Introduction to Strategic

Management

1
 Dr. Cheng-Hua Tzeng
• Cheng-Hua Tzeng earned his Ph.D. in Strategy and Organization
from McGill University and currently is an Associate Professor of
Strategic Management in the Department of Business
Administration at Fudan School of Management.

• He teaches Strategic Management for students of International

MBA (affiliated program with MIT Sloan School of Management),
Asia MBA (a joint program with National University of Singapore
and Korea University), EMBA (a joint program with Washington
University in St. Louis), Harvard-Fudan executive program (Growing
Professional Service Firm--China).

• He is also a mentor of Fudan-MIT China Laboratory project, in

which Fudan and MIT MBA students work together to provide
consulting recommendations to Chinese entrepreneurial firms.

2
 My teaching capabilities
• I teach in highly prestigious international
programs at Fudan
– Fudan-Harvard, Fudan-MIT, Fudan-London
Business School programs
• My training sessions are highly welcome by
private-owned companies, state-owned
companies, foreign companies
• You cannot find other professors who could
match my experiences

3
 My research capabilities
• (1) Tzeng, Cheng-Hua. 2019. "Executing absorptive
capacity: a case study of spillover utilization by a
domestic firm in China’s hotel industry." Asian Business
& Management: 1-26.
• (2) Tzeng, Cheng-Hua. 2018. "How foreign knowledge
spillovers by returnee managers occur at domestic
firms: An institutional theory perspective."
International Business Review 27, no. 3: 625-641.
• (3) Tzeng, Cheng-Hua. 2018. “How domestic firms
absorb spillovers: A routine-based model of absorptive
capacity view.” Management and Organization Review
14, no. 3: 543-576.

4
 My research wins award
• 2018.12, Article of the Month, Management
and Organization Review
https://www.fdsm.fudan.edu.cn/AboutUs/pre
view.html?uid=85324

5
• Email address: chtzeng@163.com

• TA: wufeiting@fudan.edu.cn

• Office hour: right after the class

6
 Learning Materials
• Textbook
– The Management of Strategy, 12th Edition, by Ireland,
Hoskisson and Hitt (2017)
• Cases
– Cases from Harvard Business School and other
Business Schools
• Slides
– 1. Pre-class slides (to drive discussion in class)
– 2. After-class slides (the full version of slides)
• Video
– You need to learn to how diagnose a case

7
 Topics
• 1. Introduction to Strategic Management
• 2. External Analysis
• 3. Internal Analysis
• 4. Business Level Strategy

8
 Major cases
• Poster sessions
– 1. Tesla (session 4)
– 2. GE digital transformation(session 7)
– 3. Huawei(session 10)
– 4. Apple (session 13)
• Lecturing sessions (all other sessions)
– Theories and cases
• Cases include successful and failure
companies
9
 Poster sessions
• Before class
– You need to read the case before the class
• In class
– I will briefly review the case details (15 min)
– You will break into groups to write down your
thoughts on posters (15 min)
– I will invite you one by one to share your thoughts (15
min)
– I comment on each team (5 min/team)
– I wrap up the discussion (30 min)

10
 Why Poster sessions?

• Because in many occasions, you may not have

opportunities to prepare slides, and you need
to think on your feet.

• This skill is particularly important in strategic

planning session.

11
Method and Weighting of Assessment
• Class Participation 14%
– 1 % each session
– If you did not have opportunities to participate in class, you could also email
your “lessons learned” to me after the class (by the midnight 12:00 am before
next class).
– Your 400(to 500)-word “lessons learned” will consist of how the lessons from
this class help you better understand this puzzle/strategic question and your
reflections on the class
– 吴菲婷: wufeiting@fudan.edu.cn
• Poster session 20 %
– 5 % each poster session
– Grading based on your poster
• Take a photo and send to TA
• Peer contribution 24% (6% each poster session)
– Poster session X Peer evaluation
• For example: poster session (8/10) X Poster session (8/10) =>6.4
• Final Exam 42%: two weeks (dates to be determined)

12
13
14
15
16
17
 Learning Outcome of this Course
• 1. Formulate strategy aimed at establishing sustainable
competitive advantage based upon the exploitation of
external opportunities and avoid threats.
• 2. Formulate strategy aimed at establishing sustainable
competitive advantage based upon the deployment of
superior resources and capabilities.
• 3. Use a set of operational tools of analysis aimed at
gaining short- to medium-term advantages in markets
where long term advantages are difficult or impossible
to create.

18
 Supplemental Learning Outcomes
• 4. Identify resources and relationships
relevant to the proposed course of action

• 5. Practice and improve your verbal and

written communications skills with regard to
strategy formulation and execution

19
 What is NOT learning in this class
• It is not learning by rote
– “New Oriental” learning style (learning by wrote) is a
memorization technique based on repetition.
– “New Oriental” learning style is of no use in MBA program
– If a professor teaches you like “New Oriental” teacher, then s/he
is wrong.
• It is not reading slides
– WRONG: “I need to have slides so that I can learn”
– If a professor gives you a lot of slides, then s/he is wrong.

• It is not theoretical learning

– Wrong: “Professor, I want to learn as many theories as possible”

20
 What is learning in this class
• Learning is based on thinking and discussion
– So we will have a lot of discussion in class
– This is how Harvard-business-school MBA learns.
– So you will receive minimum slides from me
– Thinking and discussion in class helps you internalize the
knowledge

• Learning is practical learning

– You learn the theory because you want to use it in practice
– How to use the theory is what you will learn in this class

21
 How to benefit most from this class
• 1. You need to take note quickly
– If you don’t take note, you are not learning
• 2. You need to think quickly
– If you do not think, you are not learning
• 3. You need to answer my questions quickly
– If you don’t answer my questions, you are not
learning
• 4. Overall, you are a knowledge hunter

22
 What you will benefit from this class
• You will develop a stronger sense and
sensitivities in formulating and implementing
strategies
– E.g. Fuyao group
– You will not remember most of the framework and
cases one year after your DDIM program
– But discussions based on theories and cases can
sharpen your sense and sensitivities.
• In other words, I help you internalize strategic
management theories and cases

23
 Learning Methods
Concepts

Case Discussions Case Discussions

Experiences Impacts
• Case analysis: when theory meets practice

25
26
 Types of Cases
• Timely Case versus Timeless case
– Reading timeless cases make you a thoughtful
MBA
• The value of the case: Generalizability
– The lessons could be applied across companies,
industries, countries, and time
• Cases could provide template for your future
strategic management
– Think it as lego

27
5-I in case analysis
29
 The purposes of case analysis

• The best case analysis “enables people to

realize something that was previously
unrealized, and comprehend something that
was previously not comprehended” (Bate
1997, p. 1169)

30
 The component of case analysis

• Perspective +Framework+ Elaboration

– Perspective: different stakeholders
– Framework: Theoretical framework
– Elaboration: Why and how this firm succeeds or
fails
To verbalize your thoughts

32
To visualize your thoughts

33
Three important skills in
an organization

34
 Technical skills
• Technical skills are the job-specific knowledge
and techniques needed to proficiently perform
work tasks.
– These skills tend to be more important for first-line
managers because they typically manage employees
who use tools and techniques to produce the
organization’s products or service the organization’s
customers.
• Often, employees with excellent technical skills
get promoted to first-line manager.

35
 Human skills
• Human skills involve the ability to work well
with other people both individually and in a
group.
– Because all managers deal with people, these
skills are equally important to all levels of
management.
– Managers with good human skills get the best out
of their people. They know how to communicate,
motivate, lead, and inspire enthusiasm and trust.

36
 Conceptual skills
• Conceptual skills are the skills managers use to
think and to conceptualize about abstract and
complex situations.
– Using these skills, managers see the organization
as a whole, understand the relationships among
various subunits, and visualize how the
organization fits into its broader environment.
– These skills are most important to top managers.

37
 Levels of Analysis in
Strategic Management

38
 Elements in Strategic Thinking
• 1. Seeing the big picture
– understand the broader business environment in
which you operate.
• 2. Articulate strategic objectives
– determining what you hope to achieve.
• 3. Identifying relationships, patterns and trends
– potting patterns across seemingly unrelated events,
and categorizing related information to reduce the
number of issues you must grapple with at one time.
 Elements in Strategic Thinking
• 4. Analyzing information
– sorting out prioritizing the most important information while
making a decision, managing a project, handling a conflict and
so forth
• 5. Prioritizing your actions
– staying focused on your objectives while handling multiple
demands and commentating priorities
– Which of these are the most critical—that is, which will
generate the most important results for my company?
• 6. Making trade-offs
– recognizing the potential advantages and disadvantages of an
idea or course of action, making choices regarding what you will
and won’t do, and balancing short-and long-term concerns
Strategic Management

42
 Starting point
• A firm’s survival and success are eventually based on its ability to
meet at least three sets of objectives.
– First, it must satisfy some market demands or needs. Without
an external demand for its outputs, the firm must eventually die.
– Second, in a competitive environment, to succeed a firm must
attempt to develop a competitive advantage over other firms
seeking to offer products to the same markets.
– Third, a firm needs to establish an internally consistent set of
throughput processes that ensure that the above output and
competitive advantage demands are met

43
Strategy Making Process

44
45
• Strategy process is characterized by a “concern
with action, dynamism, time, development,
and outcomes” (Pettigrew, 1992:6).

46
 Strategy as position
• “Finding positions in the industry where
competitive forces are weakest” (Porter
1979a, p. 143),
• “creating a unique and valuable position
ideal for each firm” (Porter 1996, p. 68)

47
 Strategy as Position
• Find a position
different from
competitors in the
market
– A sustainable “niche” in
the environment that
may avoid competition

48
 Why a company
needs strategy?
• How to position the company in the marketplace.
• How to attract customers.
• How to compete against rivals.
• How to achieve the company’s performance
targets.
• How to capitalize on opportunities to grow the
business.
• How to respond to changing economic and
market conditions.

49
 How to evaluate strategy: the logics of
strategy
• Consistency
– The strategy must not present mutually
inconsistent goals and policies.
• Consonance
– The strategy must represent an adaptive response
to the external environment and to the critical
changes occurring within it.

50
 How to evaluate strategy: the logics
of strategy
• Advantage
– The strategy must provide for the creation and/or
maintenance of a competitive advantage in the
selected area of activity.
• Feasibility
– The strategy must neither overtax available
resources nor create unsolvable subproblems

51