Today’s managers are faced with responsibilities for functional and staff management, as well as developing strategies for growth, leading teams, and staying competitive in evolving industries and markets globally. The range of knowledge and skills required by corporate managers requires the breadth of readily applicable concepts present in this course series.

The courses addresses the major components of business: strategy, leadership, entrepreneurship, organizational theory, international business, innovation, and finance. The lessons include a large and diverse set of management research, often accessible only to academics, has practical, actionable implications to help in managing an organization today.

Each course acts as a refresher or a way to expand beyond the concepts taught in many MBA programs. Eric and Joe provide a means for managers to reassess and extend their knowledge in the context of their professional experience, and to review the major concepts and put them into a cohesive business strategy.

This course reviews academic models of strategy since the early work in the field in the 1960s. We focus more on business strategy (how a business competes in its industry) than on corporate strategy (which businesses a corporation chooses to participate in). Some of the models we cover include:

• Michael Porter's competitive forces
• Institutional Economics approach
• Resource-Based View of the Firm
• Strategic Capabilities
• Game Theory
• Learning versus Planning
• Sustainable Competitive Advantage and Social Capital
• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Real Options
• Scenario Analysis
• Strategy Execution