Exploring Strategy - 1. Introduction Exploring Strategy represents o...

Ins tructor Manual Exploring Strategy Text and Cases Twelfth edition Richard Whittington Patrick Regnér Duncan Angwin Gerry Johnson Kevan Scholes 1 / 4

5 © Pearson Education Limited 2020

• Introduction

Exploring Strategy represents one of the most comprehensive packages of material and support for teachers and students of strategy. The following materials and assistance are now available:

• The text with improved design and layout to assist readers – including objectives for each part of the book and chapter learning outcomes, concept definitions, chapter summaries, additional reading and much more.

• Over seventy illustrations and fifteen Thinking Differently sections, each including questions to facilitate their use as mini cases or class discussions.

• Sixteen end-of-chapter case examples with specific relevance to the content of the chapter and with questions relating to the major learning issues in the chapter.

• End-of-chapter work assignments, which provide further opportunities for student assessment, additional work or self-assessment.

• Thirty case studies (text and cases version only) together with comprehensive teaching notes (in this manual and on the website). The case collection contains a rich mixture of material, including long and short cases from many different sectors and different countries.

• A number of ‘classic cases’ from past editions (where they are not carried forward into the twelfth edition but are still useful to tutors and students).

• The Strategy Experience simulation gives students hands-on experience of strategic analysis and decision making. The simulation can be used by individual students, or as part of a wider classroom exercise.

For students:

• Revision aids (flashcards, key concepts and glossary (in six languages)) • Multiple-choice questions, work assignments and grade book • Help with case studies (web links, FT articles and advice on analysing cases).

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Whittington et al., Exploring Strategy, 12e, Instructor’s Manual 6 © Pearson Education Limited 2020

For tutors:

• This Instructor’s Manual • PowerPoint slides • Tutors’ workshops led by the authors are held annually. These are practical days concerned with how teachers might gain most advantage from the book and associated materials. They also act as a forum in which to meet other strategy teachers.

Details on all of these items and extensive tutors’ debriefs of work assignments, illustrations, case examples and case studies are included in this manual.

Many of these materials are also relevant to our shorter version, Fundamentals of Strategy. This shorter version has the advantage of consistent definitions and frameworks and the same illustrations and end-of-chapter case examples. It should therefore be very easy for teachers using Exploring Strategy or Fundamentals of Strategy to switch between these two texts according to the needs of a particular course.

• Using this manual

This manual is designed for the assistance of teachers of strategy in planning how to gain maximum advantage from the text Exploring Strategy and the associated teaching and learning

materials. It should provide help with:

• planning a teaching approach to suit the type of participants, time available, etc.; • deciding on how to use the text, illustrations, case examples, readings and case studies in a teaching scheme;

• choosing additional material to include in a course; • using the work assignments for the illustrations, case examples and those at the end of each chapter;

• preparing to teach the case studies; • using the Exploring Strategy website.The next two sections are intended to be of particular use to teachers who are relatively new to teaching strategy or are designing new courses. Experienced teachers may wish to pass over Sections 3 and 4.

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Whittington et al., Exploring Strategy, 12e, Instructor’s Manual 7 © Pearson Education Limited 2020

• Planning your approach

This section provides some general guidance on how the design of a strategy course can be varied to meet the requirements of the participants and the practicalities of the situation. The factors listed below will also influence the way in which the text, readings, work assignments, case examples, case studies and videos can be used to best advantage.

3.1 Purpose of the course Strategy courses can be designed to meet many different needs. At one extreme, the course may mainly be concerned with raising awareness of why organisations need to change and develop over time and some of the ways in which this occurs. Alternatively, a course may be designed to improve the skills of participants in the formulation and implementation of strategy. Between these extremes are other purposes for strategy courses. For example, improving managers’ understanding of how their job function fits the overall strategic development of the organisation, helping to break down the very narrow operational outlook of many managers or integrating material from other parts of a business or management course. The following is some guidance on how the use of text and cases might be adapted to these various purposes.• If awareness is the key purpose, the text can be used to provide a basic framework (say through a lecture series), devoting as much time as possible to illustrative work. The illustrations and case examples in the text should prove valuable resources and teachers try to supplement these with their own topical material (media sources, company websites, etc.). Where participants have access to live organisations, use of issues from those organisations should be encouraged (e.g. student research and presentations). Guest speakers could also prove valuable – particularly, interesting success stories. The case studies and videos can be used mainly to encourage discussion and illustrate particular aspects of strategy. Work assignments should be useful to consolidate some of the key concepts in strategic management.• If skills development is most important, then the purpose of the text should be to help participants understand concepts and analytical tools which they can apply and practice. Most of the case examples and case studies lend themselves to an analytical approach, and participants should be set tasks that require them to produce detailed and practical solutions. Work assignments for the illustrations and at end of the chapters should be useful to test skills development and the understanding of key concepts. With some groups, it may be possible to require participants to develop their skills on real, company-based issues, through a project. For example, students can be asked to undertake an analysis of a particular industry or company (which could be done on the basis of secondary data), to assess the strategic choices available to an organisation and propose how issues of implementation would be managed. Many of the advanced level work assignments are specifically designed to test readers’ in-depth understanding of issues and/or ability to use them in a project situation.• Where the relationship between strategy and the separate business functions is of primary importance, group work (preferably with cross-functional teams) could be very helpful. This could be for work on the case studies, in-company work or business simulations.

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