APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2013/2014

GRA 6829 Strategies for Industrial Competitiveness

Responsible for the course
Torger Reve

Department
Department of Strategy and Logistics

Term
According to study plan

ECTS Credits
6

Language of instruction
English

Introduction
The course explores the determinants of industrial competitiveness and successful economic development viewed from a bottom-up, microeconomic perspective. While sound macroeconomic policies and stable legal and political institutions create the potential for industrial competitiveness, wealth is actually created at the microeconomic and firm levels. The sophistication and productivity of firms, the vitality of industrial clusters, the quality of the business environment and the strategies of firms are the ultimate determinants of the productivity and innovation capacity of nations, regions and industries.

Learning outcome
The students should learn how to perform, write and present strategic analyses of firms, industries and regions, at the quality level of leading international consulting firms.

The students should learn how to make international location decisions, analyzing the economic and political environment and taking into account the loctional knowledge base available to the firms.

The students should learn how to analyze and formulate industrial policies, understanding the complex interactions between business and society

Prerequisites
Bachelor degree qualifying for admission to the MSc Programme.

Compulsory reading
Books:
Delgado, Mercedes ... [et al.]. 2012. The Determinants of national competitiveness. National Bureau of Economic Research. 46 p. (Working Papers / National Bureau of Economic Research ; 18249) http://papers.nber.org/papers/w18249
Porter, Michael E. 2008. On competition. Updated and exp. ed. Harvard Businesss School

Articles:
Krugman, Paul. 1999. “The role of geography in development”. International Regional Science Review. 22 (2). 142-161
Porter, Michael E. 2011. Creating shared values. Harvard business review. January – February. 62-77
Reve, Torger. 1996. Toward an integrative model of strategy development : from dynamic clusters to core capabilities. I: Falkenberg, Joyce and Sven A. Haugland, eds., Rethinking the boundaries of strategy. Handelshøjskolens forlag. pp 103-122
Reve, Torger. 2011. From industrial clusters to global knowledge hubs. Journal of Competitiveness. pp 63-76
Ron A. Boschma. 2004. “Competitiveness of regions from an evolutionary perspective”. Regional Studies. 38 (9). 1001-1014

Recommended reading
Books:
Glaeser, Edward L. 2011. Triumph of the city : how our greatest invention makes us richer, smarter, greener, healthier, and happier. Penguin Press
Reve, Torger og Amir Sasson. 2012. Et kunnskapsbasert Norge. Universitetsforlaget. 319

Other:
Amir Sasson and Atle Blomgren. 2011. Knowledge Based Oil and Gas Industry. BI Norwegian Business School. 130


Course outline
In this graduate course we will present the diamond model, the emerald model and the development of industrial clusters in advanced, emerging and developmental economies. The model is extended to include current research on knowledge based competitiveness. The course will draw on recently completed research from the large national research project “A knowledge-based Norway” (www.ekn.no), headed by professor Torger Reve and associate professor Amir Sasson.
The course is global in its coverage of topics and markets. Active participation in case discussions is required, and the work load is substantial.

Strategies at both corporate level, cluster level, regional and national levels will be discussed, integrating variables at the business, industry and societal level. Thus the course is targeting both students of business and strategy and students of innovation and political economy. The empirical approach is global, and the students are asked to analyse industries at all continents.

The course is offered in cooperation with Professor Michael E. Porter, Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, Harvard Business School, and his highly successful, second year Harvard MBA course, Microeconomics of Competitiveness (MOC). The Harvard MOC Network now consists of more than 100 universities in 70 different countries.

BI students taking GRA 6829 will have free electronic access to lectures and case discussions at Harvard, and extensive net based data resources at Harvard Business School are available for project work. This also includes free downloading of the HBS cases used in the course.

1. Firms and Industries

Introduction to Competitiveness
The Drivers of Competitiveness
Industry Competition, Strategy and Locations
Competing Across Borders
Globalization and Internationalization of Firms

2. The Microeconomic Business Environment

The Diamond Model: Advanced Economies
The Diamond Model: Transitional Economies
The Diamond Model: Developing Economies
Developing Cluster Charts
The Emerald Model: Knowledge-based Policies

3. Industrial Cluster Development

Clusters and Competitiveness
Natural Resource Based Clusters
Knowledge Based Cluster
The Global Knowledge Hub Model
Institutions for Collaboration
Mechanisms for Cluster Upgrading

4. Economic Strategy for Industries, Regions and Nations

National Economic Strategies
Role of Government
Regional Economic Strategies
Economic Strategies: Emerging and Developing Economies
Asian Competitiveness and the Role of the BRIC countries

Computer-based tools
Harvard Business School Electronic Course Platform and Flash Player 8 Media Software and Netscape 7.x

http://isites.hbs.edu/index.jhtml?site=3188

BIs Learning Platform: It’s Learning

Learning process and workload
A course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of 160-180 hours.

The course is structured as a combination of short lectures and extensive case discussions, as well as selected top level guest lectures. The Harvard Business School (HBS) format of the course requires that the students should prepare extensively for case discussions in class. It is simply impossible to come to class unprepared for the topic to be discussed.

Half of the cases are taught using the HBS case approach where all students are expected to participate actively in case discussions on an individual basis, while half of the cases are taught using the Kellogg case approach in which the study groups prepare structured case presentations in advance.

Class sessions may be audio- and videotaped, and the class output can be shared with other universities in the Harvard Microeconomics of Competitiveness (MOC) network.

The students are required to undertake a group project analysing the competitiveness and cluster development of a specific industry or region. The empirical settings for these group projects are provided by the large national research project: “A knowledge-based Norway” (www.ekn.no), but students are free to choose industries in any country. Students also have an excellent chance to write their MSc theses within the framework of the course.

The best student project is entered into the Harvard MOC project competition, and both in 2008 and in 2011 BI MSc students have won this international competition. The winning paper and the video taped project presentation by Joachim Espen and Marius Nordkvelde on Oslo Cancer Cluster (2008) and by Morten Finslo, Rune Steihaug and Javad Mushtaq on Oslo Maritime Finance Cluster (2011) are available as a quality benchmark on It’s Learning.

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 the course homepage/It's learning or text book.


Examination
The evaluation in the course consists of two elements:
Active class participation in case discussions and case presentations (50%), based on detailed recording and evaluation of every student participation item in class
Group project (50%), based on hand in of written report and presentation material

All parts of the evaluation must be passed in order to obtain a grade in the course

Specific information regarding student evaluation beyond the information given in the course description will be provided in class. This information may be relevant for requirements for termpapers or other hand-ins, and/or where class participation can be one of several elements of the overall evaluation.

This is a course with continuous assessment (several exam elements) and one final exam code. Each exam element will be graded using points on a scale (e.g. 0-100). The elements will be weighted together according to the information in the course description in order to calculate the final letter grade for the course. You will find detailed information about the point system and the cut off points with reference to the letter grades on the course site in It’s learning.

Examination code(s)
GRA 68291 continuous assessment accounts for 100% of the final grade in the course GRA 6829

Examination support materials
Exam aids at written examiniations are explained under exam information in the student portal @bi. Please note use of calculator and dictionary in the section on examaids

Re-sit examination
It is only possible to retake an examination when the course is next taught.
The assessment in some courses is based on more than one exam code.
Where this is the case, you may retake only the assessed components of one of these exam codes.
Where this is not the case, all of the assessed components of the course must be retaken.
All retaken examinations will incur an additional fee.

Additional information
Honor code
Academic honesty and trust are important to all of us as individuals, and represent values that are encouraged and promoted by the honor code system. This is a most significant university tradition. Students are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the ideals of the honor code system, to which the faculty are also deeply committed.

Any violation of the honor code will be dealt with in accordance with BI’s procedures for cheating. These issues are a serious matter to everyone associated with the programs at BI and are at the heart of the honor code and academic integrity. If you have any questions about your responsibilities under the honor code, please ask.