AP/ADMS4900 3.0 A Management Policy: Part 1 Summer 2022 S1

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 Summer 2022 S1

AP/ADMS4900 3.0 A

Management Policy: Part 1

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The Management Policy course is designed to expose students to many facets of strategy that contribute to varied performances of firms. Strategy and policy identification, formulation, and evaluation are developed through lectures and case discussions. Emphasis is on the integration of Administrative Studies subject areas with which the student has previously become familiar; to provide a framework for the analysis of strategic problems of general management.

COURSE OVERVIEW

This course examines the challenges of the strategic management process - identifying, formulating, evaluating and implementing viable business strategies. The emphasis is on issues that affect the success of the entire organization. As such, we will view the firm as a whole, but we will draw upon, and integrate into our analysis, your understanding of the various functional areas of business and the external factors.

To increase your competence in managing the strategic process, extensive use of the case study method is employed. This allows us to practice business decision-making skills in simulated management roles. To maximize the learning experience, it is essential that all students be prepared to discuss the assigned cases. Thus, student participation is essential for the success of this course.

PREREQUISITES AND ENROLMENT POLICY:

Prerequisites: 78 credits including AP/ECON 1000 3.00; AP/ECON 1010 3.00 and AP/ADMS 2320 3.00 (or equivalent). Course credit exclusions: None. PRIOR TO FALL 2009: Prerequisites: 78 credits including AK/ECON 1000 3.00; AK/ECON 1010 3.00 and six credits in management science.

Students are personally responsible to ensure that they have the required prerequisites as stated in the course outline or in the course calendar. Students who do not have the prerequisites are at risk of being dropped from the course at any time during the course. The department will not be responsible for refunds resulting from students being dropped from a course due to a lack of the appropriate prerequisites.

Should students have any questions about enrolment policy, please contact the Office of Administrative Studies or Management Area assistant (Sandy Yang, [email protected]). Instructors do not handle enrolment related issues. Due to the nature of the course, there is no permission for the late enrolment.

Course Requirements for Remote Learning

Several platforms will be used in this course (e.g., eClass, Zoom, etc.) through which students will interact with the course materials, the course director, as well as with one another.  This course also requires the use of the eClass platform for examinations. Please carefully review the course outline to determine how the class meets (in whole or in part), and how office hours and presentations will be conducted. Students shall note the following:

· Zoom is hosted on servers in the U.S. This includes recordings done through Zoom.

· If you have privacy concerns about your data, provide only your first name or a nickname when you join a session.

· The system is configured in a way that all participants are automatically notified when a session is being recorded. In other words, a session cannot be recorded without you knowing about it.

REQUIRED TEXT(S)

Barney, J. B. and Hesterly, W. S. Strategic Management & Competitive Advantage, 6^th edition, Pearson.

Cases: Students are responsible for obtaining copies of cases. Cases can be purchased through the Ivey Publishing’s website (https://www.iveycases.com).

Recommended readings:

Fortune; Canadian Business; Harvard Business Review; Sloan Management Review; California Management Review; Globe and Mail; National Post.

COMPUTING INFORMTION

Here are some useful links for computing information, resources and help:

Student Guide to eClass

Zoom@YorkU Best Practices 

Zoom@YorkU User Reference Guide

Computing for Students Website 

Student Guide to eLearning at York University

COURSE EVALUATION

There are various grade components (see below):

Midterm: 30%

Group Work: 30%

Final Exam: 20%

Class Participation: 20%

 

FORMAT OF THE COURSE

This section of 4900 is a remote delivery course. By remote, it means that the instructor and students will meet on Zoom at a specified schedule (11:30-2:30pm, Mondays and Thursdays). The quality of the course depends in part on the quality of technology each participant has access to. You may be required to turn on camera to engage in video communication. Therefore, it is extremely important that you have a device and stable internet access that meet Zoom requirements. Importantly, you are expected to participate each session in Zoom meeting room. Please take time to get yourself familiar with how to use Zoom regarding various functions and applications Zoom provides. Further, the course will use videos on Youtube to elaborate theoretical concepts. Thus, it is important that you have access to Youtube.

Each session is about three hours. Normally, there are assigned chapters, Youtube videos, and a case in each session. In the first half of the session, we will mainly focus on the assigned chapters and videos. You are required to read the assigned chapters, watch Youtube videos, and review the lecture slides before the Zoom meeting. In the second half of the session, we will focus on the cases and apply relevant theories to make sense of case situations. There will be students who are responsible for leading case discussion (see CLASS PARTICIPATION below).

 

MID-TERM EXAM

The mid-term exam is weighted 30% of your final grade. The purpose is to examine your knowledge regarding the course materials (Chapters 1 to 5, 8 and 9 in the textbook) and the instructor’s lectures. The exam consists of two parts – multiple-choice questions and short essay questions. The detailed format will be announced in class.

For administration purposes, students who miss the original midterm are required to notify the instructor (by email) by May 28. Without such an email notification of the exam absence, you will receive a zero grade for the midterm exam.  Finally, the weight of this component cannot be transferred to other grade components. Accordingly, students who have missed both original and make-up midterms will have to defer the midterm component to the midterm exam when the course is available again.   

 

GROUP WORK

This course puts great emphasis on group work (30%) since group work is a contemporary work design in the real business world. Accordingly, students will be assigned to a group of approximate 5 members, depending upon the size of the class. Please be advised that each group member is responsible for the group process and dynamics. Instructor will be involved in group issues only if necessary. In addition, students are not allowed to switch groups after the groups have been finalized.  

Sessions 9 to 11 are group presentations. Specifically, in each of these sessions, there will be two groups who perform group presentations and two groups who assess the presenting group’s work. Each presenting group will be randomly assigned to be assessed by another group. In other words, there will be a pair – one group doing presentation and one group doing assessment. The structure of each presentation exercise is: a 25-minute group presentation, a 20-minute break, a 10-minute group critique, a 5-minute response, and a 15-minute Q&As from all students. Accordingly, there are two components of group work.

Group presentation (25%): The purpose of the group presentation is to help students to develop case analysis and presentation skills. Therefore, all group members are required to do the presentation. Each group will be randomly assigned one of three cases. Each group, acting as a consulting team, will do the case analysis. On Sessions 9 - 11, each group will do a 25-minute presentation, followed by a 15-minute break (allowing the group who does critique to come up the assessment), a 10-minute group critique, a 5-minute response, and 15-minute Q&As where other students are invited to ask questions through the chat room function in Zoom meetings.

There is no required format for the presentations. Clarity and creativity are keys. As you are assigned to a case, your analysis should be limited to the case materials. No additional research is necessary nor recommended. By one day prior to your presentation, your group is required to give the instructor the outline of your presentation (no required format).

Empirical evidence shows that to achieve a high level of group performance requires effective teamwork and input from individual group members. However, past experience tells us that groups are subject to the issues of free riders if there are no mechanisms in place to motivate group members to contributing their knowledge and time. Accordingly, individual grade for this component will be based on peer evaluation.  For members’ peer evaluations are one standard deviation above the average of the group’s peer evaluation, the members will be rewarded additional 3 points. In contrast, for members’ peer evaluations are one standard deviation below the average of the group’s peer evaluation, the members’ grades for this exercise will be the group grade subtracted 3 points.

As to peer evaluations, each individual member will fill up the evaluation form, available on course website, to provide his/her evaluations to other members. The evaluation, which is about the group presentation performance, will be based on five criteria:

1. Teamwork: contributing to group/firm performance, draws out the best from others, fosters activities moving the group/firm toward task completion, communicated and added value to group/firm tasks.

2. Initiative and dependability: fulfilling responsibilities on time and according to expectations of group or evaluator.

3. Quality of outputs: oral reports and written products were of high quality and organization.

4. Contribution to knowledge and learning: effectively understood, utilized, and demonstrated knowledge of course materials and added value to group/firm skill level.

5. Professionalism: attending meetings on time, responding to emails promptly, messages in a timely manner, being respectful to other members.

Below is an example of how your grade will be calculated. In a hypothetical scenario, a group consists of 4 members. Assuming the group receives 80 for its presentation and the result of peer evaluation is as follow.

	Teamwork	Initiative/dependability	Quality of output	Knowledge and learning	Professionalism	Average
Member 1	4	4	4	4	4	4
Member 2	4	3	2	3	3	3
Member 3	3	2	2	1	2	2
Member 4	2	0	1	1	1	1

The average of the peer evaluation is 2.5 and standard deviation is about 1.3. In this scenario, both Members 2 and 3 will receive 80 as their individual grades. Member 1 will receive 83 because his/her peer evaluation is one standard deviation above the average (4>2.5+1.3). In contrast, Member 4 will receive 77 because his/her peer evaluation is one standard deviation below the average (1<2.5-1.3).

Since peer evaluation significantly contributes to your individual grades, you should take it seriously. Moreover, you are required to submit your evaluation the day after your group presentation. It is important to submit your evaluation on time because individual grades will be calculated two days after your presentation. Accordingly, no late submission is permitted. You will receive 5 points penalty if you fail to submit your evaluation on time.

 

Group critique (5%): The purpose of this exercise to provide you with an opportunity to share the responsibility of class learning. Specifically, for each group presentation, there will be one group who is responsible to assess the ideas and quality of the work put forward by the presenting group. Each group will have up to 10 minutes to present your assessment. Groups are encouraged to develop their own assessment criteria. It is highly recommended that you present your assessment with Powerpoint slides. Importantly, your assessment should at least include both positive aspects of the presentation (content and style) and areas for improvement. The 5% will be evaluated based on the degree of constructive feedback provided by the group. Only group members who are present at the time when the group is asked to offer the assessment will get the credits. In other words, group members who do not show up in the class at that time will receive no credits for this component.

 

Words for the Presenting Groups

Your presentation can be as creative as you’d like to. In the presentation, you basically need to cover the following topics.

1. Issue identification (what are the issues)

2. Issue analysis (why those are issues)

3. Recommendations/Solutions

4. Implementation/Action

Words for Audience

To be a good audience, you need to listen to the presentation closely and read the case material in advance. By doing so, you will find that you can learn a great deal from the presenting groups. You will be invited to ask any questions you may have through the chat room function at the Zoom meetings. Keep in mind that your questions need to be constructive and relevant to the presentation and course materials. Your participation in the Q&A questions is considered as your class participation (see below).

 

CLASS PARTICIPATION

Class participation is weighted 20% of your final grade. As class participation is essential for learning processes, the outcome of remote learning truly depends upon your participation. Class participation is not about attendance, but rather your contribution to class discussion. Specifically, the course puts great emphasis on discussion of the course materials. Class participation is evaluated on a regular basis.  The instructor will evaluate students’ participation based on quantity and quality.  Good quality of participation is one that can stimulate in-depth, meaningful discussion. On the other hand, a repetitive comment or simply summary of the materials would be considered as the modest participation. If students have any difficulty in participating in discussion, they should contact the instructor as soon as possible to discuss how to help them to engage in the class discussion. There are two main components of class participation: lead case discussion (5%), and session on-going participation (15%). All components are evaluated on a 10-point scale.

 

Lead case discussion (5%):

Each student is required to perform lead case discussion for one session. For Sessions 3 to 7, there will be about 7 students in each session to take in charge of case summary and providing recommendations to the case of the session as a starting point for case discussion. Note that this is an individual’s component, not group. Therefore, while you are welcome to discuss the case with other students of the same case prior to the class, your performance is evaluated individually.

 

Session on-going participation (15%): 

There are 9 sessions (starting Session 2) in which students will have opportunities to participate in class discussion. Students are expected to participate in both class and case discussion in Zoom meetings. Starting Session 2, each student will get points according to his/her participation relative to the class average. Normally, students will receive 8 or 9 points if their points are one standard deviation above the class average of the session. Students will receive points below 3 if their performances are one standard deviation below the class average. There are 9 live-class participation sessions. To account for the potential errors in evaluating participation and consider the situation where students might have to miss sessions for unexpected events, your participation in this component will be based on your best 7 sessions.

FINAL EXAM

Final exam, 20%, will be a 3-hour exam. The exam is a case analysis in which students are required to apply ALL materials we discuss in the class to analyze the case and make recommendations.