Strategy Creation and Implementation

Course Director: Nenad Apostoloski
Teacher: Renate Kratochvil

This course is about how strategies are created and implemented. Most strategy teaching asks how firms analyze their industry and resources and choose a competitive position. In this course, we ask how strategies actually come into being and get carried out, and how to tell when analysis and prediction are enough and when they are not. We challenge the view that strategizing is a purely rational process of analysis, planning and implementation, and we look at how strategies form, adapt and are reshaped as organizations meet setbacks and surprises.

One framework runs through the course. It asks two questions about any strategic situation: how well can the future be predicted, and how far can the actor shape it through their own means and the commitments of others? Crossing the two gives four approaches to strategy. Planning predicts the future and positions the firm for it. Visionary strategy predicts the future and commits boldly to bring it about. Adaptive strategy adjusts quickly as an unpredictable future unfolds. Transformative, or effectual, strategy shapes an unpredictable future with the means at hand. Students learn to recognize which approach a situation calls for, and use the framework to analyze cases, guest lectures and their own strategy.

We begin by asking why strategies succeed and fail, and how much we can really learn from success stories. We then discuss how strategies form, deliberately and emergently, and how expert entrepreneurs shape futures they cannot predict. From there we turn to when to experiment and when to commit, and how to decide well under uncertainty. Finally, we look at where strategy really gets made: in the allocation of resources, in the work of middle managers, and in the tools and routines of everyday strategy work.

Several practitioners and leaders from established firms share how they create and implement strategy, the problems they have encountered and the solutions they have found. You will not simply be the audience of this course. You will apply the course concepts to a real organization in a group assignment, and to the organization you know best, yourself, by formulating a personal strategy.

The course combines short lectures, cases, exercises and debates, guest lectures, a poster session and coaching for each group.

The organizations that send guest lecturers open up to us, and we honor that commitment with full engagement, so unexcused absence affects the grade. The course builds on basic strategy frameworks such as industry and resource analysis. Students who have not taken Strategy (BE202) will find a short primer on Canvas.

Course administrator: Tina.Bengtsson@hhs.se, Lixin.Lu@hhs.se

After completing the course, students will be able to:

1. explain how strategies form through deliberate planning, emergent adaptation and effectual action;
2. judge which approach to strategy fits the uncertainty an organization faces;
3. analyze how an organization’s current strategy was created;
4. design a strategic move for an uncertain situation;
5. critically evaluate explanations of strategic success and failure;
6. formulate a personal strategy and reflect critically on the process of creating it.

General entry requirements.

The course uses practitioner articles, selected research articles in strategy and entrepreneurship, and teaching cases. The readings cover how strategies form, the four approaches to strategy (planning, adaptive, visionary and effectual), decision-making under uncertainty, and the implementation of strategy in organizations.

Several sessions are case-based, and the cases are provided to students. The full reading list, organized by session, is published on Canvas at the start of the course.

The course is examined through one group assignment and one individual assignment. Each is graded on a 0–100 point scale. To pass the course, a student must score at least 50 points on each assignment.

Group assignment: 40% Groups choose an organization facing a strategic challenge that calls for a decision it has not yet made. They trace how its current strategy was created, assess how well the usual explanations of its success or failure hold up, define the decision the challenge calls for, judge how predictable and controllable it is, and design how to pursue it with the approach that fits, from first steps to implementation. Groups present their analysis and chosen approach at a poster session and then submit a final written report that includes the implementation plan. A short peer evaluation within each group can adjust individual grades. Assesses learning outcomes 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Individual assignment: 60% Each student builds a personal strategy from their own means: who they are, what they know and whom they know. The strategy places the student's goals on the course framework, includes one real request for commitment from a potential partner and a first step that can be tested, and reflects on the process using the course readings. Assesses learning outcomes 1, 2 and 6.

Find the course schedule in TimeEdit

Have you been granted educational support because of a documented disability? If so, please contact the course director as soon as possible so that adequate accommodations can be made.

Contact specialneeds@hhs.se if you have questions about being granted educational support or need a copy of your educational support certificate.

For more information, visit the Specific Educational Needs page on the Student Hub (login required).