COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA 299E-11

Please note that this is a previous year's course information. Information for Sp'10 will be updated when available

COURSE TITLE: Competitive Strategy

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3 Units

INSTRUCTOR: Gregory La Blanc

E-MAIL ADDRESS: lablanc@haas.berkeley.edu

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION (HTTP URL):

MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Wednesday, 6:00PM - 9:30 PM

PREREQUISITE(S): EWMBA Core Curriculum.
This course will emphasize the economic aspects of strategy. Students should therefore be comfortable with the tools of microeconomics.

CLASS FORMAT: Classes will be a mixture of lectures and in-class analyses of cases. The lectures will focus on economic models and theories that are useful for understanding strategy issues. While economics will be the language of the class, generalizable results and intuitions will be emphasized instead of the mathematical and technical aspects of the models. Cases are an opportunity to use the analytical tools presented in lectures, and to see how they can be used to better understand and design profitable responses to specific situations. Case analysis in class will be carried out through class discussion and by student presentations prepared in advance.

REQUIRED READINGS: The course will use a packet of readings and case materials, as well as readings from several textbooks.

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Grades will be based on written analyses of cases to be discussed in class, a semester-long strategy research project, and an in-class presentation.

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
The purpose of Competitive Strategy is to enable students to design profitable strategies that are responsive to the characteristics of the firm and the nature of competition in the industry or market.

In particular, the course will address the following major questions:

  • How do fundamental economic characteristics of an industry affect a company's ability to make profits?
  • How can a company produce long-run economic profits? Or, in other words, how can a company generate value, and how can it capture that value as profit?
  • What are the legal constraints on the methods a company uses in pursuit of profit?
  • What strategy choices should a company make when its profitability and its competitor's profitability are affected by each other's choices?
  • How should a company choose the scope of its activities?
  • How can a company profitably enter new markets, and how can it preserve profitability in the face of entry into its existing markets?
  • How does the external environment of the firm affect the optimal internal organization of the firm?
  • How does a firm develop know-how that is unique and difficult for competitors to replicate?
  • BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:
    Gregory LaBlanc has degrees in business, law, and economics from the University of California at Berkeley, George Mason University and the University of Pennsylvania. Before coming to Berkeley, he taught at the University of Virginia, Duke University and the Wharton School, and worked in strategy consulting and competitive intelligence. His research concerns the impact of behavior, information, and human capital on organizational structure and corporate governance. In particular, he is interested in the role of informational opacity in self enforcing contracts and as a substitute for legal barriers to entry.