Modulbeschreibung

Strategizing today differs largely from strategic planning of the past. Today, organizations are
confronted with continuous change and with many uncertainties that require to question and
evaluate their situation and often new technologies play a crucial role in this process. The goal of
the module Strategic Thinking and Acting (STTA) is to deepen the participant’s knowledge on
different situations to cope with strategically challenging situations and change in organizations’
environment. Students learn to “read” and interpret various patterns of strategic thinking and acting.
They will learn to interpret the broad variety, complexity, and ambiguity of strategizing. Against this
background the goal of strategizing is to create, maintain and protect sustainable competitive
advantages.

The module’s building blocks are, on the one hand, to classify strategic solutions and tools in the
context of specific temporal challenges. The course takes in the perspective of a phase-model of
strategic management that puts strategic tools and approaches in relation to specific challenges in
the environment.

On the other hand, the module aims at discussing and analyzing case studies and examples of real
life company situations and challenges that firms have to cope with in different contexts. Students
will analyze firm’s challenges and discuss possible solutions to that help coping with these. In doing
so students will apply various tools and reflect upon the limitations of these tools. The course is
grounded in a workshop design.

Topics to be discussed include, for instance, sustainable competitive advantage, digital platforms,
business ecosystems, Artificial Intelligence / data science and data sharing, disruption,
sustainability, open organization and open strategy, hybrid working models, knowledge
management and innovation, business model innovation, strategy under extreme uncertainty,
internal & external growth of firms, etc. These topics my be subject to modification.