Syllabus B189 — Fall 2019

Course Description

Integrative capstone seminar analyzing inter-relationships of managerial decisions/actions within and between the firm and its environment. Applies multi-disciplinary techniques to diagnose and recommend actions appropriate to specific company situations, using case method.

Prerequisites: COMM 100W or ENGL 100WB or LLD 100WB. The course is restricted to graduating seniors only.

Program Level Learning Objectives

• To sharpen students' ability to think critically, logically and strategically.
• To diagnose business situations from a strategic perspective.

Course Learning Objectives

• Apply the following strategic analyitical perspectives to unfamiliar business situations
  • Value-price-cost framework
  • Industry and competitive analysis (Porter’s 5 forces model)
  • The Resource Based View of the firm
  • Generic strategies
  • Economies of scale, experience and learning
  • Diversification
  • Acquisition
  • Transaction costs economics and vertical integration
  • Network externalities
• Apply the knowledge, tools and techniques you have studied in your courses in economics (ECON 1A, 1B), accounting (BUS 20, BUS 21), marketing (BUS 130), operations management (BUS 140), management and organizational behaviour (BUS 160), finance (BUS 170), and QBA (BUS 190) in the context of a business simulation.

Required Reading

There are three required readings for this course.

The first two are:

• Rothaermel, Frank, Strategic Management: Concepts, 3rd Edition. ISBN: 9781307490367. This is an edited version of the book, tailored (shortened) specifically for this class.
• A small collection of three cases, ISBN: 9781307490374 to be discussed in class.

The second is a collection of handouts, Supplemental Readings in Strategy

Evaluation

Exams (35%) There is one mid-term exam and a final which will respectively count for 15% and 20% of your course grade. The exams will generally require either short answers or a single short essay based on a 3-4 page fictional case. Spelling and grammatical errors will reduce your grade.

Term research paper and presentation (31%)

• Your term paper will represent 25% of your grade.
• Your presentation will represent 5% of your grade.
• Submitting your slides ahead of the presentation (through Canvas) will add 1% to your grade.

Simulation (10%) Your grade in the simulation exercise will be based on:

• Your company’s financial performance in the simulation based on ‘Z-score’ metrics (10%)

In your written reports and oral presentation clarity and straight-forwardness is infinitely preferable to spin and BS.

Peer 360 evaluation (9%) Four times times during the semester you will be asked to make an assessment of your team members’ contribution to the team's collective effort. Of the 4 evaluations, the lowest will be dropped and the 3 best used in calculating your grade. You must complete your evaluation for your team’s assessment of your performance to be counted towards you grade.

Quizes and other exercises (15%) You will be asked to complete the Business Assessment Test (BAT) which will count for 9% of your grade. There is an accounting Excel based assignment worth 3%. There is an accounting Excel based exercise on decision trees worth 3%.

Grading scheme

I do not use a fixed scale to assign final letter grades. Since exams may vary in difficulty from semester to semester and I often introduce new ones, a fixed scale would not be fair, for example when an exam or a new assignment is particulalry challenging. My approach is to anchor the grading scale loosely based on the highest and lowest total scores for the semester’s work. This means you are not penalized if I set a particularly hard exam. This is not a forced curve, but the ends of the scale are determined by the range in perfomance across all the graded assignments. Differently abled students should contact me if these evaluation procedures are not appropriate.

Following a recent change in university policy, there are no extra credit assignments.

Class schedule