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Development of Strategy

Key subject details

Subject Development of Strategy
Description This subject examines the elements, processes and techniques involved in the development and implementation of organisational strategy.
Year of delivery 2024
Award Graduate Diploma of Applied Corporate Governance and Risk Management
Chartered Governance Institute Qualifying Program Chartered Secretary and Chartered Governance Professional
Core/Elective Core (Chartered Secretary)
Elective (Chartered Governance Professional)
Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) level 8
Subject credit points 10
Total course credit points 60
Pre-requisites None
Assumed knowledge None
Mode of study Online
Part-time/Full-time Part-time over one semester
Teaching weeks 12
Student workload 164 hours comprising:

  • two (2) time-tabled hours per taught week
  • ten (10) personal study hours per taught week
  • twenty (20) personal study hours for exam preparation
Assessment task (Weighting) Presentation (20%)
Assignment (30%)
Examination (50%)
Key contacts Further information to assist you in your studies at Governance Institute can be requested from: education@governanceinstitute.com.au.

Subject learning outcomes

  1. Articulate an argument for the importance and role of strategy in an organisation
  2. Select appropriate tools and frameworks to undertake a critical analysis of an organisation’s context, including the external and internal environment
  3. Justify why culture, governance, purpose, stakeholders and corporate social responsibility needs to be considered in developing strategy for a given organisation
  4. Recommend approaches to strategy development and implementation that have been tailored to the needs and context of the organisation
  5. Critically analyse the change management requirements to successfully implement strategy for an organisation

Indicative content

The subject is divided into the following 12 modules:

Module 1 — What is strategy?
  • What is strategy
  • Planning, strategy and strategic planning — What’s in a term?
  • Definitions of strategy
  • Evolution of thinking about strategy development
  • Strategy and management
  • What is an organisation?
  • Private, public and not-for-profit sectors
  • Risk and strategy
  • Scope and boundaries
  • Success
  • Novel perspectives on strategy
  • A lexicon for strategy development

Module 2 — Approaches to strategy
  • Making sense of 60 years of strategy development thinking
  • The rational (prescriptive) and systems thinking (emergent) approaches to strategy
  • Rationalist thinking
  • Evolution of the prescriptive approaches – Recent adaptions
  • Systems thinking or emergent perspectives
  • Other approaches and perspectives
  • Fads in strategy
  • Case study

Module 3 — Models, frameworks and heuristics
  • Complexity and complex adaptive systems
  • The Cynefin framework
  • The learning organisation
  • Strategic thinking
  • Cognitive biases and heuristics
  • Dealing with biases

Module 4 — Public and not-for-profit sectors
  • Strategy, organisations and public value
  • Strategy in the not-for-profit and public sectors
  • The public value paradigm for strategy development
  • The authorising environment as a source of support and legitimacy
  • Political realities in the public sector
  • Complexity in the public sector

Module 5 — External context – The macro-environment
  • Overview
  • The big picture
  • Analysing an organisation’s environment
  • Environmental scanning
  • PESTEL analysis
  • Exploring the micro-environment
  • Product life cycle

Module 6 — Internal context – Resources and capabilities
  • The internal context — Resources and capability
  • The value chain and value network (or value system)
  • Sources of competitive advantage
  • Capabilities for achieving and sustaining competitive advantage
  • Limitations in managing strategic capabilities
  • Developing strategic capabilities
  • Organisational knowledge
  • Dynamic capabilities

Module 7 — Organisational culture and strategy
  • Organisational culture
  • Schein’s three levels of culture
  • National and regional cultures
  • Organisational subcultures
  • Analysing culture — The cultural web
  • History and strategic drift

Module 8 — Organisational purpose and strategy
  • Organisational purpose
  • The foundations of strategy — Mission or purpose statements
  • Elements of a mission statement
  • Articulating mission, vision, purpose and values
  • Stakeholders and strategy
  • Business ethics and corporate social responsibility

Module 9 — Setting and evaluating objectives and options
  • Levels of strategy
  • Formulating strategic objectives
  • Common mistakes in formulating objectives
  • The source of strategic objectives
  • Developing strategic options
  • Revisiting the SWOT analysis
  • TOWS – Analysis generating options
  • The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix
  • The need for strategy evaluation

Module 10 — Managing change in organisations
  • The basic concept of strategic change
  • Common change conditions
  • Assessing the change context
  • Types of strategic change
  • Kotter’s 8-step model of strategic transformation
  • The Prosci ADKAR® model
  • Problems of formal change programs

Module 11 — Strategy implementation
  • Who is involved in strategy?
  • Who to involve in strategy development
  • Strategy workshops
  • Strategic decision-making
  • People side of developing and implementing strategy
  • Communication — The vital process
  • Review of developing and documenting strategy
  • Problems with strategy development and plans

Module 12 — Managing disruption
  • Emergencies, disasters and crises
  • The nature of a crisis
  • The pervasiveness of crisis today
  • Crisis management — Crucial challenges for leadership
  • Conclusion

Prescribed texts

None