Strategy & Management

In the strategy and management major students learn what motivates people to follow strategic goals, whether they stem from profit-maximizing motives, the desire to contribute to make the world a better place, or simply fulfilling an assignment on behalf of citizens.

We want to stimulate the students to think carefully about why some firms perform better than others and explore in-depth how the performance differences can be understood and acted upon by mangers, advisors, entrepreneurs, investors or anyone else that needs this insight. Performance differences are not simply about making decisions, nor is it entirely about managing processes and people. It is about both - and the interaction between them.

Many corporations face major challenges due to fundamental shifts in the environment.  This includes technological shifts such as digitalization, artificial intelligence and big data; shifting political regimes and new regulations, changing consumer preferences and not the least an increased attention to climate change.  Recently, we have also faced a new major environmental challenge stemming from the worldwide pandemic covid 19. Although day to day survival is important, businesses also need to think about how to survive tomorrow. In the strategy major, we stimulate the students to think about how the businesses can balance exploitation and exploration, and develop dynamic capabilities for the future.

Strategic decision-making and implementation involves interacting with other people. Our aim is to engage the students to figure out how to motivate the employees for common goals and steer the organization through major change, find new solutions, solve conflicts, and reflect on ethical dilemmas.

In the strategy major, we have developed four tracks to stimulate the students´ thinking around strategy and management. The first track, leadership and change, aims to engage the students in tacking real life management challenges by combining theory and practical cases and exercises. To understand how technological changes impact strategy and business models, we have a separate track for digitalization for growth. New data have given us unique opportunity to make in depth advanced strategic analysis and we have developed a separate track where the students have the opportunity to conduct sophisticated strategic analysis. Finally, entrepreneurship involves challenges and opportunities that differ in important ways from those of established organizations. For students interested in the understanding why some entrepreneurs and some entrepreneurial ventures are more successful than others, we provide a track on entrepreneurship.