Strategy and Organizations

Why are some organizations more competitive than others?  This is one of the defining questions of the interdisciplinary research field known as strategic management.  In this seminar, we will survey the field of strategic management as seen through the lens of organization theory, touching on the four main theoretical approaches that have developed there.Most work in strategic management pays little attention to particular theoretical perspectives, and is organized more by the topic - the phenomenon being studied - such as market exit, growth, performance, mergers and acquisitions, innovation, and the like.  I have catalogued the research in strategic management both according to theoretical perspective and topic, and that structure is developed in this course.  Our goal is to help you to identify theoretical perspectives as you try to understand the strategy field.