DRAFT ONLY Fall 2001.

INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT / GMU ITRN 773 / ARLINGTON

BASIC COURSE DATA

Instructor: Tom Blau. Office tel: (703) 425-3370. home tel: (703) 425-3267. Fax: (703) 425-0190. Mobile: (703) 928-5322. email: tomblau1@earthlink.net

CATALOG DESCRIPTION

“Presents a comprehensive approach to international strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation processes affecting policy and program development within multinational firms and government agencies. Integrates marketing, finance, accounting, and management. Covers techniques for forecasting international business, political, economic, technological, legal, and socio-cultural forces.”

EMPHASIS OF OUR CLASS

This course focuses on the scientific and practical value of strategic concepts used by private and government enterprises to compete globally. We draw on the disciplines of strategic management, economics, political science, technology forecasting and scenario building.

The course will focus on key aspects of the new global environment. These include new technology, new thinking about organization, leadership and management, types of corporate internationalism (multinationalism, globalism, alliance formation), international and cultural differences in strategy, role of smaller actors and entrepreneurs, government as a factor for the private sector; government’s own strategic challenges; the context of international politics and economic rivalry.

We seek also to build on the experience of students, through team projects. The course will refer frequently to industries such as aerospace, finance, and information & communications (“information technology,” “infotech,” IT), because they are pervasive, important, and raise cross-border issues. They demonstrate complexities of international strategy. What industries interest you?

READINGS

1. TEXT

David A. Aaker, Developing Business Strategies. John Wiley & Sons. October 1998. ISBN: 0-471-18364-4

2. JOURNAL ARTICLES

(See GMU Libraries, e.g. Business Index ASAP database)

1. Paul J.H. Schoemaker. "Scenario Planning: A Tool for Strategic Thinking." 36Sloan Management Review 2. Winter 1995. 25-41.

All the following in Harvard Business Review:

2. Jean-Louis Barsoux and Peter Lawrence. "The Making of a French Manager." Harvard Business Review.. July-August 1991. 2-9.

3. Shintaro Hori. “Fixing Japan's white-collar economy: a personal view.” 71 Harvard Business Review 6. November-December 1993. 157-73.

4. Philip B. Evans and Thomas S. Wurster. “Strategy and the New Economics of Information.” September-October 1997. 71-82.

All the following in Harvard Business Review by Michael E. Porter:

5. “What is Strategy?” November-December 1996. 61-78

6. "The Competitive Advantage of Nations." March-April 1990. Vol. 90, No. 2. 73-93.

7. “Clusters and the New Economics of Competition." November-December 1998. 77-90.

3. CASE STUDIES

From Harvard Business School & other sources (not in Library; must purchase):

1. AIRBORNE EXPRESS: Jan W. Rivkin. “Airborne Express (A).” Harvard Business School Case # 9-798-070. Rev. December 7, 1999.

2. ENRON: David Lane. “Enron: Entrepreneurial Energy.” Harvard Business School Case # 9-700-079. Rev. August 14, 2000. See also, Daniel Pearl. “Indian Paradox: States Starved for Electricity Spook the Big Producers.” The Wall Street Journal. March 14, 2001. (Get from Library)

3. MICROSOFT: Alberto Ballve and Antonio Davila. “Microsoft Latin America.” Harvard Business School Case # 9-100-040. Rev. August 16, 2000.

4. NOVARTIS: Carin-Isabel Knoop. “Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (A): The First Month.” Harvard Business School Case # 9-399-123. Rev. March 17, 1999.

5. PHILIPS, MATSUSHITA: Christopher A. Bartlett. “Philips and Matsushita: Preparing for a New Round.” Harvard Business School Case # 9-399-102. Rev. August 27, 1999.

6. TATA: Robert K. Kennedy. “Tata Consultancy Services: High Technology in a Low-Income Country.” Harvard Business School Case # 9-700-092. Rev. November 29, 2000.

SOURCES OF NEWS

General strategic news, and finance: Financial Times, Wall Street Journal (including specialized editions such as The Asian Wall Street Journal), The Economist, Far Eastern Economic Review, Forbes. There are several good business journals published in French, German, Japanese and other languages. Key foreign affairs journals, such as the US-based The National Interest, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Orbis, Washington Quarterly, sometimes are useful.

On IT, we like Forbes ASAP, Information Week, InfoWorld, Industry Standard, Red Herring, Teleconnect, Upside, Wired and business publications cited above.

In aerospace, the leading publications include Aviation Week & Space Technology, Flight International, various Jane’s publications, Aerospace Daily.

ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING

The course combines reading and a student report in the form of a briefing. Student work ideally will build on past academic or professional experience, or the student’s goals. Grades derive from:

1. Class discussions on assignments,in class and on-line - 33%.

2. Team grade for team briefing of a strategic case. - 33%

3. Individual grade for parts of the briefing that the individual led. - 33%.

TEAMS WILL CRITICALLY BRIEF AN UPDATED CASE

The briefing is an update of one of the case studies offered above. Please read all the cases and choose one for a subject.

These cases originally were written in narrative form. However, your study should update the case and present it as a briefing (i.e. a PowerPoint or outline kind of format).

Your update should address the question of, what has happened to this enterprise or situation since Harvard or whomever wrote the original case study? What do you think the protagonists of the case did, or are doing right now? How has the evolution of the enterprise or situation illustrated or contradicted strategic management ideas? Indeed, how good a job did the original case study do in anticipating the future? If it failed to anticipate the future, what good is it?

In the case briefing, please take an aggressive approach to the following:

1. Bringing up to date the facts of your subject (setting, market, industry, global situation, etc.).

2. Adapting strategic management concepts to your subject. Draw on and use our readings, or any other sources of strategic management concepts, and see how the enterprise or phenomenon described by the original case study has evolved.

The team presents the briefing in a live "run-through," where the goal is to elicit real-time feedback from the class. At the end of the course, the team electronically submits its final briefing package. The electronic package includes (1) a copy of the briefing; (2) any supplemental material the team feels is useful in making clear what it is doing; (3) footnotes as to sources; (4) a bibliography.

Each team member must have a principal assignment.. Let’s discuss.

Interesting past projects have been on Airbus Industrie, AT&T, BAE Systems (UK), Federal Express, Federal Aviation Administration, Global Crossing, HDW (Germany), Hewlett Packard in China, Honeywell Lufthansa Technik (Germany), Northrop Grumman, Pacific Century Cyber Works (Hong Kong).

SCHEDULE

CATEGORY 1 – INTRODUCTION TO CLASS AND TO THE SUBJECT (Class 1)

Class 1. Read Aaker, Chapters 1-2; and Porter, “What is Strategy?”

1. What is this course about? How does the course work?

2. What do enterprises do when they make strategy? How do enterprises turn strategy into a systematic activity?

3. What is a market? Why does it matter? What is a market for government? For non-governmental political organizations?

Suggestion: The challenge in answering “obvious” questions is not to say the obvious, but to get the obvious in the right order, and to capture the non-obvious. Try focusing on the order. Try thinking about the obvious and ask yourself, what if the opposite were true?

CATEGORY 2 – Strategic analysis. (Classes 2-4)

Class 2. Read Aaker, Chapters 3-4.

1. What is the relationship between an enterprise and its customers? What are customers?

2. What are competitors? How do they affect the enterprise? How do they affect strategy?

Class 3. Read Aaker, Chapters 5-6; and Schoemaker, "Scenario Planning: A Tool for Strategic Thinking."

1. How does the enterprise fit within its general market environment? Is everything in the environment relevant to the enterprise? If, not, how do we differentiate it?

2. How do we deal with the future? What do we address uncertainty?

CATEGORY 3 – The goals of strategy, and ways to pursue them. (Classes 4-6)

Class 4. Read Aaker, Chapters 7-8.

1. How do we measure success in the enterprise? What is the relationship between the measures and our strategy?

2. What is the importance of enterprise “advantages”? Why should they be “competitive”? Why should they be “sustainable”?

Class 5. Read Aaker, Chapters 9-10.

1. What kinds of enterprises should pursue differentiation? What kinds should not?

2. What are other paths to sustainable competitive advantage? How useful are they?

Class 6. Read Aaker, Chapters 11-12.

1. 1. How does the health of the market affect strategy? What are alternative strategies for good markets?

2. What is the appeal of new markets? Evaluate.

3. What are alternative strategies for bad markets? For example, what do you do if your business is long distance voice telephony, tobacco, or government services?

4. How do make your product special?

CATEGORY 4 -- Implementing in a hostile [or at least, competitive] world (Classes 7-10)

Class 7. Read Aaker, Chapters 13, 15.

1. Your strategy is marvelous. Now what do you do? Implementation in the enterprise.

2. How do you institutionalize strategic management and planning?

Classes 8. Globalization, globally,

Read Aaker, Chapter 14; Porter, "The Competitive Advantage of Nations" and his “Clusters and the New Economics of Competition"

1. What are the implications of globalization for governments?

Class 9. Globalization, locally.

Read Barsoux & Lawrence, "The Making of a French Manager" and Hori, “Fixing Japan's white-collar economy: a personal view;”

1. How does globalization affect the enterprise? How is globalization different from previous kinds of international relations?

2. What kinds of enterprises benefit from globalization? What kind, do not?

3. How should globalization affect their strategy?

Classes 10. The digital age.

Read Evans and Wurster.

1. What are the by-now obvious ideas about the impact of the Internet and related phenomena? Which of them have been undermined in the last year?

2. When the Internet and the rest of the world get into a steady-state relationship, what will it look like?

3. What is different about high-tech markets that strategists must understand? What are technology’s impacts on strategy?

4. What is information? How is different from other goods?

CATEGORY 5 – Team action (Classes 11-14)

Class 11. Presentations of team cases.

1. Provide a general view of the case you are reading.

2. Provide a general view of the enterprise, its environment, and what you think has changed, broadly speaking, since the author wrote the case.

3. Outline what you think will be the key strategic concepts at issue in this case.

Class 12. On-line feedback on draft efforts.

1. What did you learn from the presentations about your own case? What action are you taking on your case, as a result?

2. About the other cases? What are you recommendations to the other teams?

Classes 13-14. Team work sessions.

Exam day. Submit team briefing packages to Mr. Blau by 8 PM, by e-mail.

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