everything.study
15.963

Advanced Strategy

Graduate · Historical course

Spring 2008

Topics

  • Does sustained performance exist?
  • Reviewing 15.900: Strategy fundamentals: position vs. competencies
  • Case: Wal-Mart
  • Case: Southwest
  • Pause for reflection
  • Revisiting 15.311: Lincoln Electric in China
  • Case: The HP-Cisco Alliance
  • Case: Toyota
  • Case: BP
  • Case: BP and the Baker report
  • Case: Best Buy and Circuit City
  • Case: Delta and Song
  • Pause for reflection: Toyota’s expansion
  • Case: Good to Great
  • Case: Lilly (A)
  • Case: Lilly (B)
  • Case: Corning
  • Case: Paul Levy
  • Case: Paul Levy (B)
  • Case: Simmons
  • Case: Simmons (B)
  • Student presentations of highlights from term projects
  • Conclusions

Readings

  • Roberts, John. The Modern Firm: Organizational Design for Performance and Growth . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780198293750.
    Listed reading
  • Collins, James. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t . New York, NY: Collins Business, 2001. ISBN: 9780066620992.
    Listed reading
  • The Modern Firm is available in the campus bookstore. My assumption is that most people will have a copy of Good To Great , but if you don’t have one please buy yourself a copy.
    Listed reading
  • Liker, Jeffrey. The Toyota Way . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2003. ISBN: 9780071392310.
    Listed reading
  • Gittell, Jody. The Southwest Airlines Way: Using the Power of Relationships to Achieve High Performance . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2005. ISBN: 9780071458276.
    Listed reading
  • Fishman, Charles. The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World’s Most Powerful Company Really Works — and How It’s Transforming the American Economy . New York, NY: Penguin, 2006. ISBN: 9780143038788.
    Listed reading
  • Gawande, Atul. “ The Checklist .” The New Yorker , December 10, 2007. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Liker, Jeffrey. “The Toyota Way.” Chapter 1 in The Toyota Way . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2003. ISBN: 9780071392310.
    Listed reading
  • Gawande, Atul. Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance . Iowa City, IA: Picador, 2008. ISBN: 9780312427658.
    Listed reading
  • Yoffie, David, and Yusi Wang. “Wal-Mart in 2002.” HBS Case: 9-702-466, October 20, 2005.
    Listed reading
  • Fishman, Charles. “Sam Walton’s Ten-Pound Bass.” Chapter 2 in The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World’s Most Powerful Company Really Works — and How It’s Transforming the American Economy . New York, NY: Penguin, 2006. ISBN: 9780143038788.
    Listed reading
  • Heskett, James. “Southwest Airlines-2002: An Industry Under Siege.” HBS Case: 9-803-133, March 11, 2003.
    Listed reading
  • Gittell, Jody. “Southwest versus American Airlines: The Power of Relational Coordination.” Chapter 3 in The Southwest Airlines Way: Using the Power of Relationships to Achieve High Performance . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2005. ISBN: 9780071458276.
    Listed reading
  • Siggelkow, Nicolaj. “Evolution Toward Fit.” Administrative Science Quarterly 47 (2002): 125-159.
    Listed reading
  • Roberts, John. “Strategy and Organizations,” and “Key Concepts for Organization Design.” Chapters 1 and 2 in The Modern Firm . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780198293750.
    Listed reading
  • Saloner, Garth, Andrea Shepard, and Joel Podolny. “Internal Context: Organization Design.” Chapter 4 in Strategic Management . New York, NY: Wiley, 2005. ISBN: 9780470009475.
    Listed reading
  • Teece, David. “Explicating Dynamic Capabilities: The Nature and Microfoundations of (sustainable) Enterprise Performance.” Strategic Management Journal 28, no. 13 (2007): 1319-1350.
    Listed reading
  • Siegel, Jordan. “Lincoln Electric.” HBS Case: 9-707-445, August 25, 2008.
    Listed reading
  • Johnson, H. Thomas, and Anders Broms. “Relationships (MBM) versus Quantity (MBR).” Chapter 2 in Profit Beyond Measure: Extraordinary Results Through Attention to Work and People . New York, NY: Free Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780684836676.
    Listed reading
  • Casciaro, Tiziana, and Christina Darwall. “The HP-Cisco Alliance (A).” HBS Case: 9-403-120, April 16, 2003.
    Listed reading
  • Mishina, Kazuhiro. “Toyota Motor Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc.” HBS Case: 9-693-019, September 5, 1995.
    Listed reading
  • Spear, Steven, and H. Kent Bowen. Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System . Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review, 2008. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Womack, James, Daniel Jones, and Daniel Roos. “What We Have Learned About Lean Production Since 1990.” Afterword from The Machine That Changed the World . New York, NY: Free Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780743299794.
    Listed reading
  • Podolny, Joel, and John Roberts. “British Petroleum (A1): Organizing for Performance at BPX.” Stanford Business School Case. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Publishing. Case: IB16A1, July 4, 1999.
    Listed reading
  • Baker, James, et. al. “ The Report of the BP U.S. Refineries Independent Safety Review Panel. ” January 2007. ↗
    Listed reading
  • “Executive Summary” and “Findings,” pages viii-xv and 59-94 from The Report of the BP U.S. Refineries Independent Safety Review Panel , January 2007.
    Listed reading
  • Repenning, Nelson, and John Sterman. “Nobody Ever Gets Credit for Fixing Problems that Never Happened.” California Management Review 43, no. 4 (2001): 44-63.
    Listed reading
  • Repenning, Nelson, Paulo Gonçalves, and Laura Black. “Past the Tipping Point: The Persistence of Firefighting in Product Development.” California Management Review 43, no. 4 (2001): 64-68.
    Listed reading
  • Wells, John, and Travis Haglock. “Best Buy Co., Inc.: Competing on the Edge.” HBS Case: 9-706-417, October 25, 2007.
    Listed reading
  • Wells, John. “Circuit City Stores, Inc.: Strategic Dilemmas.” HBS Case: 9-706-419, September 16, 2005.
    Listed reading
  • Rivkin, Jan, and Laurent Therivel. “Delta Air Lines (A): The Low-Coast Carrier Threat.” HBS Case: 9-704-403, January 25, 2005.
    Listed reading
  • ———. “Delta Air Lines (B): The Launch of Song.” HBS Case: 9-704-439, January 24, 2005.
    Listed reading
  • “Briefing Toyota: A Wobble on the Road to the Top.” The Economist , November 10, 2007, pp. 85-87.
    Listed reading
  • Welch, David, and Ian Rowley. “What’s Next: Toyota’s All-Out Drive to Stay Toyota.” Business Week , December 3, 2007, pp. 54-56.
    Listed reading
  • “At Toyota, A Global Giant Reaches for Agility.” New York Times , February 22, 2008.
    Listed reading
  • Read: - Chapter 1: “Good is the Enemy of Great” - Chapter 2: “Level 5 Leadership” - Chapter 9: “From Good to Great to Built to Last”
    Listed reading
  • “Work of a Modern Leader: An Interview with Ron Heifetz.” Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review, 1997.
    Listed reading
  • Henderson, Rebecca. “ Eli Lilly’s Project Resilience (A): Anticipating the Future of the Pharmaceutical Industry .” MIT Sloan School Case 07-041, April 30, 2007. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Cornelius, Peters, Alexander van de Putte, and Mattia Romani. “Three Decades of Scenario Planning in Shell.” California Management Review 48, no. 1 (2005): 92-109.
    Listed reading
  • Henderson, Rebecca, and Cate Reavis. “ Eli Lilly: Recreating Drug Discovery for the 21st Century (B) .” MIT Sloan School Case 07-043, March 21, 2008. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Henderson, Rebecca, and Cate Reavis. “ Corning Incorporated: The Growth and Strategy Council .” MIT Sloan School Case 08-056, April 15, 2009. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Rock, David, and Jeffrey Schwartz. “ The Neuroscience of Leadership .” Strategy and Business , Summer 2006. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Garvin, David, and Michael Roberto. “Paul Levy: Taking Charge of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (A).” HBS Case: 9-303-008, January 14, 2003 (revision).
    Listed reading
  • Boston Globe. “Paul Levy: Taking Charge of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (B).” HBS Case: 9-303-080, December 10, 2002.
    Listed reading
  • Casciaro, Tiziana, et al. “Leading Change at Simmons (A).” HBS Case: 9-406-046, May 3, 2007.
    Listed reading
  • Casciaro, Tiziana, et al. “Leading Change at Simmons (B).” HBS Case: 9-406-047, May 3, 2007.
    Listed reading
  • Pounds, William. “The Process of Problem Finding.” Industrial Management Review 11 (Fall 1969): 1-19.
    Listed reading
Spring 2007 · Management Accounting and Control

Topics

  • Introduction
  • Decision making
  • Decision making (cont.)
  • Two cases
  • Product costing
  • Product costing + case
  • Issues in product costing + case
  • Product costing refinements: 2 cases
  • Additional issues in product costing + 2 cases
  • Capacity issues + case
  • Midterm
  • Discuss midterm and submitted assignment (Mueller-Lehmkuhl)
  • Incentive to overproduce; joint costs; allocation of service department costs
  • Organizational architecture
  • Performance evaluation + case
  • Performance evaluation + case (cont.)
  • Transfer pricing + case
  • Budgeting + case
  • Standard costing and variances + case
  • Class presentations
  • Class presentations (cont.)
  • Control systems: case + discuss submitted assignment
  • Wrap-up

Readings

  • Zimmerman, Jerry. Accounting for Decision Making and Control . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2005. ISBN: 9780072975864.
    Required
  • SES #: 2 · TOPICS: Decision making · READINGS: Chapter 2
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 3 · TOPICS: Decision making (cont.) · READINGS: Chapter 2
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 4 · TOPICS: Decision making (cont.) · READINGS: Chapter 2
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 6 · TOPICS: Product costing · READINGS: Chapter 9
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 7 · TOPICS: Product costing + case · READINGS: Chapters 9-10
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 8 · TOPICS: Issues in product costing + case · READINGS: Chapters 8-10
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 9 · TOPICS: Product costing refinements: 2 cases · READINGS: Chapters 7 and 11
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 10 · TOPICS: Additional issues in product costing + 2 cases · READINGS: Chapters 7 and 11
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 14 · TOPICS: Incentive to overproduce; joint costs; allocation of service department costs · READINGS: Chapters 8 and 10
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 15 · TOPICS: Organizational architecture · READINGS: Chapters 4-5
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 16 · TOPICS: Performance evaluation + case · READINGS: Chapters 4-5
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 17 · TOPICS: Performance evaluation + case (cont.) · READINGS: Chapters 4-5
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 18 · TOPICS: Transfer pricing + case · READINGS: Chapter 5
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 19 · TOPICS: Budgeting + case · READINGS: Chapter 6
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 20 · TOPICS: Standard costing and variances + case · READINGS: Chapter 12
    Reading assignment
Fall 2002 · Organizations as Enacted Systems: Learning, Knowing and Change

The course is structured around a core of fundamental concepts concerning how we view organizations, and the application of these concepts to basic domains of action crucial for contemporary businesses: sensemaking, learning, knowing, and change. We view organizations as enacted systems, wherein humans are continually shaping the structures that influence their action in turn. In other words, we create the systems that then create us.

Readings

  • Argyris, C., & Schön, D. Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective. Reading, Mass: Addison Wesley. 1978.
    Listed reading
  • Isaacs, W. Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together. New York: Doubleday. 1999.
    Listed reading
  • Schein, E. H. Organizational Culture and Leadership . San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. 1997.
    Listed reading
  • Senge, P. M. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday/Currency. 1990.
    Listed reading
  • Senge, P. M., et. al. The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday/Currency. 1994.
    Listed reading
  • Senge, P. M., et al. The Dance of Change: The Challenges of Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations . New York: Doubleday/Currency. 1999.
    Listed reading
  • Weick, K. E. Sensemaking in Organizations. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. 1995.
    Listed reading
Sources