Strategy Implementation and Organizational Change

Catalog description

This course 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 immense difficulties of changing an organization. As such, the course relies on two overarching frameworks. The first is a model of organizational alignment; the second is a model for managing the change process. The course will emphasize application and practice, primarily by the use of cases. Students will be asked, class after class, to take the position of a senior manager or an adviser to a manager, and develop answers to questions like these: What's the real problem here? How are the elements of the problem interconnected? What should be done? How, specifically, should we go about it? Strategy Implementation and Organizational Change will be relevant for a broad array of students, including those hoping to be managers, consultants, investors, and entrepreneurs. Because the course focuses on changing entire organizations (rather than small parts of organizations), we will be primarily taking the point of view of senior managers. However, our frameworks and tools, and the skills students will develop, will be useful early in their careers, as they face the need to manage change in their own subunits, as well as the need to comprehend and contribute to firm-wide changes.