MGMT605 - Strategic Management for Sustainability

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

Incompatible

MGMT640 Strategic Management and Decision Making

Teaching organisation

150 hours over a twelve-week semester or equivalent study period

Unit rationale, description and aim

Knowledge about strategic management is essential in successfully determining the direction of an organisation’s future in a dynamic environment. This unit provides the conceptual frameworks and skills required by management for effective strategies for sustainable competitive advantages. Strategic management includes the formulation and implementation, as well as the process of control and review of strategic direction of an organisation. Using a distinctly global, ethical and practical approach to business, the aim of this unit is to provide students with strategic management knowledge in order to create economic and social values which enable a balanced development of organisations and stakeholders, business and society and common good.

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

LO1 - Design and implement strategies, and build decision-making abilities to generate creative and ethical decisions to achieve the common good (GA2, GA5)

LO2 - Analyse strategic business environments and critically develop the process of formulation, implementation, evaluation and communication of sustainable strategies in national and global settings to responsibly solve managerial problems (GA5, GA6) 

LO3 - Distinguish and critique different means by which organisations achieve competitive advantage for sustainability(GA4, GA5)

LO4 - Critically evaluate complex issues related to strategic management processes and communicate this to various stakeholders to achieve competitive advantage for sustainability (GA5, GA9) 

LO5 - Reflect, synthesise and evaluate domestic and international organisational strategies in a variety of industries and circumstances (GA5, GA8)

Graduate attributes

GA2 - recognise their responsibility to the common good, the environment and society 

GA4 - think critically and reflectively 

GA5 - demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession 

GA6 - solve problems in a variety of settings taking local and international perspectives into account

GA8 - locate, organise, analyse, synthesise and evaluate information 

GA9 - demonstrate effective communication in oral and written English language and visual media 

Content

Topics will include: 

• Introducing strategy and strategic thinking 
• Strategic management process 
• Business environmental analyses 
• Business competitive advantage for sustainability 
• Ethical issues in strategic management for the common good
• Business, corporate and global strategies  
• Corporate governance for sustainability 
• Implementation, change and organisational sustainability  
• Global issues in strategic management  

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

Attendance mode

Students will have face-to-face workshops to achieve the learning outcomes. Students are able to explore the knowledge base underpinning sustainability management through a series of on campus workshops. These workshops are designed to support students to actively participate in the construction and synthesis of this knowledge both individually and in groups. By participating in these workshops, students will systematically develop their understanding of sustainability strategies.

ACU Online

This unit uses an active learning approach to support students in the exploration of knowledge essential to the discipline. Students are provided with choice and variety in how they learn. Students are encouraged to contribute to asynchronous weekly discussions. Active learning opportunities provide students with opportunities to practice and apply their learning in situations similar to their future professions. Activities encourage students to bring their own examples to demonstrate understanding, application and engage constructively with their peers. Students receive regular and timely feedback on their learning, which includes information on their progress.

Assessment strategy and rationale

Assessment is an integral part of the learning process. Assessment tasks in MGMT605 are aimed at developing and measuring student’s achievement of both the learning outcomes and graduate attributes noted above.

In this unit to achieve the learning outcomes, three (3) main pieces of summative assessment are used. The first piece of individual based assessment focusses on developing contemporary strategic management concepts and theories and apply it in business decision making. The second assessment is group based and it aims to develop skills to plan and implement business strategies through a comprehensive case study. The third piece of assessment is a critical reflective journal, which draws on a student’s developed understanding of strategic management knowledge to achieve organisational performance for the common good. 

To pass this unit, students must demonstrate competence in all learning outcomes and achieve an aggregate mark of at least 50%. Marking will be in accordance with a rubric specifically developed to measure the level of achievement of the learning outcomes for each item of assessment. Students will be awarded a final grade which signifies their overall achievement in the Unit.

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

The latest editions of:

David, FR, David, FR & David ME 2020, Strategic management: A competitive advantage approach, concepts and cases, 17th Edition, Pearson, UK.

De Wit, B 2020, Strategy: An international perspective, 7th Edition, Cengage, UK.

Hitt, MA,. Ireland, RD & Hoskisson, RE 2019, Strategic management: Competitiveness and  globalization - concepts and cases, 13th Edition, South-Western Cengage, US.

Johnson, G. Whittington, R. Scholes, K. Angwin, D & Regner, P 2019, Exploring strategy – text and cases, 12th Edn, Pearson, UK.

Lynch, R 2018, Strategic management, 8th Edition, Pearson, UK.

Rothaermel, F 2020, Strategic management, 5th Edn, McGraw Hill, Australia.