Strategic Management: A Competitive Advantage Approach Concepts and Cases 17th Edition Instructor ma
11. Each chapter concludes with a mini-case designed to apply chapter concepts and techniques. The Chapter 1 mini-case is on Tesla, Inc., an American firm that may do the best job of strategic planning among all firms. Go over the mini-case in this and all chapters.
12. All end-of-chapter review questions are excellent, so go over as many as possible in class. Sometimes in class, the authors will assign every student a question and give the class 10 minutes to develop answers and then let each student give the class the answer, and then comment on the answer (answers to all questions are given later in this manual). This is a great way to promote teacher/student interaction.
13. Ask students to read the Coca-Cola Company Cohesion Case presented after Chapter 1 because a third of all the end-of-chapter exercises at the end of every chapter apply chapter concepts to the Coca-Cola case – thus preparing students for developing a case analysis on their assigned company. Divide students into three- or four-person teams within the first two weeks of class and assign to them one of the 30 cases in the book, and schedule a day for the teams to each give a 10- to 15-minute oral presentation revealing their recommended three-year strategic plan for the firm. The authors and most professors using this book use this approach.
14. It is important to spend some class time also on the Chapter 1 end-of-chapter Exercises 1A and 1B that apply the strategic-management process to the Coca-Cola Company Cohesion Case. Associated exercises at the end of other chapters utilize the information obtained from Exercises 1A and 1B and collectively help prepare students for performing case analysis on their assigned company.
15. A popular exercise at the end of Chapter 1 is 1C titled “Strategic Planning for My University.” You could spend a whole class day on this exercise alone. Definitely spend some time on this exercise because associated exercises at the end of each chapter apply strategy concepts to your college/university. Students are very knowledgeable about their university and their opinions differ widely as to strengths/weaknesses and opportunities/threats/strategies. Thus, spending class time working through this exercise will reveal to students how opinions vary regarding the importance of various factors/issues; opinions also vary in companies doing strategic planning. We use this exercise also to facilitate teacher/student interaction as well as student/student interaction, which is especially beneficial to do early in the semester.
16. Exercise 1E introduces a new group vs. individual decision-making exercise that appears at the end of each chapter in the 17th edition. These are fun, informative, effective exercises to determine winners and losers each day in class.
17. Encourage your students to use the free Excel Student Template at the author website at www.strategyclub.com. Your students will find this template to be immensely helpful in this course. Plus, two example strategic-management case projects are provided at this website as a guide for students to follow.
Answers to End-of-Chapter 1 Review Questions
1-1. Why do you believe SWOT analysis is so commonly used by businesses in doing strategic planning?
Answer: SWOT analysis is the most widely used strategic planning tool because it is intuitively simple, contains no numbers, lends itself to group discussion, and contains the basic building blocks of a strategic plan, namely strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
1-2. What variable does recent research reveal to be most important of all in doing business? Explain why this variable is so important.
Answer: Three Harvard Business School professors, Amy Cuddy, Susan Fiske, and Peter Glick, recently revealed in a new book, Presence, that the most important variable in doing business with someone you do not know is trustworthiness. The authors say that within seconds of meeting someone, people determine first and foremost the extent that the person is trustworthy. They say that variable is far more important than competence, intelligence, looks, strength, height, and numerous other variables.
1-3. For your college or university, identify a strategy that would exemplify the matching concept evidenced in SWOT analysis.
Answer: An external threat could be “a 10% annual decline in state funding.” A weakness could be “lack of sufficient external fund raising.” The strategy to offset could be for the university to seek external funds by placing people’s names on buildings, classrooms, and even seats in classrooms.