Strategy and Environment

What is a business? For that matter, what is capitalism, the economic system in which business in the United States operates? And how have these concepts taken shape over American history, laying an indelible imprint on this country‘s social, political, and economic fortunes and struggles? This course examines the history of American business and American capitalism. We will examine how business firms have been organized, what types of economic activities (trade, industrial production, transportation, communication, and finance) businesses have engaged in, and how workers, employers, politicians, activists, and consumers have struggled to determine exactly what business should do and for whom.

This course provides an overview of successful strategies managers use to navigate their companies in the international environment governed by different laws and norms. By discussing detailed case studies of companies, students will learn about the ways global markets, local governments, and interorganizational networks shape the actions of multinational firms.

This course focuses on protecting and creating firm value by engaging external stakeholders (e.g., communities, NGOs, politicians) in challenging socio-political environments. Students learn how to: exercise due diligence to manage socio-political risk; engage stakeholders to earn a social license to operate; and integrate stakeholder-based initiatives into financial and operational management.

The Healthcare sector, which includes areas such as health care delivery, payment, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, etc., is an important part of any economy and society in all countries of the world including the US. This sector presents an exciting platform for upcoming business leaders in pursuit of a promising and transformational professional career. This elective course offer students interested in this sector the opportunity to study and review core strategy concepts, analytical techniques, and frameworks relevant to developing, evaluating, and implementing value-creating strategies for organizations operating in various sectors of the healthcare space.

Rice Business offers opportunities for students to attend international seminars hosted by other business schools around the world. These seminars, typically lasting one to three weeks, bring together MBA students from top programs around the world to focus on contemporary local and global business issues.

This course will help students apply the key strategic management frameworks and concepts into the innovation management context in technology industries and help them understand that innovation is an essential and integral part of strategic management. Within this strategic perspective, this course draws upon strategic management, organization theory, product innovation, and technology management for analytical tools to address important challenges faced by managers in technology-based firms.

This course examines the broad subject of law as it relates to business and is designed to help the student develop “legal astuteness.” That is, the ability to communicate effectively with counsel and to work together with counsel to solve complex problems and/or to protect and leverage the firm’s resources. It is designed to be a guide to understanding how the law impacts daily management decisions and business strategies, to spotting legal issues before they become legal problems, and to using laws and legal tools to marshal resources and manage risk.

Companies with strong reputations gain competitive advantage. However, reputation is not a tangible attribute of a firm, but rather an intangible asset held in the minds of the firm's constituents. The goal of this course is to provide students with analytical tools to assess how an organization can build, damage, and repair its reputation.

This course focuses on examining various strategies that companies can adopt to achieve sustainable and profitable growth. The course will use a variety of real-life cases of companies and supplement them with relevant readings, lectures, or other exercises, as necessary.

The course examines strategic and moral perspectives on grand challenges and social-environmental problems facing businesses. Examples of such issues include: pandemic, accelerating climate change, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and citizenship, bottom of the pyramid, inequality, and demands for justice. Through active discussion, the course focuses on implications of grand challenges for business leadership.

This course examines the broad subject of government regulation of business and financial markets and is designed to help the student develop what the authors of the text term “legal astuteness.” That is, the ability to exercise informed judgment based on context-specific knowledge of the law and the regulatory environment. To achieve this, we will apply the methodology of neoclassical economic analysis to understand the role and function of government and governmental decision-making; explore the intersection between economics and the law; and learn to spot legal issues before they become grounds for termination, lawsuits, or criminal indictments. Emphasis is placed on high impact regulatory programs, such as antitrust, security regulation, civil rights, and environmental laws.

Organization’s success does not only depend on its strategic repertoire within a given market, but also on how well it incorporates environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors in its strategy. By engaging with peer organizations, non-governmental agencies, the media, and other external stakeholders, firms can proactively identify and address ESG issues. Consideration of ESG factors in strategy can help simultaneously achieve a long-term competitive advantage as well as enhance a firm’s social and environmental impact. The goal of this course is to provide you with analytical tools that help managers assess a firm’s broader environment and make decisions that are beneficial for the firm and for society at large.

This course, led by Rice Business faculty, takes place in an international business setting and consists of a combination of lectures by local university faculty and business leaders and site visits to companies in the region. Students have the opportunity to meet with corporate executives, investors, and scholars to discuss opportunities and challenges of doing business in the country. The objectives of the course are to further an appreciation of the opportunities and obstacles of doing business in different parts of the world, increase sensitivity to cross-cultural issues, and broaden perspectives on issues dealing with global business.

The course deal with strategic management topics of interest to ventures that operate in technological ecosystems. Topics covered include platforms, network effects, coping with disruptive innovation, and how technology can create new markets and revolutionize existing ones.

The Washington Campus’ intensive and experiential residency courses are a unique personal and professional development experience. Participants interact directly with policy makers, influencers, and top executives in both the private and public sectors. Course objectives focus on how public affairs and public policy must be strategically, effectively, and ethically managed in order to create profitable and sustainable ‘win-win’ solutions for business, government, and society.

Public affairs and public policy profoundly shape the entire health care sector. Executives, entrepreneurs, and health care professionals must understand how the public policy process works and how to more effectively navigate this evolving landscape. This course enables participants to interact directly with health care policy makers and influencers, regulators, and other experts. Participants gain a richer understanding of how to more strategically plan and successfully operate in such a complex and dynamic health care policy environment.

The purpose of the course is to prepare the future CPA for ethical judgment. Course materials emphasize ethical reasoning and giving voice to values; principles of integrity, objectivity, independence (in fact and appearance) and avoidance of intentional misrepresentation of facts; the role of core values in a dynamically changing global economy; and professional and ethical issues in accounting practice.