Undergraduate Teaching 2026-27

Engineering Tripos Part IIB, 4E11: Strategic Management, 2026-27

Engineering Tripos Part IIB, 4E11: Strategic Management, 2026-27

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Module Leader

Dr C Coleridge

Timing and Structure

Lent term. 8 sessions + coursework.

Aims

The aims of the course are to:

  • provide participants with an opportunity to discuss the strategic challenges facing managers in today’s business environment and to develop a facility for critical strategic thinking.

Objectives

As specific objectives, by the end of the course students should be able to:

  • show a critical, reflective approach to managerial concepts.
  • show familiarity with some of the key models used in strategic analysis.
  • show some understanding of these models' application and limitations.
  • show a broad overview of managerial disciplines and their interdependency.

Content

Overview

Why do some organisations create and capture value over long periods while others, even when competently managed, do not?

This course treats strategy as purposeful intervention in systems that no actor fully controls. Managers can choose, commit resources, shape rules and influence other organisations, but customers, competitors, complementors, regulators, technologies and internal groups respond.

Across eight sessions, students learn a cumulative method for framing a strategic system, diagnosing constraints and value flows, choosing boundaries, building capabilities, coordinating autonomous actors and creating feedback that permits revision.

Established strategy theories are used as tools within this method. Industry analysis identifies structural constraints. The resource-based view examines heterogeneous capabilities. Innovation theory explains learning and reconfiguration. Ecosystem and platform theory examine influence and architectural power. Research on strategy processes considers how strategy becomes action and adapts.

Course Content:

The course repeatedly asks six questions:

  • What is the system meant to accomplish, for whom, and how should success be judged?
  • Which constraints, dependencies and value flows currently shape behaviour?
  • What should the firm own, build, acquire, access or influence?
  • Which capabilities, rules, interfaces and incentives govern value creation and capture?
  • How might other actors respond, resist, cooperate or change the problem?
  • What feedback will reveal whether the intervention is working, and when should it be revised?

 

Learning Objectives

By the end of the course, students should be able to:

  • Frame a strategic problem by defining the focal system, its purposes, relevant actors and analytical boundaries
  • Diagnose industry economics, value flows, feedback and the sources of constraint and power
  • Evaluate resources and capabilities using the resource-based view and VRIO, then decide how strategically important capabilities should be developed, acquired, accessed or governed
  • Design systems for learning and reconfiguration when knowledge is distributed and existing commitments constrain change
  • Evaluate ecosystem and platform strategies, including participation incentives, legitimacy, value capture, resistance and regulatory response
  • Formulate an evidence-based strategic intervention that makes its trade-offs, risks, ethical consequences, failure modes and revision mechanisms explicit

 

Method of Instruction

The course is lecture-led and uses cases as focused design laboratories. Three sessions use substantial paid cases. The remaining sessions use short open briefs, contemporary evidence and worked examples.

Lectures provide the conceptual foundations, while discussion and brief exercises require students to apply the recurring system questions to concrete strategic problems.

Students are expected to prepare the assigned case or brief and to participate in discussion. No single framework supplies a complete answer. Students should select and combine tools according to the problem and should be prepared to question their assumptions and limitations.

Assessment -  Due 25 March 2027

Students will prepare a strategic analysis of the current position and future prospects of a company of their choice.

The analysis should define the focal system and central strategic problem, diagnose constraints and value flows, assess relevant capabilities, dependencies and competitors, and propose a coherent strategic intervention. It should explain significant boundary or governance choices, anticipate responses from other actors, and specify important risks, feedback and circumstances that would require revision.

Students should use only those frameworks that improve the analysis.

Companies operating in industries undergoing transition, or companies making significant strategic changes, are likely to provide analytically rich settings.

The essay must conclude with a brief statement describing whether and how large language model tools were used in its preparation.

Teaching Staff

Dr Chris Coleridge

Department:

Strategy and International Business

Email:

c.coleridge@jbs.cam.ac.uk

Tel:

+44 (0) 7910 659856

 

Course Structure & Selected Readings    

 

Session Topic Central Question Case / Preparation
1 Framing the Strategic System What is the system for, who defines success, and where should the analytical boundary be drawn? UK supermarkets — open brief and in-class system mapping
2 Diagnosing Value Flows and Constraints Why can a system create enormous value while focal firms capture little of it? Where are the leverage points? Airline industry — open brief with comparisons of profit per customer
3 Designing Firm Boundaries Which resources and capabilities matter, and when should the firm build, buy, ally or access? When to Ally and When to Acquire: Solera Style — paid case
4 Designing Systems for Learning How can a firm assemble and improve capabilities that depend on knowledge distributed across organisations? ASML — open brief
5 Reconfiguring Strategic Commitments How can an organisation redesign a successful system while it still depends on the old one? Adobe — open brief
6 Coordinating Without Command How can an orchestrator secure complementary investment from actors it does not own? Unified Payments Interface: Crafting the Ecosystem — paid case
7 Designing Architectural Power How does control of an interface or bottleneck produce value capture, and how might others respond? Nvidia — open brief
8 Building a Self-Correcting Strategy Process How can an operating system create coherence while retaining the capacity to learn and change? Danaher Corporation — paid case

A separate reading list will identify short essential readings and optional further reading for each session. Lectures will provide the principal conceptual coverage. The reading list draws on established work on industry structure, the resource-based view, strategic change, ecosystem governance, platforms and strategy processes, together with contemporary evidence relevant to the cases.

 

Strategic Management

Session Topic Central Question Case / Preparation
1 Framing the Strategic System What is the system for, who defines success, and where should the analytical boundary be drawn? UK supermarkets — open brief and in-class system mapping
2 Diagnosing Value Flows and Constraints Why can a system create enormous value while focal firms capture little of it? Where are the leverage points? Airline industry — open brief with comparisons of profit per customer
3 Designing Firm Boundaries Which resources and capabilities matter, and when should the firm build, buy, ally or access? When to Ally and When to Acquire: Solera Style — paid case
4 Designing Systems for Learning How can a firm assemble and improve capabilities that depend on knowledge distributed across organisations? ASML — open brief
5 Reconfiguring Strategic Commitments How can an organisation redesign a successful system while it still depends on the old one? Adobe — open brief
6 Coordinating Without Command How can an orchestrator secure complementary investment from actors it does not own? Unified Payments Interface: Crafting the Ecosystem — paid case
7 Designing Architectural Power How does control of an interface or bottleneck produce value capture, and how might others respond? Nvidia — open brief
8 Building a Self-Correcting Strategy Process How can an operating system create coherence while retaining the capacity to learn and change? Danaher Corporation — paid case

 

Coursework

Coursework activity: Final

You will prepare a strategic analysis of the current position and future prospects of a company of your choice.

Your analysis should identify and clearly define the focal strategic system and central strategic problem. It should diagnose the important constraints, dependencies and value flows shaping the situation; assess relevant resources, capabilities, competitors and other actors; and propose a coherent strategic intervention.

Where relevant, you should explain important choices about what the firm should own, build, acquire, access or influence, and how rules, interfaces, incentives or governance arrangements affect value creation and capture. Your analysis should anticipate how competitors, partners, regulators or other actors may respond, and should identify significant risks, possible failure modes, appropriate feedback, and circumstances in which the strategy should be revised.

You are not expected to apply every framework covered in the course. Use those concepts and analytical tools that genuinely improve your diagnosis and recommendations.

The selection of company is up to you. Firms operating in industries undergoing transition, or firms making significant strategic changes, are likely to provide particularly rich settings for analysis.

You should conclude your essay with a brief statement describing whether and how large language model (LLM) tools were used in preparing your analysis.

Learning objectives

The coursework is intended to develop your ability to:

  • Frame a real strategic problem by defining the relevant system, actors and analytical boundaries.
  • Diagnose the constraints, dependencies, capabilities and value flows that shape strategic possibilities.
  • Use strategy concepts selectively and critically rather than applying frameworks mechanically.
  • Design a coherent strategic intervention while anticipating responses from other actors.
  • Make explicit the trade-offs, risks, failure modes and feedback mechanisms associated with your recommendations.
  • Develop independent strategic judgement through application to a real organisation.

Grading criteria

  1. Quality of problem framing and diagnosis
    How clearly and insightfully have you identified the central strategic problem? Have you defined an appropriate focal system and distinguished underlying causes from symptoms?

  2. Quality of strategic analysis
    How effectively have you analysed the constraints, value flows, capabilities, dependencies and relevant actors shaping the firm's choices? Have you selected and used appropriate concepts rather than applying frameworks mechanically?

  3. Quality and originality of the strategic intervention
    Do your recommendations follow from the diagnosis? Are they coherent, distinctive and attentive to significant boundary, capability, governance or coordination choices? Does the analysis demonstrate independent judgement rather than reproducing existing commentary or LLM-generated analysis?

  4. Evidence, responses and risks
    Are important claims supported by appropriate evidence? Have you considered how competitors, partners, regulators or other actors may respond, together with significant risks and possible failure modes?

  5. Coherence, trade-offs and capacity for revision
    Does the argument form a coherent whole? Are important trade-offs explicit? Have you identified useful feedback and the circumstances under which the proposed strategy should be reconsidered or revised?

Individual
Essay of 2,500 words
Anonymously marked

Deadline: 25 March 2027
Weighting: 100%

Booklists

Please refer to the Booklist for Part IIB Courses for references to this module, this can be found on the associated Moodle course.

Examination Guidelines

Please refer to Form & conduct of the examinations.

UK-SPEC

This syllabus contributes to the following areas of the UK-SPEC standard:

Toggle display of UK-SPEC areas.

GT1

Develop transferable skills that will be of value in a wide range of situations. These are exemplified by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority Higher Level Key Skills and include problem solving, communication, and working with others, as well as the effective use of general IT facilities and information retrieval skills. They also include planning self-learning and improving performance, as the foundation for lifelong learning/CPD.

IA1

Apply appropriate quantitative science and engineering tools to the analysis of problems.

IA2

Demonstrate creative and innovative ability in the synthesis of solutions and in formulating designs.

KU1

Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of essential facts, concepts, theories and principles of their engineering discipline, and its underpinning science and mathematics.

KU2

Have an appreciation of the wider multidisciplinary engineering context and its underlying principles.

S2

Extensive knowledge and understanding of management and business practices, and their limitations, and how these may be applied appropriately to strategic and tactical issues.

P3

Understanding of contexts in which engineering knowledge can be applied (e.g. operations and management, technology, development, etc).

 
Last modified: 28/09/2026 17:41