LFU:online

Students acquire the knowledge and skills to react to change within organizations and to manage them accordingly. They will examine the role of strategy in responding to technological progress and acquire knowledge of how initiatives for organizational change can be implemented and realized.

By the end of the course students will be able to…

·        …develop an understanding of strategy implementation or execution in complex organizations. The focus is on developing a logical model of and approach to execution that highlights key decisions or actions and their relationships.

·        …understand how organizational context and managerial decisions are interdependent and critical to the successful execution of strategy

·        … develop a sensitivity to the "realities" of organizations.  It is necessary to see strategy implementation as a process influence, and change that, to be successful, must take a number of factors into consideration, including how decisions affect individuals in the organization and their consequent commitment to execution efforts.

·        …to become a better implementer and communicator of strategy.

Creating new successful strategies is difficult. But an even bigger challenge bedeviling companies concerns the implementation of strategies once they are created. The vast majority of new or revised strategies – no matter how well-crafted they are – fail in their implementation. However, companies rise and fall not according to their strategic brilliance but according to their ability to execute on their strategic intentions.

This course focuses on strategy implementation, with emphasis on the decisions, actions, and conditions that facilitate the successful attainment of strategic objectives. It systematically reviews challenges arising in the process of executing strategy and approaches to resolving these challenges. It addresses the managerial challenge of strategy implementation, particularly by examining the organizational elements that must be drawn into line to support a strategy, as well as the difficulties of changing an organization. 

lectures, guest lectures from practitioners, in-class discussions

in-class discussions, student project and exam

selected articles and book chapters

successful completion of the compulsory module acc. to §8 par. 1 no.1