Learning Environment

What Can Participants Expect to Learn?

• Gain a broad understanding of the business strategy topics taught in leading MBA programs. Learn to apply these principles to e-business and the new economy.
• Understand the roles and structure of venture capital firms and their criteria for funding businesses
• Develop a framework for creating venture-capital quality business plans within larger organizations
• Analyze and evaluate cases and lessons from failed e-commerce ventures
• Understand the "clicks and mortar" framework for integrating online and offline ventures
• Undertake a rigorous (re) evaluation of the marketing literature to understand new, networked economy techniques for managing customers.
• Develop a game-theoretic framework for strategy and understand such concepts as complements, bundling, bidding, boundaries and scope, cannibalization, compensation schemes, value net, imitation, negotiations, and perceptions
• Understand the resource-based view approach to strategy including such concepts as imitability, durability, substitutability, appropriability, and competitive superiority
• Evaluate the strategy literature (Porter, Hamel) with an eye toward formulating new, digital strategy frameworks
• Review and understand essential topics in competitive strategy such as industry analysis, competitive advantage, positioning, entry, basic game theory, competitive pricing, commitment, antitrust, and vertical integration
• Explore new and emerging e-commerce revenue models
• Explore the myths and realities of the "first mover advantage"
• Understand important themes in the behavioral science literature such as causation, framing, metadecisions, boundaries, reference points, metaphors, judgment overconfidence, seeking disconfirming evidence, etc.
• Understand the economics of information and how to price information, as well as how to develop strategies and frameworks for information-intensive products. Topics include differential pricing, bundling, signaling, licensing, lock-in, and network economics.
• Read several "classic texts" of the Western philosophical tradition and understand their business strategy applications.
• Review cutting-edge literature on topics related to leadership and creativity

Why Does Round Table Group Record the Lectures of the Faculty?

Round Table Group records and codifies the lectures of today's great teachers so that, to paraphrase Herodotus, "time may not draw the color from what these great teachers have brought into being, and that their great and wonderful teachings may be shared with a global audience of leaders."

How Does this Program Differ From Other Programs on Business Strategy?

• The Program seeks models, not trends; concepts, not vocabulary; and analysis, not analogies. As Hal Varian notes, "We firmly believe the models, the concepts, and the analysis will provide you with a deep understanding of the fundamental forces at work in today's high tech industries and enable you to craft winning strategies for tomorrow's network economy."
• Learning and work are becoming contemporaneous; we are all becoming knowledge workers. This Program is for lifelong learners who seek to become true professionals.
• The shelf-life of information is shrinking dramatically; learning is becoming a perpetual process. The Program deals with a highly dynamic and ever-changing knowledge domain and, as well, is being delivered in a novel and unique format (business texts, philosophical and literary treatises, CD-based lectures, asynchronous online discussions, synchronous (on-site or telephone) discussions. Readings and lectures are continually updates and supplemented as new research presents itself.
• Cross-functional perspective. Management in fast-paced technological environments requires tight integration across all functional areas. Therefore, the course content will span and synthesize several functional areas, including Strategy, Marketing, Entrepreneurship (and "Intrapreneurship"), Game Theory, Law, and Globalization. Of particular note is that the Program supplements business instruction with lessons drawn from anthropology, evolutionary biology, philosophy, and the "Great Books" of the Western tradition.