Course 2024-2025 a.y.

• Introduction to Corporate Strategy.
• Resources in Corporate Strategy.
• Portfolio strategy decisions.
• Growth alternatives: internal development, acquisitions, and alliances.
• Main characteristics and decisions of parenting strategy.
• Transforming Corporate Strategy.

• Identify the contents of Corporate Strategy: portfolio strategy and parenting strategy.
• Recognize the different managerial tools that allow to present and evaluate Corporate Strategy.
• Recognize how to integrate ESG strategies into Corporate Strategy.
• Identify and describe operational and financial synergies and valuable corporate resources.
• Identify the core business of a company or group and analyze the related industries.
• Recognize the growth paths of companies with a synergistic-organizational approach.
• Recognize the growth paths of companies with a financial approach.
• Distinguish the alternative approaches to growth as internal development, alliances, and acquisitions.
• Recognize the different implementation phases of M&A operations.
• Recognize the different implementation phases of strategic alliances.
• Recognize the impact of the geographical context in the Corporate Strategy.
• Distinguish the different ownership structures and identify their impact on Corporate Strategy choices.
• Recognize the different roles and functioning of boards of directors.
• Recognize the different roles and functioning of Corporate Headquarters.
• Describe the different phases of a company's strategic and organizational transformation.

• Choose the Corporate Strategy that is best suited to a firm’s corporate resources.
• Apply the different managerial tools correctly to present and evaluate Corporate Strategy.
• Assess the corporate resources of a company or a group.
• Apply the possible different definitions of core business and analyze the related industries.
• Measure the conglomerate discount.
• Evaluate M&A transactions using the various tools presented in the course.
• Demonstrate recognition of the motivations of strategic alliances.
• Compare the advantages and disadvantages of the various ownership structures.
• Design an effective and efficient Board of Directors.
• Designing the structure of the Corporate Headquarters also according to the different modes of relationship between these and the individual business units.
• Design a successful strategic and organizational transformation by overcoming resistance to change.
• Learn to work in a group of students defending opinions and learning from the opinions of others.
• Learn how to effectively present the set of slides related to the work of your team.

• Lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Collaborative Works / Assignments

Besides class lectures, the course includes guest lectures on specific themes.

• The discussion of cases revolves around discussion questions that allow students to prepare in advance. The cases are chosen with the aim of proposing a variety of ownership structures, portfolio strategy and parenting strategy.
• Group works are assigned to teams of students who have to analyze the Corporate Strategy of a company by answering some questions. Some of the outcomes of teamworks are presented in class.

Students who decide to attend the course assiduously are evaluated as follows (additional elements will be illustrated in the detailed syllabus):

• Group work: each group of students is evaluated on the basis of a collective work of analysis and presentation in the classroom of business cases. The group work aims to check the capability of the students to apply theories and tools to one specific firm and to present them in a synthetic way.
• Written final exam: open questions. The final exam aims to evalutate the understanding of the theoretical contents of the course and to apply them to one company.

The evaluation of students who choose the non-attending method is based on the same contents of the students attending.

• Unlike attending students, non-attending students are required to submit an individual work consisting of a Word document aimed at analyzing the case of a multi-business enterprise. Individual work must be delivered no later than one week before the date on which the final exam is to be held. It is the responsibility of the non-attending student to ask the subject matter of the individual work. The individual work aims to check the capability of the student to apply theories and tools to one specific firm.
• The final exam for non-attending students includes, in addition to what is expected for attending students, one question on an additional book. The finale exam aims to evaluate the understanding of the theoretical contents of the course and to apply them to one company. 

• Teaching materials for attending students are illustrated in the detailed syllabus on Blackboard.

• Teaching materials for NON attending students are illustrated in the detailed syllabus on Blackboard.