GRA 6829 Competitive Strategy
GRA 6829 Competitive Strategy
The course explores the essences of competitive strategies 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 innovation and entrepreneurship capacity, and the vitality of industrial clusters are the ultimate determinants of the productivity and innovation of firms, nations, regions, and industries.
Competitive strategies at both firm and other (e.g., cluster-, region-, and nation-) levels will be discussed. The course is targeting graduate students of business and strategy but is also relevant for other specializations.
Data analytics will be highlighted throughout the course. Students should be able to understand how to collect, match, and code data for essential competition analysis.
The main learning objectives are:
- To make students understand how the competitiveness of firms is embedded in the external context of an industry and cluster.
- To enable students to use key theoretical frameworks to assess the competitive strategies of firms, industries and economic regions.
- To enable students to perform a strategic analysis of a firm, an industrial cluster or a region and drawing implications from the analysis.
Hence, the students should have a broad view on competition, understanding the role of knowledge, innovation and entrepreneurship. The strategy framework builds on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
- Identification of the fundamental factors that affect firm and industry competitiveness
- Presentation of complex strategic analyses and solutions in a clear and concise manner, both in writing and orally
- Development of strategies for obtaining and retaining competitiveness
- Critical reflection on understanding what makes a firm more competitive
- An appreciation of the complexity and importance of policies and strategic choices for the success of firms and industrial clusters
1. Firms and Industries
- Introduction to Competitiveness
- The Drivers of Competitiveness
- Industrial Contexts
- Five forces
- Entry barrier
- Supply-side bargaining power
- Demand-side bargaining power
- Industry platform
- Globalization and Internationalization of Firms
- Competitive dynamics
- Innovation and Entrepreneurship
2. Industrial Cluster
- The Diamond Model
- The Emerald Model: Assessing cluster strengths
- Clusters and Competitiveness
- Entrepreneurship Scale-up strategies
The course is structured as a combination of lectures, exercise, and paper and case discussions. All students are expected to participate actively in discussions. It is simply impossible to come to class unprepared for the topics to be discussed.
It is the student’s own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class.
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 specific prerequisites and will assume that students have followed normal study progression. For double degree and exchange students, please note that equivalent courses are accepted.
Disclaimer
Deviations in teaching and exams may occur if external conditions or unforeseen events call for this.
| Assessments |
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Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Portfolio Assessment PDF Exam/hand-in semester: First Semester Weight: 100 Grouping: Group (2 - 3) Duration: 2 Month(s) Comment: Group project based on hand-in of written report and presentation material. Portfolio submission. Exam code: GRA 68291 Grading scale: ECTS Resit: Examination when 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.