Corporate Strategy & Strategic Control
PROFF. ALESSANDRI TODD-LAURA ZONI
Module I - Corporate Strategy
COURSE AIMS
The course aims:
- to transfer knowledge;
- to develop skills and the capacity to analyse, evaluate and formulate strategy at
a company level.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
- Understanding of the main concepts and strategic models of corporate strategy.
- Capacity to analyse and to evaluate a corporate strategy.
COURSE CONTENT
- Strategies at a corporate level.
- Portfolio strategies and horizontal strategy.
- Business / financial strategy.
- Social strategy.
- External growth strategies: mergers, acquisitions, strategic alliances.
- Corporate governance decisions.
READING LIST
Required: Coursepack including readings and cases.
Recommended: COLLIS-MONTGOMERY, Corporate Strategy: A Resource-Based Approach,
2005 (note: This book is only available as a electronic book through McGraw-Hill Irwin).
The professor shall indicate additional materials throughout the course, including
supplemental reading materials, articles and cases.
TEACHING METHOD
The course will be taught through a combination of instructional methods: lectures,
discussions of corporate cases, and group and individual projects.
ASSESSMENT METHOD
The exam can be taken on the basis of one of two options:
Students attending class on a regular basis
Class attendance is mandatory.
Instructional materials consist of cases, texts supplied or indicated by the professor,
presentations.
Written exam.
Individual case analyses are contemplated during the course.
All tests and class participation will be counted in the determination of the final grade.
Students not attending class on a regular basis.
Written exam on basic textbook/readings and interview on topics identified by the professor.
Students can meet with Professor Alessandri on the days and at the times indicated on the
Faculty notice board and published on the professors' pages of the University site.
Module II – Strategic Control
PROFESSOR LAURA ZONI
COURSE AIMS
Rapid technological innovation, growing competition between businesses, and growing
demands of customers have changed competitive dynamics. Considered from this
perspective, control systems support the key aspects of strategy implementation, such as:
- the strategically effective use of resources;
- the guiding of the behaviours of the individuals who work within a company;
- the evaluation and control of strategic risks;
- the generation of stakeholder confidence.
The course tackles the theme of planning and the operation of management planning and
control systems, with a particular emphasis on performance-measurement systems.
The course is addressed to the student body at large.
Students will be required to do some problem solving with the use of cases. By rationalising
ex post, it will be possible to understand the phenomena and pragmatic implications of a
firm's control and performance-evaluation systems.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of the module, the students should be able to:
- Recognise the characteristics of the control system structure.
- Identify the variables for planning the control process.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the managerial control system in relation to the strategies
pursued by the firm.
- Plan a performance-measurement system to support managerial activity.
COURSE CONTENT
The course is divided into two parts:
- the infrastructure of control systems: analytical accounting, profit centres, transfer
prices;
- the control process: strategic planning, operations planning and budgeting, reporting
systems and performance-measurement systems.
READING LIST
The textbook is a custom edition of K. MERCHANT-W. VAN DER STEEDE, Management Control
Systems, Pearson 2012.
To supplement the textbooks, the professor will make available a series of documents
(collections of case studies and themes from past exams, and lecture notes) that students
may purchase at the beginning of the course from the copy centre for the Faculty of
Economics.
TEACHING METHOD
The course will be taught through lectures on theory, analyses and discussion of corporate
cases.
ASSESSMENT METHOD
Written exam.
NOTES
Further information can be found on the Faculty notice board.