MGT 607 – Strategies for High Performing Orgs – Week 3

Week 3 – Corporate Level Strategies

We continued our readings and diving into corporate strategy. Again we started off with a Porter reading, this one his “From Competitive Advantage to Corporate Strategy” article. Then we went into Prahalad’s “The Core Competence of the Corporation” and reviewed vertical integration and portfolio management as well as diversification and divestment, which I thought was important because we always talk about mergers and acquisitions but rarely about divestment. Sometimes the parts are more valuable than the whole. Next we looked at Dyer’s “When to Ally and When to Acquire”, Brandenburger’s take on “Co-opetition”, and Mankins good piece on “How the Best Divest.”

I am working well in this groove, although I have to spend much of the weekend staying on top of these readings and getting my papers written. Every week there is a reflection post and a discussion post, but they are just papers in disguise.