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Course catalog descriptions for courses offered in the W09 term.

Strategy

Department Chairperson: Ahuja, Gautam
Department Website: http://www.bus.umich.edu/Academics/Departments/CSIB

STRATEGY 310	The World Economy
	3 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09
	Advisory Prerequisites: JR.STD.

	The World Economy --- When a firm conducts business internationally, it encounters problems and challenges not found in its domestic market. These arise from two different aspects of the international business environment. One aspect involves the crossing of national boundaries, which involves financial, legal, and political differences. The second aspect of the international environment arises from the unique cultural, economic, and political situation within each foreign market where the firm conducts business. This course introduces the student to the various dimensions of the world economy and to the characteristics of foreign countries that are important for economic activity.

STRATEGY 320	Study Abroad
	3 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09(B)
	Advisory Prerequisites: JR.STD.

	Study Abroad --- This course offers one or more short-term study abroad opportunities for BBA students during the spring term. The location, content, and schedule for these courses vary each year and typically are announced late in the fall term. These courses are organized by the Center for International Business Education, which can be contacted for more information. Students must secure permission to enroll, and in some cases an application is required.

STRATEGY 391	Strategic Management of Innovation and Technology
	3 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09
	Course Prerequisites: STRATEGY 390

	Strategic Management of Innovation and Technology --- One key task of the general manager is to acquire, develop, and allocate an organization's resources. Technology is a resource of paramount importance to many organizations; managing this resource for competitive advantage entails integrating it with the firm?s strategy. Recognizing the potential of an innovation and formulating the right strategies to exploit it are not easy. Those who do can gain or solidify a competitive advantage. Those who do not can see their competitive advantage quickly erode. IBM and Apple provide good examples of firms that have transformed themselves through innovation as technological and market challenges erased historical advantages. This course provides an integrative framework for exploring how a firm can attain and maintain a competitive advantage through innovation and the management of technology.

STRATEGY 392	Dynamic Capabilities Through Corporate Development
	3 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09
	Course Prerequisites: STRATEGY 390

	Dynamic Capabilities Through Corporate Development --- Dynamic capabilities refer to firm specific capabilities that can be developed, deployed, and protected for competitive advantage, through the managerial process. As firms compete in an increasingly complex and uncertain environment, they are required to build and leverage dynamic capabilities in constantly changing contexts in order to survive and grow. The course examines growth options and the challenges they present as they relate to internal development of skills and capabilities, and development of capabilities through alliances, mergers and acquisitions with a view of gaining competitive advantage.

STRATEGY 399	Independent Study Project
	1 - 3 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09
	Advisory Prerequisites: JR.STD.

	Independent Study Project --- Independent study projects, supervised by faculty, are available to juniors and seniors in good academic standing. To select a study project, students should consult the appropriate professor about the nature of the project and the number of the credit hours the work would earn. One to three credit hours may be earned. Junior and senior BBAs may elect only one independent study project in a term, and no more than three during the BBA program. No more than seven credit hours from study projects may be counted toward the BBA degree. To register for a project students must submit an approved Independent Study Project application, available online.

STRATEGY 417	Behavioral Process of Strategic Management
	3 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09
	Advisory Prerequisites: STRATEGY 390

	Behavioral Processes of Strategic Management --- This course complements other courses in the undergraduate curriculum. The core strategy course focuses on fundamental strategic issues related to industry analysis, business and corporate strategy. While this course goes into detail about issues related to the economics of strategy and strategy formulation, there is less extensive treatment of behavioral processes that influence strategy formulation and the implementation of strategy. This elective addresses these issues. It also includes a module on the implementation of strategy change, which similarly complements the focus of the core course.

STRATEGY 425	ABIS: American Business Immersion Study
	1 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09

	American Business Immersion Study: --- This course is designed to explore the application and practice of the core theories learned during the student's first year in the program as they apply to a culture to which they are not native. Having gained an understanding and awareness of the global nature of business through prior coursework, this course will require a student to observe a work experience based outside their home country, and then to solicit opinions, and reflect and summarize either the process of securing the position of their observations during the experience as these compare to their own prior work experiences and to their coursework from their first year at UMBS.

STRATEGY 470	Strategic Management of Knowledge in Professional Service Firms
	3 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09
	Advisory Prerequisites: First year core or permission of instructor
	Cross-listed with: MO 470

	Strategic Management of Knowledge in Professional Service Firms --- The goal of this course is to study the unique characteristics of Professional Service Firms, the context in which they compete, and the challenges they face. Professional Service Firms include accountants, actuaries, architects, consultants, executive recruiters, lawyers, travel and advertising agencies, private equity and venture capital firms, public relations counselors, teachers, engineering firms, medical organizations, investment banks, and real estate firms. This course is designed to help students understand the competitive and organizational environments of Professional Service Firms. We will examine how Professional Service Firms differ from other businesses, the processes that drive them, and the skills required for success in them.

STRATEGY 503	The World Economy
	1.5 hours	Core	Terms Offered: W09(B), W09(A)

	The World Economy --- The march of globalization continues, and international markets are pivotal to the operations of virtually all corporations. As companies intensify their international presence, the need to understand the economic and political challenges associated with the global environment increases. Such challenges are the focus of this course. We will explore the theories and concepts that are crucial to understanding the global location and structure of industries, the politics of trade and investment, and the impact of globalization on firm strategy. Various learning methods are used in the course, including in-class lectures, discussion of current events in the world economy, and case analysis.

STRATEGY 520	Changing Environment for International Business in Europe
	3 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09(B)
	Course Prerequisites: STRATEGY 503 or 510 or 593

	Changing Environment for International Business in Europe --- The Changing Environment for International Business in Europe is offered by the Business School's academic partner in Germany, WHU. The entire course is held on the WHU campus near Koblenz, Germany. Topics include European economic and monetary integration, doing business in Western Europe, and managing in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe. A complete description of the course is available on WHU's web site at http://www.whu.edu/summercourse .

STRATEGY 566	Systems Thinking for Sustainable Development and Enterprise
	3 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09
	Cross-listed with: NRE 550

	Systems Thinking for Sustainable Development and Enterprise --- Challenges to a sustainable human future such as climate change, population growth, biodiversity loss and persistent poverty are characterized by extraordinary detail and dynamic complexity. This course fosters the skills of systems thinking and systems dynamics modeling necessary for understanding global environmental and social change. This holistic and dynamic understanding is employed to chart pathways for sustainable human development and business.

STRATEGY 601	Corporate Strategy
	3 hours	Core	Terms Offered: W09
	Course Prerequisites: ACC 501 and no credit in STRATEGY 502

	Corporate Strategy --- This course focuses on the job, perspective, and skills of the general manager in diagnosing what is critical in complex business situations and finding realistic solutions to strategic and organizational problems. It is designed to build upon previous required coursework in the MBA program drawing upon the integration of various functional and technical areas and providing a "total business" perspective. Since the focus is on pragmatic, action-oriented, general management skills, the course will be taught primarily through the case method.

STRATEGY 624	Co-Creation of Value
	3 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09
	Cross-listed with: MKT 624

	Co-Creation of Value --- Thanks to the Internet, and the structural forces of digitization, ubiquitous connectivity, globalization, social networking, and new communications and information modalities, interactions between individuals everywhere in the system have exploded on a scale and scope as never before. Providers are challenged by the fact that their recipients are increasingly informed, connected, networked and empowered. Armed with access to new information and communications technologies, individuals are demanding a higher quality of interactions, and are even prepared to insert themselves into the firm's value chain to co-create mutually valuable experiences. The goal of this course is to expose you to an "expanded" paradigm of value creation that leading companies all over the world are embracing. Companies are innovating new engagement platforms and environments of experiences that facilitate customer interactions with a company's products, processes, employees, as well as customer communities, to co-create mutual value. We will discuss how you can help organizations shift their thinking and practices towards co-creation and help build new management processes and organizational capabilities for co-creating value.

STRATEGY 659	Global Field Project II
	3 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09
	Advisory Prerequisites: 1YR CORE/P.I.

	Global Field Project II --- Teams of MBAs apply knowledge from core to international projects such as market entry, joint ventures, and strategic alliances. Spending spring break week time in-country, student teams work to produce valuable results for corporate sponsors and meet high academic standards with respect to data and knowledge acquisition, performance standards, and analysis.

STRATEGY 669	Advanced Competitive Analysis
	1.5 - 3 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09
	Course Prerequisites: STRATEGY 502 or CSIB 502 or CS 502 or STRATEGY 591 or CSIB 591 or CS 591 or STRATEGY 601 or CSIB 601 or CS 601

	Advanced Competitive Analysis --- This course seeks to deepen and broaden your understanding of competitive strategy. As such it is a natural follow up to the cores strategy class that you have already taken. The course deepens your understanding of several of the concepts that you were introduced to in the core class, such as industry analysis, by exploring their use, utility and limitations in different kinds of strategic environments. This course also broadens your strategic analysis abilities by introducing you to a new tools and frameworks, not covered earlier. Additionally, a key instructional objective of the course to help you develop a rigorous approach for addressing complex business problems.

STRATEGY 672	Strategies for Growth
	2.25 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09(A)
	Course Prerequisites: STRATEGY 502 or CSIB 502 or CS 502 or STRATEGY 591 or CSIB 591 or CS 591 or STRATEGY 601 or CSIB 601 or CS 601

	Strategies for Growth --- A major challenge facing most companies (and business units) is how to grow the organization. This course will develop a framework for determining the direction of growth: market penetration, globalization, vertical integration, related diversification and unrelated diversification, and the mode of growth: organic growth, alliances, and mergers and acquisitions. The organizational challenges in implementing the growth strategy will also be discussed.

STRATEGY 681	Strategic Management of Alliances
	1.5 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09(B)
	Advisory Prerequisites: STRATEGY 502/601

	Strategic Management of Alliances --- This course will study the theory and practice of business alliances. Alliances among businesses are a fundamental necessity of corporate strategy. Every student in this school will spend part of her or his working life addressing business activities that span the boundaries of their own corporation and intertwine with the activities of corporate partners and other organizational allies. Although alliances are necessary for every organization, poorly managed alliances often create substantial problems for one or more of the alliance partners. The goal of this course is to understand the benefits and risks that alliances create for the individual partners and to learn how to manage alliances effectively.

STRATEGY 689	International Exchange Program
	6 - 18 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09

	International Exchange Program --- Students go abroad in the fall semester of their second year. They apply for study abroad in the winter semester of their first year. Decisions are made on the basis of a student's academic achievement, foreign language proficiency, overall maturity and resourcefulness, career goals, and space availability.

STRATEGY 736	Topics in Global Sustainable Enterprise
	1.5 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09(A)

	Topics in Global Sustainable Enterprise --- This seminar will be taught by a visting practitioner from the corporate, non-profit or government sector. It will address subject matter related to Global Sustainable Enterprise, drawing on the instructor's specialized area of expertise.

STRATEGY 737	Topics in Global Sustainable Enterprise
	1.5 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09(A)

	Topics in Global Sustainable Enterpise --- This seminar will be taught by a visting practitioner from the corporate, non-profit or government sector. It will address subject matter related to Global Sustainable Enterprise, drawing on the instructor's specialized area of expertise.
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STRATEGY 738	Topics in Global Sustainable Enterprise
	1.5 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09(B)

	Topics in Global Sustainable Enterprise --- This seminar will be taught by a visting practitioner from the corporate, non-profit or government sector. It will address subject matter related to Global Sustainable Enterprise, drawing on the instructor's specialized area of expertise.
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STRATEGY 750	Independent Study Project
	1 - 3 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09

	Independent Study Project --- Independent study projects, supervised by faculty, are available to graduate business students in good academic standing. To select a project, students should consult the appropriate professor about the nature of the project and the number of credit hours the work would earn. Students earn one to three credit hours per project and may elect only one study project in a term. Graduate business students should consult their program bulletins for information regarding total number of projects and credits that can be applied to their degree. To register for a project students must submit an approved Independent Study Project application, available online.

STRATEGY 888	Doctoral Seminar in International Business
	1.5 hours	Elective	Terms Offered: W09(B)
	Advisory Prerequisites: Doctoral standing

	Doctoral Seminar in International Business --- This course covers topics in international business research. Over a two-year cycle, the courses provide sequential coverage of topics including international management, foreign direct investment, international finance, international trade, transitional economies, and the roots of international business research.

STRATEGY 900	Special Research for Doctoral Applicants and Candidates
	1 - 6 hours		Terms Offered: W09

	Special Research for Doctoral Applicants and Candidates --- Individual research projects for Doctoral Applicants and Candidates are available.

STRATEGY 990	Dissertation-Precandidate
	1 - 8 hours		Terms Offered: W09

	Diss-Precand --- Dissertation research at the Precandidacy stage.

STRATEGY 995	Dissertation-Candidate
	4 - 8 hours		Terms Offered: W09
	Course Prerequisites: Candidate

	Diss-Cand --- Dissertation research at the candidacy stage.