The industrial economy is gone, and corporations must now compete in much more dynamic circumstances. This new environment typically involves high complexity, rapid changes, a high degree of uncertainty, a strong need for flexibility; and requires comprehensive innovation, a more democratic, ethical view towards the function and organization of corporations. In order to realize the maximal value for their shareholders and stakeholders, top executives should make their business strategy and innovation process more flexible, more agile and more participative. A corporate strategy should no longer be seen as an ultimate solution, but rather as guidelines, directions that contain options or scenario’s to enable the steering of future acting or non-acting. A strategic spectrum or a strategic bandwidth should be created and continuously cultivated.
What makes firms successful and what makes them fail or underperform? Strategic management provides some answers to these fundamental management questions. It involves analyzing a firm’s resources and its industry environment to deliver competitive advantage over other firms. The most effective actions often depend on the actions of others. Furthermore, success in the future may well require the firm to change in radical ways and to target different markets with different products and services. Strategic management is about running the total business enterprise. It seeks to understand the challenges and the environment in which the business operates, the direction the management intends to head, the strategic plans to for getting the enterprise moving in the intended direction and the tasks of implementing the chosen strategy successfully.
There is always a better strategy than the one you have; you just haven't thought of it yet. Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things. Organization doesn't really accomplish anything. Plans don't accomplish anything, either. Theories of management don't much matter. Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds because good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.
Course Description:This course will introduce you to the field of strategic management. We will discuss the major research driving theories in this field. This course aims to equip you with the core concepts and frameworks of strategic management, which will allow you to understand what managers, must do to make an organization – be it a for-profit or a non-profit one – to achieve superior performance. This course would enable you to understand theories, models and researches in this field.
Course Objectives:
LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of this course, students should be able to
Strategic Management in Tourism by 
