Corporate Strategy Module Handbook 2024-25 Semester One V4

Module Aims

This capstone module aims to employ knowledge gained in earlier modules in the context of a strategic perspective of business management and leadership for Corporate bodies.

It explores the evaluation of decisions that managers are faced with in complex and dynamic environments combining multiple perspectives of business and management (leadership, creativity and human capital, finance and environmental analytics, creativity and strategic thinking approaches).

The Module Aims are to:

• Achieve an introduction to Corporate Strategy for Postgraduate students;
• Develops understanding of corporate decision-making through the application of critical thinking on academic concepts and analytical models (tools/ frameworks);
• Evaluate the importance of key issues such as stakeholder management, culture, Social Responsibility, etc., for organisations and their formulation of strategy;
• Explore contemporary Corporate Strategy issues ;
• Grasp real-world processes and practices of strategic management in corporate settings.

Module Learning Outcomes

Assessment

Corporate Strategy Module Assessments Overview

The module is composed of one individually prepared and submitted coursework assessment, the Portfolio.

The assessment is designed for students to critically evaluate and apply corporate strategy concepts, tools and techniques. These will take into consideration aspects of the external environment of the organisation being studied, its culture, key stakeholders, CSR and many other factors. The focus is on research, application and analysis.

The assessment follows the course content delivered in lectures and seminars. Students are required to present a portfolio of analysis comprised of a collection of tools and concepts applied to five seminar case studies across five module units.

The assessment is designed for students to build an analytical portfolio and then reflect on strategic implementation for a designated case study. The first part of this assessment is similar to the exercises in seminars and the first assessment.

The second part of the assessment, however, requires the student to synthesise learning achieved through the analysis of the portfolio and devise an implementation plan that takes into account the relationship between strategic objectives/intent and operational/resource planning for the chosen organisation.

Deadlines

Assessment 1 case studies are submitted as indicated on the weekly module schedule

Corporate Strategy Portfolio Assessment

Introduction to assessment design

You are required to put together a collection of applied tools and module concepts across five case studies that follow the development of the module’s content and that correspond to the five specified units of the Corporate Strategy module (please also refer to the Corporate Strategy Weekly Schedule). All submissions are preceded by a ‘Mock Test’ that does not count towards the assessment:

0. Mock Test: Strategy statements
i. Portfolio Case 1: External Environment
ii. Portfolio Case 2: Industry Analysis & Competitive Advantage
iii. Portfolio Submission 3: Strategic Alliances
iv. Portfolio Submission 4: Portfolio Management
v. Portfolio Submission 5: Strategic Options Evaluation and Implementation

The cases studies chosen for each unit of assessment are summarised in the table below and are all to be found in the core text for this module, Whittington, R. et al, (2020) Exploring Strategy: Text and Cases. 12th Edition, Pearson (ES*1). We recommend your draft case studies for your portfolio along the timelines specified below :

Each weekly case study is focussed on a particular topic/ unit as specified above. This entails coverage and understanding of a particular unit of the Corporate Strategy module and relates to a set of theoretical concepts and applied tools and frameworks. Through guidance in the lecture and seminars and the student’s own reading and preparation, the student will develop an understanding of how to research, analyse and reflect on that unit of Corporate Strategy and apply it to the selected case study as well as deploy it in the future in an organisation.

YouTube based case studies need to be supplemented by research and reading prior to the seminar.

How to construct the portfolio

Each week relevant content will be covered in the seminar. It is recommended you prepare your analysis in advance and come to the seminar prepared. You will then have until Monday of the following week to draft the corresponding portfolio component. Principally there are three main component areas:

1. The five case studies;
2. One of the five case studies chosen to develop extended strategic options analysis and their evaluation using the SAFE framework followed by a reflective statement on strategic direction constructed by Artificial Intelligence (AI);
3. A student critique of the limitations of the AI reflective statement.

The Five case studies and their analysis (2,000 words)

There are several steps of preparation that you need to undertake to prepare each portfolio component submission. These are:

1. Textbook theory reading and understanding;
2. Case study understanding;
3. Further case study research;
4. Tool selection and application (you could call this the analysis phase);
5. Reflection on analysis/ Interpretation of analysis.

Step 1: Theory & Understanding

There are no secrets in education, the more you put into study and understanding the better you can understand and perform in this module. The general advice is to come to lectures and seminars but also prepare yourself by carrying out the reading indicated and preparatory case study work BEFORE attending the seminar. If you do not you are not an active participant but a passive receiver. Postgraduate study requires you to be always an active participant.

Please expect to read between 60 – 100 pages per week for this module, so you must plan and be regular in your reading. This will help you understand the key concepts as well as ‘language of’ Corporate Strategy.

Step 2: Case study Understanding

Case studies in this module are quite succinct, usually between 1 page to 5 pages long. They are part of the recommended core textbook and easy to read and in keeping with the language and writing style of your core text and key reading.

If you struggle with an aspect of the case study, try to read the preceding sections in the corresponding book chapter as this will surely help. Of course, ask as many questions in seminars as you need to; your tutor will be there to support you.

Step 3: Further case study research

You can read further about the case study by following the sources specified in the case study at the end of the corresponding chapter furthermore by undertaking your research. We recommend reliable academic sources: Strategy journals, Library catalogues, Google Scholar, reliable ‘grey literature’, e.g. The Financial Times, The Economist, BBC website, Times of India, etc. or databases such as Datamonitor, Financial Times, MarketLine, STATISTA, FAME, LEXIS NEXIS, etc., minimise any own company sources (e.g. company websites, etc. as these are mostly biased) and expert reports can also be very useful to understand a company or its industry. These can come from reliable consultants (e.g. KPMG, PWC, etc.) but also relevant industry bodies/ associations. Further research can provide helpful hints of what has happened since the case study was published in the textbook as well as why!

Step 4: Tools selection and application or analysis phase

Each chapter in the book and weekly unit of study looks at a key theme of Corporate Strategy. It is important to understand this, its value and uses. Each unit looks at specific concepts, frameworks and involves the use of certain analytical tools to try and explore some aspects of this subject in depth.

You must decide which concepts and tools you wish to apply to the case study. Indeed, this is part of your assessment! There is no one right answer. It is recommended you limit this to a total of four. Make sure you do not present the generic tool/ concept in your portfolio submission but that you instead make it specific to your analysis and the case study.

You must use your research to support statements in the tools and concepts you are applying to the case. Use relevant citations and present you references in full for each section of the portfolio submission (remember there are a total of five sections and thus five portfolio submission respectively for the assessment.

Step 5: Reflection on analysis/ Interpretation of analysis

is the most important aspect of your portfolio. Each of your portfolio cases MUST BE CONCLUDED BY A 400-word reflection on the analysis.

A good reflection:

• Is written in full paragraphs and not bullet points;
• Highlights key learning achieved (What did we learn from the analysis);
• Combines learning from several tools;
• Highlights links with key theoretical perspectives/ concepts;
• Reflects on next steps;

A tip: all textbook cases that orm part of the portfolio are accompanied by questions. When you finish constructing your reflection check if you have also answered the wider questions posed.

Strategic options Analysis, Evaluation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) reflective statement (1,500 words)

For the Portfolio you will need to develop strategic options and use the SAFE framework to evaluate these. Following these you will need to attempt to feed your data into an Artificial Intelligence instrument of your choice and ask it to reflect on what is the strategic direction the company should take.

To do this you will need to begin by, choosing ANY of the five case studies presented in your portfolio and develop a set of extended strategic options.

The development of your strategic options should:

a. not number less than three nor more than seven;
b. be summarised into a brief and specific title;
c. Be briefly explained (i.e. what is this strategic option set to achieve and how)
d. Be briefly justified (i.e. why did you choose this strategic option, is there any evidence that supports it?)

You then need to use the SAFE framework in tabular format to evaluate each of the chosen options. You will need to design and implement your own criteria and scoring system to score each of the strategic options. The option(s) with the highest score is (/are) the chosen strategy to adopt.

Once complete you will need to utilise and Artificial Intelligence Instrument of your choice and to which you have access. This will be used for this section only and you will use the AI tool to produce a 250-word reflective statement about the strategic direction the company should take in relation to your analysis and specifically the chosen strategy.

Please ensure the AI statement is in quotation marks and is refenced using the Harvard Referencing system. Good students will provide the list of prompts (questions) they utilised to instruct the AI tool.

Examples of Artificial Intelligence (AI) instruments such as e.g.:

• ChatGPT (Open AI);
• Microsoft CoPilot;
• QuillBot;
• IBM Watson Analytics;
• Frase AI;
• Notion AI ;
• Grammarly (for Business Writing).

A number of guides to prompt engineering can be used to support you in this task such as Prompt Engineering 101: Introduction and resources. A good source is the OpenAI Cookbook by open AI or even Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT.

Your critique of the limitations of the AI authored reflective statement (500 words)

In this final section of your Portfolio Assessment, you are expected to critique the previously discussed AI-authored 250-word reflective statement presented in quotation marks (as discussed in section 5.3.2). This section is NOT to be generated using AI, you are to critically evaluate the strategic options provided by AI in section 5.3.2.

You are expected to expose flaws, inaccuracies and any weaknesses in the AI authored reflection. You will need to base your argument on your understanding of the theoretical models, concepts and tools you employed and the insights you developed from applying these to the case study.

Specifically, you would need to discuss, what are the weaknesses in the reflection and how you could improve it. For example, you could reflect on how your strategic insight of the strategic direction the company should take differs from that produced by the AI tool. Furthermore, you could reflect on why the AI tool might have overlooked some critical factors, discuss why AI might have biases or blind spots. Did the AI tool make assumptions that were overly simplistic or inaccurate? Where is in this case human perspective crucial to developing strategic decisions?

Once you complete this final section, your Portfolio is now complete. Make sure to save it as one MSWord document.

Structure of Portfolio

Words used in the analytical tools does not count towards the word limit. The module team will not read drafts or provide examples but discuss everything you bring and discuss in seminars.