BUS 170

BUS 370

BUS 470

MGT 231

MGT 332

MGT 403

MGT 442

MGT 471

MGT 475

BUS 370

BUS 870

MKT 241N

MKT 344

MKT 441

IDS 289

BUS470 Business Policy and Strategy

12 Weeks (both Summer I and Summer II) May 24 through August 24

Section 11 / Class number 1318

    Class meets from 6:30 to 9:30 PM each Tuesday

Section 12 / Class number 1319

    Class meets from 6:30 to 9:30 PM each Thursday

Course description

The Business Policy and Strategy course integrates and applies all prior courses in the School of Business academic program.  It is the capstone course and endeavors to address the perspectives, understanding and decisions required of general managers (e.g., CEO).  At the end of this course, you should be able to formulate and recommend corporate level or business level strategy based on:

• the relationship of businesses and their domestic and international environments,
• industry and competitor analysis,
• organizational vision, mission and objectives;
• company situation analysis,
• the roles of organizational structure, systems and culture in formulating and implementing strategy, and
• control mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of strategic decisions during implementation.

Students that have the most difficulty with this course are those who are unable or unwilling to adopt the role of senior manager. This is not the kind of learning process  where there is always a clear right or wrong answer. Often there can be many different ‘right’ answers to the problem(s) and all can be equally successful depending on your plan for implementation. Sometimes the statement of the problem could elude us because what we are evaluating is seemingly a very well-run organization. In these cases, the ability to find ways to make future improvements can often be even more of a challenge that organizations that are suffering through serious problems.

Prerequisities:

• FIN 322 Financial Management, MGT 231 Management Theory and Practice, MGT 332 Organizational Behavior, MKT 241 N Principles of Marketing, SPC 101, Public Speaking, and Senior status in good standing. Note that the prerequisite requirements for MGT 231 and MGT 332 are both required for students in Management and Human Resource concentrations. For all other concentrations the prerequisites of MGT 231 and MGT 332 can be satisfied by successful completion of either of these courses.
• This is a capstone course, therefore all prerequisites for this course must be completed before you can enroll in this class. Taking a prerequisite at the same time as this course will not be allowed.

WebCT Direct Link:

Section 11, Tuesday: - to be announced

Section 12, Thursday: - https://learning.umassonline.net/webct/logon/10845933217231

Required text:

Required Cases and Text – Summer 2011 Our approach to the required course material is to do everything using downloadable e-books. There will be two different required e-books that you will need to buy; one for the text readings and one for the assigned cases. In addition we will use an online simulation that you will also have to purchase. There is no single bound book that satisfies all of the requirements and previous course materials will mostly not be enough to be helpful to you. The two custom e-books required can both be purchased with credit or debit cards online at www.mcgrawhillcreate.com/shop. These are identified using ISBN numbers. Assigned text readings:   9781121211919 Required casebook:   9781121211896          The cost to you for the text e-book and for the cases e-book is shown below. In addition to these two e-books, you will also be required to buy access to an online Business Simulation Game. Your total cost for required course materials will be: Text readings $42.92 Assigned Cases $19.19 Online Simulation $38.95 Total $101.06 Much of the text readings that you will need for the course are included in the 17th or 18th edition of the following book: Thompson, A., Strickland, A., & Gamble, J. 2009/2010/2012 Crafting & Executing Strategy: Text and Readings, Seventeenth or Eighteenth Edition. McGraw-Hill/Irwin. We will use the 18th edition because there are some significant differences in several of the chapters. In addition there are readings from other texts that have been included. If you have access to this book or an earlier edition, then you may be able to use it however you will also need to have access to this material, perhaps from a classmate.  In addition you will need the specific required cases, all of which are updated from prior courses and only some are included in the Thompson 18th edition of the text  Additional information will be provided to before the class starts via email. The bookstore has not been given any advance ordering information for this course so they will not have anything to support this course. Students using vouchers that have to be redeemed through the bookstore will need to have a special order processed.

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