COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA 273-11
COURSE TITLE: Competitive Strategy: The Dynamic Capabilities
Approach
UNITS OF CREDIT: 2 Units
INSTRUCTOR: Paul Tiffany
E-MAIL ADDRESS: tiffany@haas.berkeley.edu
CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION (HTTP URL): bSpace
MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Saturdays 9:00AM-12:00PM
10 weeks: August 23, September 6, 13, 20, 27, October 4, 11, 18,
25, November 1.
We are a two-unit course,
so only 10 meetings.
Please note those students wishing to add this
class during Add/Drop are required to attend at least one the first two class
sessions.
PREREQUISITE(S): EWMBA Core Curriculum
CLASS FORMAT: We will utilize a number of pedagogical approaches
in this course, including lecture/discussions sessions, case studies, and
participant exercises. Students should be prepared to engage course materials
with vigor, actively participate in classroom discussions, and embrace your
classmates as professional colleagues in our quest for the new truth about
business organization management.
REQUIRED READINGS: Textbook and cases
FINAL GRADE: Class Attendance and Participation: 25%;
Case/Article Write-Up: 25%; Group Project: 50%
ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES: Competitive Strategy:
The Dynamic Capabilities Approach is a course that deals with the management of
strategic adaptation and change. We are currently living in one of the most
intense eras of market transformation in recent history, and many firms and
organizations are having serious difficulty in adapting to new realities, as
traditional managerial theories and tools are not working as well as needed.
Dynamic Capabilities can be described as “the firm’s ability to
integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competences to address
rapidly changing environments.” Traditional strategic management concepts, such
as the famed “Porter model” of competitor analysis, are under stress for their
inability to resolve problems presented by the global, technologically driven,
knowledge-based, and extremely dynamic marketplace that characterizes many
industries today. As an example, our conventional models of management continue
to presume that firms compete primarily in a manufacturing environment in which
scale, heavy fixed investment, externalization of production byproducts (such
as waste), unlimited supplies of inputs, rigid organizational hierarchies,
tightly controlled management-subordinate relationships, and defined industry
structures (typically oligopolies) are the order of the day. Clearly, this
characterization is becoming less prevalent if not outright obsolete; indeed,
clinging to it may be the reason for the failure of so many firms in the face
of market change.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: PAUL TIFFANY currently teaches several
courses at Haas including undergrad business & public policy and MBA
competitive strategy. Tiffany also teaches strategy and global management at
Wharton. He has been teaching at Haas since 1994, and
at Wharton since 1983. Tiffany holds a MBA from Harvard, and a Ph.D.
from Berkeley, and has extensive consulting/executive training for many firms
world-wide. Author: THE DECLINE OF AMERICAN STEEL (Oxford Univ. Press),
BUSINESS PLANS FOR DUMMIES (IDG Books).