James Cook University Subject Handbook - 2020

LB5113 - Corporate Strategy

Subject Description

This subject covers the fundamentals of corporate-level strategy as opposed to business-level strategy. "Business-level" (business) strategy deals with achieving and sustaining a competitive advantage in a discrete and identifiable business. "Corporate-level" (corporate) strategy deals with the way a company creates value through the selection of a portfolio of businesses and the configuration and coordination of these businesses. The primary way in which corporate strategy ultimately creates value is through increasing the ability of businesses in the portfolio to create and sustain a competitive advantage. For example, sharing manufacturing activities may reduce costs. Alternatively, sharing a strong brand may increase differentiation while reducing overall marketing costs. Hence there is a very close relationship between business and corporate strategy. The major topics we will cover are diversification (related and unrelated), vertical integration, restructuring, synergy, alliance strategy, and global strategy. We will be introducing a variety of tools to help us analyse these topics. The primary objective of the subject is to introduce you to the primary decisions, tools, and concepts of corporate strategy. By the end of the course you should be able to understand how multi-business firms can create and destroy value; be able to engage in a thoughtful discussion of corporate strategy with senior executives; be able to identify opportunities to improve corporate strategy; understand and be able to analyse the major benefits and risks of various diversification strategies; understand the economic and organizational realities behind the term "synergy" and be able to identify and analyse synergy opportunities; understand the role alliances play in corporate strategy and be able to analyse the major trade-offs between alliances and acquisitions; understand the role a particular business plays in a corporate strategy; and understand the nature and strategic implications of both regional/global rationalization and local responsiveness in global strategy.

Learning Outcomes

• analyse and evaluate decision-making strategies by applying the tools and using the concepts of corporate strategy
• critically analyse strategic approaches and sustainable practices as a means of creating resilient, inclusive and innovative businesses and communities
• employ a range of methods, techniques and tools to plan and conduct business to generate solutions to complex problems in global contexts

Subject Assessment

• Research Paper - (20%)
• Industry Analysis - (35%)
• Case Study - (45%)

Note that minor variations might occur due to the continuous subject quality improvement process, and in case of minor variation(s) in assessment details, the Subject Outline represents the latest official information.

Availabilities