"Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent" (Mao Tse-tung)

Radical shift in a firm's competitive environment is one of the top challenges for managers. Newspaper headlines never stop reporting how fast our world is changing and demanding companies to change themselves. From the invasion of Chinese competitors, via the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, to new cultural waves of K-Pop consumption, the list of change seems to be endless. How can a firm survive and thrive in the face of such continuous, yet powerful shifts in its competitive environment? This course is designed to help you answer this question and reposition your firm's strategy against the environmental change.

You will take the perspective of the top manager of your own firm. As the top manager, you should consider i) the nature of the environmental shifts occurring to your firm and your industry, and ii) strategies that allow your firm to leverage the changes as opportunities to strengthen your firm's competitive advantage. A key course objective is for you to develop your own personal synthesis and approach for the following topics:
 Shifts in technological environment - sustaining vs. disruptive innovations
 Shifts in institutional environment - socio-cultural foundations of market evolution
 Shifts in competitive environment - market entry and competitive dynamics
 Strategy pivoting & resource recalibration - realigning resource portfolio for corporate growth
 Governing innovation and change - organizational structure, performance indices, and culture
 Enlarging competitive horizon -  platform and network-based competition

To capture the complex nature of business problems and strategic solutions to them, this course is taught through the case method. We will supplement the case discussions with reading, lectures, and conceptual discussions. Students are strongly encouraged to draw on their own managerial experiences and share them with their peers in class. The course calendar (to be finalized after the first class) includes a computer simulation (session3: technological shifts), which we will draw on throughout the semester. Understanding of the fundamental business and corporate level strategy (Core Strategy) is a prerequisite to this course. The topics of change implementation in organizations are discussed more in-depth in Change Management class in the program.

Faculty: Sun Hyun Park

Course Date & Time

Tuesdays and Thursdays; 14:00 - 18:00 (KST)