This course focuses on the organizational and strategic challenges companies face in order to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage. It engages in an application-orientied analysis of intercompany interaction along the value chain. The course discusses how companies decide for strategic moves in order to attain competitive advantage. Amongst others, topics covered by this course will be pricing decisions, market entry decisions, intellectual property protection, network effects, and vertical relations within the value chain.

Students who have successfully participated in the module "Organizations and Innovation Strategy",

• explain key theoretical concepts of management, competition and strategy science.

• combine and compare knowledge of theoretical concepts with the understanding of emerging trends. In so doing, students discuss resulting consequences for strategic decision-making in organizations, e.g., the strategic implications of network effects on the management of platform ecosystems.

• perform analyses to quantify abstract decision-making scenarios through game theoretic and economic models (e.g., simultaneous and sequential decision-making games).

• assess corporate strategies through analyzing competitive environments surrounding organizations.

• develop adequate recommendations for organizations' (competitive) strategies.