useful heuristic to cultivate more comprehensive understanding of how and why a company can gain and sustain competitive advantage.
Teaching Method

The sessions are primarily case-based. Some cases will be discussed in the traditional manner of case discussion. Given the emerging nature of capability-based strategy, however, some sessions will use cases as supplements or illustrations for interactive lectures. The course will include one presentation session from groups of students.

Since there are no “standard” textbooks on capability-based strategy, this course will not use a particular textbook. Instead, the course uses some chapters from the following book as reading materials:

Saloner, G., Shepard A., & Podolny, J. (2001). Strategic management. New York: John Wiley
& Sons.

Since the course will directly touch only some chapters from the book, copies of the selected chapters to be used in the class will be included in the course binder. However, I strongly recommend that students buy this book because it is very good at creating a bridge between the capability view and positioning view of strategy. In addition, I will deliver some readings in the classroom that will be helpful as supplements to the topics and issues covered in this course.

Industry Analysis (EKM 3410)

This course is designed to sharpen students’ capability to analysis the industry as a basis of strategy formulation. The aim of the course is to enhance students’ understanding of the industry structure and characteristics, the key success factors and driving forces in the evolution of the industry, and the analysis of their impacts on strategy formulation and implementation.

Part-Time Postgraduate
The School of Business has launched refresher courses for top executives throughout the country, with the objective of improving their operating capability and management level, as well as enhancing their overall qualities. The specialties include Business Management, Marketing, Financial Management and Human Resource Management.