777892

Professor Martin Kornberger, CBS and Professor Robin Holt, CBS

Participants should read all course material before the beginning of the course and reflect on how their own PhD project relates to the course readings.

A precondition for receiving the course diploma is that the student attends the whole course. In addition, students must each write a 5-page paper that reflects on the course literature in relation to their own PhD projects. The reflection paper is due 4 weeks after the course.

Several conceptual trajectories will be analysed using key texts from different theory traditions, with the aim of folding them back onto strategy and, through doing so, delineating new spaces for theorizing strategy.
     
More specifically, the objectives of the course are to:

• Help to better understand strategy and strategizing from a social science perspective
• Offer theoretical vantage points to critically question current strategy theory and develop alternative analytical vocabularies to understand strategy, its conceptual relations and effects in practice 
• Provide constructive feedback for the students’ PhD projects

PhD students of organizational life can hardly avoid encountering notions of strategy in their theoretical and empirical work: strategies provide scripts for organizational action, strategizing encompasses diverse sets of organizational practices, and strategic events, objects and technologies imply sometimes fundamental change.

Yet, despite a growing body of research that understand strategy from a broadly social science perspective (most notably the strategy as practice approach), there are still many open question in regards to how strategy can be conceptualized, how it can be analysed in relation to organization, and how its effects can be theorized.

This PhD course engages in a critical reading of current strategy scholarship and explores in how far research from related fields (organizational theory, practice theory, valuation studies, etc.) can provide answers to the questions.

The course is organized into four distinct conversations that reflect on recent developments in the field of strategy with the aim to question their assumptions and develop new analytical perspectives:

1. Moments of strategy thought: in this first part the course will critically reflect on the conceptual and analytical vocabulary that traditional strategy research has produced over the past decade.
2. Social science and practice perspective on strategy: this session aims at broadening the vocabulary of strategy research and introduces some key texts to the debate. The afternoon focuses on strategy as practice which offers itself as platform for more critical and social science oriented strategy research. We will discuss key contributions and elaborate on their strengths and weaknesses.  
3. Strategy and value: it is a commonplace to state that strategy is about value creation; yet, ironically, strategy theory does not have an elaborate concept of value. Building on the rapidly growing field of valuation studies, the relation between strategy and value will be explored.  
4. Strategy and collective action: The last conversation in the course will revolve around mobilization, movements and forms of collective action (mediated by technology) that have potentially important implication but are to date not part of strategy’s analytical vocabulary.

The course is organised as a 4 day learning experience. The pedagogy includes teacher and student-presentations, break-out sessions, “PhD trouble shooting” sessions (a short on-demand session focused on a specific problem or challenge one of the participants encounters in their PhD work which might be relevant to others) and intensive reading and discussion of texts. The pedagogical approach reflects that a productive learning experience is co-created; hence, students will be invited to mobilize their knowledge (their PhD research) in relation to not just the texts but also in relation to their colleagues work. This interactive learning experience is complemented by concise input and guidance of debates by faculty.  

The students are required to write a 5-page paper that reflects on the course literature in relation to their own PhD projects. The reflection paper is due 4 weeks after the course.

Day 1: Moments of strategic thought: the evolution of strategy as discipline in four acts

10.00 – 10.30 Coffe/tea

10.30 – 11.00 Welcome and introduction

11.00 – 12.00 Point of departure: key moments in the development of strategic thinking (Group work, max 3 people / group) and plenary discussion lead by faculty (Porter, 1979; Prahalad and Hamel, 1990; Mintzberg, 1987; Norman and Ramirez, 1993)

12.00-12.45 Discussion and reflection lead by faculty

12.45-13.30 Lunch

13.30-15.00 Group Work (max 3 people/group) on using strategy in PhD projects; exercise 'strategy tasting¨'; plenary discussion lead by faculty

15.00-15.30 Break

15.30-16.00 Reflection: mapping contours of strategic thought (and what remains outside) of individual PhD projects

16.00-17.00 Trouble shooting session I

18.00-21.00 Dinner

Day 2: Strategy, organizing and practice

08.45 – 09.00 Coffee/ tea

09.00 – 09.15 Learning points

09.15 – 10.30 Broadening strategy’s agenda: group work (max 3 people / group) and plenary discussion lead by faculty (Knights and Morgan, 1991; Oakes et al., 1998; Rao et al. 2003)

10.30-11.00 Break

11.00-12.30 Theory input& discussion: strategy as practice 

12.30 - 13.30 Lunch

13.30 - 15.00 Strategy as practice; input and group work (max 3 people / group) and plenary discussion lead by faculty (Chia and Holt, 2009 (chapter 3 only); Jarzabkowski and Seidl, 2008; Kornberger and Clegg, 2011; Gomez and Bouty, 2011; Kaplan, 2011)

15.00-15.30 Break

15.30-16.00 Implications, applications: folding organization and practice on strategy in PhD projects

16.00-17.00 Trouble shooting session II 

Day 3: Strategy and value

08.45 – 09.00 Coffee/ tea

09.00 – 09.15 Learning points

09.15 – 10.30 Group work (max 3 people / group) and plenary discussion lead by faculty (Espeland and Sauder, 2007; Pollock and D’Adderio, 2012; Kornberger, 2015)

10.30-11.00 Break

11.00-12.30 Theory input& discussion: Strategy and value
 
12.30 - 13.30 Lunch

13.30 - 15.00 Valuation, judgement, calculation: Group work (max 3 people / group) and plenary discussion lead by faculty (Holt, forthcoming; Karpik, 2010, chapter 1 only)

15.00-15.30 Break

15.30-16.00 Implications, applications: folding valuation on strategy in PhD projects

16.00-17.00 Trouble shooting session II

Day 4: Strategy, power and collective action

08.45 – 09.00 Coffee/ tea

09.00 – 09.15 Learning points

09.15 – 10.30 Group work (max 3 people / group) and plenary discussion lead by faculty (Becker, 1974; Latour, 1986; Miller and Rose, 1990; Callon and Law, 1997)

10.30-11.00 Break

11.00-12.30 Theory input / discussion: Strategy and collective action
 
12.30 - 13.30 Lunch

13.30 - 15.00 Group work (max 3 people / group), individual reflection and plenary discussion lead by faculty

15.00-15.30 Break

15.30-16.00 Implications, applications: folding collective action on strategy in PhD projects

16.00-17.00 Reflections, feedback and closing of event

The students are expected to understand, discuss and reflect upon the course literature and topics for discussion and gain inspiration for their PhD work.

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Copenhagen Business School
Kilevej 14 A
DK-2000 Frederiksberg
Room: K4.74 (4th floor) (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday), K3.41 (3rd floor) (Thursday)

The PhD Support
Katja Høeg Tingleff
kht.research@cbs.dk
Tel.: +45 38 15 28 39

In case we receive more registrations for the course than we have places, the registrations will be prioritized in the the following order: Students from Doctoral School of Organisation and Management Studies (OMS), students from other CBS PhD schools, students from other institutions than CBS.

Please note that your registration is binding after the registration deadline.