Designing an organization to meet current and future challenges is a central issue for managers. Oftentimes, they have to initiate changes in corporate strategy to respond to external changes, and, as a consequence, realign organizational dimensions. This course addresses how firms should be organized to achieve their strategic objectives. It addresses how corporate strategy needs to be aligned with an organization’s structure, processes, people, and the environment in which it competes. We discuss topics such as strategic leadership and decision making, managing organizational alignment and redesign, organizing for growth, and leading strategic change.

The course is relevant for students interested in general management, strategic management, organization design, corporate development, management consulting, academia, and executive staffing and development.

Students will learn to analyze and develop solutions for different strategic and organizational challenges. They will apply different analytical approaches and theoretical perspectives and learn to combine adequate tools and frameworks to understand strategic and organizational interlinkages. It therefore integrates many issues that students have to handle in their prospective managerial jobs.

After completing this course students will have the ability to:

• Explain the dimensions of strategic organization design and their interlinkages
• Analyze and critically evaluate central strategic decisions and organizational implications
• Deal with theoretical frameworks in the area of strategy and organization
• Analyze various aspects and challenges of strategy and organization in practice

Apart from that, completing this course will contribute to students' ability to:

• Efficiently work and communicate in a team
• Learn to translate their insights to practical problems
• Work on solutions for real-life case studies
• Learn to structure and work collaboratively on a longer project
• Design an in-class session in a team
• Improve their oral and written communication and presentation skills
• Learn to give and receive constructive feedback

The course combines various learning methods such as lectures, readings, team work, student case study analysis and presentations in class, and instructor-led discussions.

The final grade of the course will depend on:

• Group assignment, presentation, and discussion with audience: 50%
• Class participation: 20%
• Student team report: 30%