Curriculum Information

• The Drivers and trends of globalization: Yip's 'Total Global Strategy' (2003); 'The determinants of national advantage' - Porter's Diamond (1990): Strategic outsourcing
• Overseas culture and market environments
• Logistics, supply chains and globalisation “ why buy from abroad? Problems with global and international logistics
• International physical distribution strategy and management
• Stockholding and inventory management
• Countertrade, offset and reciprocal trading
• Systems thinking - Organisations are complex social systems so an awareness and understanding of systems principles and methods are essential in enabling a critical appreciation of how strategy is informed and shaped
• Managing knowledge - The focus of this aspect of the module is on the way organisations develop and enhance their key strategic resource, knowledge, to achieve competitive advantage. This will incorporate the ideas of Knowledge Management and Knowledge Environment and the way these positions may impact on Strategic
thinking
• Intellectual Capital – within a context of KPI and CPI pressures on organisations the way that Intellectual Capital can provide a framework to make strategic use of a knowledge base is an increasingly important area to be
considered
• Managing complexity - Environmental and organisational complexity is a key strategic challenge for organisations in the 21st Century. The understanding of how complex adaptive systems shape social structures plays an important role in enabling
strategic thinking to be developed
• Managing strategic discourse – There is no universal acceptance of being strategic so it is important to consider the way that different discourses can impact on strategic thinking e.g. the Strategy as Practice perspective.

This module will facilitate the development of Personal development Planning (PDP) through the delivery of the key skills identified in the module descriptor