Half-Course: Competitive Dynamics- Strategy and Tactics

Course Number 1255

Professor Dennis Yao
Early Fall, 15 session half-course
1.5 credits
Exam

Educational Objectives

The objective of this course is to develop a student's ability to make good decisions in settings defined by competitive interactions. This ability is critical for developing dynamically consistent strategies and making superior moves given an existing business strategy.

The course is designed to both build a student's intuitive grasp of such interactions as well as to provide a set of concrete tools-predominately game theory-to discipline and refine that intuition. Game theory models are potentially powerful tools for managers who make decisions involving competitive interactions, but the application of these tools to complex competitive settings is quite challenging. Much of the challenge in using such models is that the models are simplifications of the underlying competitive situation. A primary goal of this course is to help students develop the ability to both adapt and create models of strategic interactions in support of decision making.

Course Content and Organization

This course builds on the ideas developed in the competitive dynamics module of the Strategy RC. The course is divided about equally between development of an understanding of competitive interaction through game theory and the application of the intuition and discipline from this understanding in complex settings. These settings range from a choice of business strategy to narrower decisions involving particular elements of that strategy such as pricing and product choices, bidding for contracts or acquisitions, and contractual and organizational choices for strategic alliances. Somewhat more than half of the sessions will focus on cases. The rest of the sessions will involve mini-case problems and computer and non-computer games which will motivate and develop the underlying theory which will be applied "in context" in the case discussions

Career Focus

This course may be of interest to students who expect to be involved in making decisions that involve strategic interactions. It should be of particular interest to future consultants and strategic planners, but should also be of interest to anyone involved in direct competitive interactions.