COURSE NUMBER: MBA299E.1
COURSE TITLE: Competitive and Corporate Strategy: The
“Dynamic Capabilities” Approach
UNITS OF CREDIT: 2 Units
INSTRUCTOR: Paul Tiffany
E-MAIL ADDRESS: tiffany@haas.berkeley.edu
CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION: none
MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Monday, 8:00-11:00AM.
Ten non-consecutive meetings across the
15-week semester.
PREREQUISITE(S): MBA299
CLASS FORMAT: Cases and lecture/discussions by the
Instructor
REQUIRED READINGS: Course reader (on study.net) and three recommended texts:
-David Teece’s, Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management: Organizing for Innovation and Growth (Oxford University Press, 2009). The seminal book on the topic, though it is directed more to academics than to working managers.
-Constance Helfat, et al, Dynamic Capabilities: Understanding Strategic Change in Organizations (Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2007). This book is a collection of somewhat scholarly articles on the course topic.
-Robert M. Grant, Contemporary Strategy Analysis, 7th Ed. (John Wiley & Son, 2010). A very comprehensive and well written primer on strategy as it is generally practiced by managers today. While not focused on the “dynamic capabilities approach,” it is an excellent overview of the field as it is traditionally perceived.
BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Class attendance and Participation (20%),
two case write-up (40%), and group project (40%)
ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
This course deals
with the management of strategic adaptation and change within highly
competitive markets. 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. Why this is
so remains controversial: does it have to do with the velocity of change in the
business environment— the speed with which change is occurring being too rapid
for easy adjustment? Or is it
ill-equipped managers who are unable or unwilling to understand market dynamics
quickly enough to reallocate resources to the new conditions that surround
them? Or is it ultimately due to a combination of these
external environment - internal behavioral and organizational
forces?
To respond to
these questions we will utilize the emerging management construct of “Dynamic
Capabilities” to organize the course.
Dynamic Capabilities can be described as “the firm’s ability to
integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competences to address
rapidly changing environments” (as described by its creator, Professor D. Teece of Haas). Traditional strategic management concepts,
e.g., the “Porter model” of competitor analysis or “blue ocean strategy” as
advocated by Kim and Mauborgne are under stress for
their difficulty in resolving problems presented by the global, technologically
driven, knowledge-based, and extremely dynamic marketplace that characterizes
many if not most 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
supply 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-- and indeed, blind adherence to it may
be the reason for the strategic failure of so many firms when confronted with
market change.
An evolution in
thinking is perhaps inevitable in how business firm managers approach their
task in the new and dynamic 21st Century economy. While some firms appear to have grasped this
call, many are still either in denial about the need to change or they
encounter strong internal resistance to a recalibration of both the means and
ends of the organization. The emerging
concept of “dynamic capabilities” is designed to address these shortcomings.
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.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: See http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/faculty/tiffany.html