GRA 6830 Economic and Organisational Foundations of Strategic Management
GRA 6830 Economic and Organisational Foundations of Strategic Management
This is a theoretical course giving insight into the theoretical approaches mostly applied in strategic management.
The course focuses on a broad representation of differing, and often conflicting, perspectives and theories related to strategy content and strategy context and extend the previous knowledge the students have on strategy and strategy analysis from their undergraduate program. The main objective is to develop critical reflections on strategy and strategy analysis among the students participating in the course. The course builds on the knowledge in strategy analysis achieved in the foundation course of strategy analysis in the 3rd year of the Bachelor in Business and Economics programme, but extends the perspectives presented in the introductory course and also introduces new perspectives on strategy content and context.
By the end of this course a student should be able to
- Understand the underlying theories/perspectives that have shaped the development of the field of strategic management.
- Understand how those theories/perspectives contradict or complement one another,
- Appreciate the value as well as the limitations of various theories/perspectives.
- Be able to compare and contrast contributions from the literature
- Write an advanced literature review
- Discuss literature in seminar setting
- That the literature contains diverse, often conflicting, explanations of a phenomenon
- That methods and explanations are linked
- That strategy analysis tools reflect different theoretical perspectives
The course will introduce, analyze, and evaluate a variety of theories and their application within the strategic management field. These may include the following:
- Industrial Organization Theory
- Strategic Groups theory
- Learning theory
- Resource Dependency theory
- Network Theory
- Resource Based View
- Activity Based View
- Transaction Cost Economics
- Institutional Theory
Theories and their implied strategies will be discussed.
Please note that while attendance is not compulsory in all courses, it is the student’s own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class that is not included on It's learning or text book.
This is a course with continuous assessment (several exam components) and one final exam code. Each exam component is graded by using points on a scale from 0-100. The components will be weighted together according to the information in the course description in order to calculate the final letter grade for the examination code (course). Students who fail to participate in one/some/all exam elements will get a lower grade or may fail the course. You will find detailed information about the point system and the cut off points with reference to the letter grades when the course start.
At resit, all exam components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course.
All courses in the Masters programme will assume that students have fulfilled the admission requirements for the programme. In addition, courses in second, third and/or fourth semester can have spesific prerequisites and will assume that students have followed normal study progression. For double degree and exchange students, please note that equivalent courses are accepted.
| Assessments |
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Exam category: Activity Form of assessment: Class participation Weight: 20 Grouping: Individual Exam code: GRA68301 Grading scale: Point scale leading to ECTS letter grade Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Written submission Invigilation Weight: 60 Grouping: Individual Support materials:
Duration: 3 Hour(s) Comment: Written examination with supervision. Exam code: GRA68301 Grading scale: Point scale leading to ECTS letter grade Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Written submission Weight: 20 Grouping: Group (2 - 3) Duration: 1 Semester(s) Comment: Term paper Exam code: GRA68301 Grading scale: Point scale leading to ECTS letter grade Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of at least 160 hours.