MGMT 4900
Strategy, Policy and Planning

Spring 2015
TuTh 12:30 – 1:45pm, BUSN 218

Instructor: | Xian Cao | E-mail: | Xian.Cao@Business.Uconn.Edu | Office:Phone: | School of Business 404(860)486-6423 | Office Hours: | TuTh 1:45 – 2:45pm and By Appointment |

I. Course Description and Objectives

Course Description:

A strategy is an integrated and coordinated commitment designed to exploit a firm’s core competencies. Managers use a strategy to identify market opportunities, analyze competitors, and determine among competing alternatives to enhance the performance of their firms. A strategic decision requires managers to use resources appropriately with respect to external environments in order to help their firms create unique firm value and gain competitive advantages. In this sense, a strategy tells managers what the firm will do as well as what the firm will not do.

MGMT 4900 introduces the key concepts, tools and principals of strategic management. It requires you to have an interdisciplinary perspective that uses the ideas, concepts, and theories from your functional courses such as Accounting, Economics, Finance, Marketing, Organizational Behavior, and Statistics. It requires you to take a general management perspective to evaluate and analyze policies in each above functional area and integrate them into an overall competitive strategy.

Learning Objectives: * Clearly understand the key concepts, tools and principals of strategic management ; * Develop the ability to conduct strategic analyses qualitatively and quantitatively; * Develop the ability to take a general management perspective in analyzing a company strategically; * Develop the ability to integrate your accumulated knowledge from previously taken functional courses such as