Results for STRAMGT

Get the strategy right, and the chance for success is great. Nowhere is this more evident than in today's world of major challenges. Strategy is at the heart of problem solving and achieving objectives, yet few people can define strategy, much less understand how to conceptualize, design, and execute effective strategies that yield the best outcomes.This course will meet once a week to focus on interesting and engaging case studies, each of which illustrates a key ingredient of strategy. Some are well-known historical events, while others are less obvious, but all have a strategic lesson to share. They are quite diverse, from the planning of a high-risk rescue in the Colorado Rockies, to a product crisis in a Fortune 50 company, to a little-known failed military mission of WWII, to a commercial airline disaster. The ability to think through challenging and varied scenarios is both instructive and mind-stretching. There will be some pre-reading on each case study and there may be a field trip for students to put their lessons into practice. The course is designed to be highly interactive; all to enable students to unravel the mystery and power of strategic thinking. Students will also have the opportunity to select and analyze a case reflecting interests of their own. This course can help students not only prepare for a career in a range of fields, but also as they meet the challenges of their current coursework. Problem-solving skills are central in every walk of life; this seminar can help students build a stronger foundation for sound decision-making.

This course examines fundamental issues of general management and leadership within an organization. You will learn about setting an organization's strategic direction, aligning structure to implement strategy, and leading individuals within the firm. You will master concepts, frameworks, and tools to assess an industry and a firm's competitive environment, and to craft alternatives. You will study the interplay among formal structure, informal networks, and culture in shaping organizational performance. By integrating leadership theory, the lessons of practical application, and your own experience, you will develop skills and capabilities essential to leading others. And you'll gain a better understanding of your own leadership preferences, strengths, and weaknesses.

In the Managerial Skills Labs we examine several common managerial challenges faced by executives. Together with Faculty, students explore these topics using four case examples, each asking students to evaluate a series of situations, develop alternatives for their resolution, and ultimately recommend and implement a course of action from the point of view of the company's owner/manager. We have selected small to midsized businesses as the context for these discussions in order to highlight the impact that key decisions and their implementation can have on the broader organization. Class preparation should include not only analysis and conclusions, but also specific recommendations on implementation. Students should come to class prepared to role play important conversations between management and other key individuals.

This course deals with the overall general management of the business enterprise. Extensive case studies of a variety of companies of differing size, industry, and current conditions provide the basis for the comprehensive analysis and establishment of a strategic management approach for the organization. Frameworks are presented for strategy identification and evaluation; assessing industry attractiveness; evaluating the firm's capabilities, resources, and position; determining the optimal horizontal and vertical scope of the firm; entering into strategic alliances and joint ventures; and formulating and implementing strategy in multi-business organizations.

Generative Leadership: How to Create Innovative Ideas and Convey Them with ImpactnnThere are three major sections to this course - Design Thinking, The Improvisational Mindset, and High Performance Communication.nnDesign ThinkingnnOutcome:nParticipants learn to employ User Centered Design as promoted by the Stanford d.school. They become adept at Empathizing with the end user, practicing focused Need Finding, Defining the Problem, Ideating, Rapidly Prototyping and Adapting to Feedback.nnExperiences:nParticipants learn the Design Thinking process through a hands-on, collaborative design challenge, like redesigning the Briefcase for a specific user.nnThe Improvisational MindsetnnOutcome:nThe participants increase their ability to respond flexibly to novel situations and to generate innovative solutions on a collaborative, creative team. The mindset is cultivated by practicing 5 key principles. Say "Yes, and". Treat Mistakes as Gifts. Inspire your Partner. Dare to be Obvious. Notice the World.nnExperiences:nThe key principles are taught through a series of immersive theater exercises derived from Johnstone, Spolin, and Ryan. Valuable readings include IMPROV WISDOM, by Patricia Madson and journal articles on improv and brainstorming.nnHigh Performance CommunicationnnOutcome:nThe final segment of the class is a chance to apply the principles of User Centered Design and the Improvisational Mindset to design and deliver messages that go beyond just transmitting information - they get results. Participants successfully use a version of the Design Thinking process to rapidly develop content that is tuned to the audience's needs, and that they can deliver in a way that is agile and responsive to real time feedbacknnExperiencesnGenerative Leadership culminates in a group presentation designed to influence key stakeholders. To be successful, participants will have to draw on all sections of the course. AS WE SPEAK is our text.

This course is an advanced applications economics course. The course has two main components, game theory and competitive strategy. Game theory is the field of study of interactive strategic decision making. In recent years it has become a prominent approach in both research and in practice. We will apply game theoretical models to a variety of industry, market and other relational settings. Beyond the use of game theory in competitive strategy in general, we will spend a significant part of the course studying competitive advantages in depth. In particular, we will cover the various types of competitive advantages and barriers to entry, attributes of an advantage, the creation and dynamics of advantages and more.

Americans spend nearly 7% of their income on food items and another 5% on food services annually (US Census). Food spend is at the intersection of two of the most important industries in the US: health care and agriculture. Food production today supports the food consumption causing our extraordinary burden of disease; 75 cents of every dollar of the $4.8 billion spent annually on health care is for diet-related disease. The health care system accounts for over 17% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). Agriculture and agriculture-related industries contributed 4.8% to the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012. This course focuses on the shifting landscapes across these industries and subsequent market opportunities in food, health, and nutrition. The course is designed for students with a broad interest in the food or health systems and/or who are interested in careers in related fields. We will examine the food system from three points of view: the consumer, nutritional science, and policy. The class will focus on solving for consumer needs from the perspective of a health-promoting entrepreneur. The class will involve lecture, discussion, and prominent guest speakers who are entrepreneurs themselves or industry leaders.

The purpose of this course is to provide students with insights into the newest innovations in healthcare service delivery, information technology, biotech and medical devices and how venture and private equity investors evaluate and determine where to invest their money among these areas to maximize return, minimize risk, and capitalize on a highly fluid marketplace that represents nearly 20% of the U.S. GDP. Through presentations by leading entrepreneurs in the field, students will be challenged to reach conclusions regarding which healthcare sectors are the most promising for venture investing and which individual companies presented reflect the best opportunities, particularly in light of the seismic shifts currently underway within the healthcare industry driven by both public and private considerations. This is not primarily a finance class, but more substantively about the nuances of emerging healthcare businesses and venture finance as applied to this very unique sector.

This seminar showcases the diversity of entrepreneurs and the range of entrepreneurial paths they pursue. Thirty-five entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, primarily woman and under-represented minorities, will share their personal and professional journeys, and how each embodies the entrepreneurial mindset. Case studies, readings and videos, will complement in-class discussions with the speakers in exploring the entire entrepreneurial process from finding an idea and forming and building a team, to being an inclusive leader, raising money, assembling a board, and overcoming setbacks and challenges. The class teaches the entrepreneurial mindset, and how everyone can be entrepreneurial in their lives. Teams will work on creating an idea for a company during the quarter.

This is a course about exploring the methods and processes for product management, largely in technology companies, and a look at what can lead to the most effective ways to coordinate customer needs, ensure accurate product development, and how to develop and use the appropriate tools needed to successfully sell products and services to customers from the perspective of the Product Manager. The course covers ways to think about product management depending on the type of product being delivered (new product introduction vs. reinvigorating an existing product) and also the skills and tools used by product managers for effective product management.nnThis course is an extended version of STRAMGT 509.

This course considers the challenges faced by start-ups in achieving liquidity. We take the perspectives of organizational behavior, marketing, and finance, and examine forks in the road faced by firms that have already launched products. Marketing topics include how to market firms for sale and calculating the addressable market. Organizational topics include hiring and firing, and the role of founders after sales. Finance topics include how the choice between sale and IPO affects value realized, and private equity exits.

The primary objective of this course is to introduce students to the fundamentals of how to sell and to what selling is truly about. The course is appropriate for anyone who wants to understand and show proficiency with the skills required by different selling situations (e.g., direct sales of products and services, selling oneself in an interview, raising money for a new venture, running a company as CEO, etc.). The course looks at the entire selling process of lead generation, prospecting, qualification, discovery, understanding value, customizing presentations, objection handling, negotiation and closing. This is not a typical GSB case-study-based course. Students who have taken the class describe it as a hands-on, practical, skills-based class. Students will work by themselves and together in groups to complete individual and team-based exercises designed to introduce them to and give them practice with selling fundamentals in each stage of the selling process. Students will be practicing and utilizing newly learned skills in real life each week; the focus will be on doing stuff (e.g., using curiosity in a situation outside the classroom) rather than thinking about and talking about stuff. Students will then come together in class with the instructors to share and process the learning from these exercises.nn

This course equips you to create and build equitable organizations. We will discuss the power of inclusion as it relates to the employee and customer experience. We will study effective strategies for building diverse and inclusive companies, and will address the barriers that can often exist. We'll look at approaches to organizational design that limit unconscious bias and produce more objective decisions across the employee experience - from engaging and hiring candidates to retaining employees and helping them thrive. Finally, we'll dive into how to create inclusive cultures and a sense of belonging. Experts in diversity and inclusion, and executives at companies that have successfully incorporated inclusion programs, will join us for the class discussions.

This is an integrated lab course in Entrepreneurship designed to teach students the process of creating a new viable venture - from idea to launch. It is a dynamic and interactive course organized around projects undertaken by teams of 3 to 4 registered students from the MSx and MBA programs, together with other graduate students within Stanford who bring expertise of particular relevance to the idea being pursued. This course is designed not only for students with immediate entrepreneurial aspirations, but also for any student considering starting an entrepreneurial venture at some point in his or her career. The course is a two quarter class, with admission to the class by team and idea. In the winter quarter, teams will research, craft, and morph their idea into a viable business concept. In the spring quarter they will further refine their concept and develop a strategy and plan to attract financial, human and other resources. At the end of the spring quarter, teams will present their plan to a panel of experts and potential investors to simulate the funding process. The new course builds on a predecessor course S356 "Evaluating Entrepreneurial Opportunities" and encapsulates new and important research and findings as they relate to the process of new venture creation. The teaching method is primarily learning by doing (LBD) through a structured process and supported by relevant lectures. Learning is further enhanced through meetings with the instructor, coaching by experienced mentors and review by peers. Field research as well as prototype product development are integral to the course. Since admittance to S321/S322 is by team and the quality of their idea, team formation takes place during the autumn quarter. Informal student mixers and seminars will be held to facilitate team formation and idea generation. Each team of 3-4 students should preferably consist of 1 or more MSx students and graduate students from the MBA program or other Schools - Engineering, Medicine, Law, Science, Education - to bring diversity and depth to the team. The application-selection process is described on the S321/S322 website.

This is an integrated lab course in Entrepreneurship designed to teach students the process of creating a new viable venture - from idea to launch. It is a dynamic and interactive course organized around projects undertaken by teams of 3 to 4 registered students from the MSx and MBA programs, together with other graduate students within Stanford who bring expertise of particular relevance to the idea being pursued. This course is designed not only for students with immediate entrepreneurial aspirations, but also for any student considering starting an entrepreneurial venture at some point in his or her career. The course is a two quarter class, with admission to the class by team and idea. In the winter quarter, teams will research, craft, and morph their idea into a viable business concept. In the spring quarter they will further refine their concept and develop a strategy and plan to attract financial, human and other resources. At the end of the spring quarter, teams will present their plan to a panel of experts and potential investors to simulate the funding process. The new course builds on a predecessor course S356 "Evaluating Entrepreneurial Opportunities" and encapsulates new and important research and findings as they relate to the process of new venture creation. The teaching method is primarily learning by doing (LBD) through a structured process and supported by relevant lectures. Learning is further enhanced through meetings with the instructor, coaching by experienced mentors and review by peers. Field research as well as prototype product development are integral to the course. Since admittance to S321/S322 is by team and the quality of their idea, team formation takes place during the autumn quarter. Informal student mixers and seminars will be held to facilitate team formation and idea generation. Each team of 3-4 students should preferably consist of 1 or more MSx students and graduate students from the MBA program or other Schools - Engineering, Medicine, Law, Science, Education - to bring diversity and depth to the team. The application-selection process is described on the S321/S322 website.

We'd like to introduce you to Samantha Palmer, a recent Stanford graduate who took several classes at the d.school. Each class further confirmed the importance of the design thinking process, methodology, and community. By the end of her Stanford career she truly believed that design thinking had the potential to change her life.n nAs graduation approached, Samantha found a position at a large tech company in Silicon Valley and was excited to bring the design thinking methodologies with her. A few weeks into her new job, she asked her team if they wanted to talk to some users before launching into their next big project. She was met with a room of blank stares and apprehensive questions. n nHow might we give Samantha the skills she needs to change the mindset of her colleagues, spark design thinking at her company, and get her first design-driven project off the ground? n nWhen you take a class at the d.school, you walk away confident in your creative skills and fluent in the design process. However, when recent graduates (re)enter the workforce, they quickly become discouraged by the stagnancy of company cultures. They see the need to trigger and sustain change, but don¿t have the understanding of organizational psychology to do so. Organizational Psychology of Design Thinking asks you to take on Samantha¿s challenges. n nOver the course of the semester, students will engage in 2 large-scale projects:n- Project 1 (Empathy - Synthesis) - Working with partner companies, students will apply organizational psychology and design frameworks to better understand company culture.n- Project 2 (Ideation - Testing) - Using their work from Project 1, students will prototype and test organizational changes in real company settings.nn**Please note** Our class will take an experimental approach Organizational Psychology of Design Thinking. The majority of classes will be conducted in the field allowing students to take a hands-on approach to design thinking. Please be aware and build travel time into your class schedule.

This course is for students who may want to undertake an entrepreneurial career by starting and/or managing a social venture. It covers traditional topics in starting and growing a venture - venture creation, resource acquisition, managing growth and harvest/exit - in the context of social enterprises. It is our view that, in most ways, social ventures should be treated and managed like for-profit ventures, and this course reflects this perspective. That said, there are some important differences which are critical to understand to effectively start and manage a social enterprise. We will highlight these throughout our sessions, so while many of the lessons learned are generalizable to all ventures, we don't advise you to take this class unless you really want to learn about social ventures. All the cases and class discussions will be exclusively about enterprises and organizations in the social venture space.nnThe class deals primarily with situations from the point of view of the entrepreneur/manager, and in a couple of cases, from the perspective of the investor. Students will have a chance to assess opportunity and action in the context of actual social ventures, often in situations that are current. The course is integrative and will allow students to apply many facets of their business school education. We will have a mixture of case discussions, student-led in-class exercises, panel discussions, and guest speakers.

Social Ventures Funding Readiness is designed as a follow on to the two quarters of the Startup Garage or Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability experiential learning courses or for Venture Studio residents and is specifically designed for students working on social businesses (nonprofit or for-profit or tbd). Designed for students who already have a solid understanding of the social or environmental need they are trying to address, this course will focus on the business planning needed to launch their venture. In weekly sessions throughout the quarter, teams will work through topics unique to social ventures (e.g. mission, theory of change, impact measurement) as well as topics common to any venture, e.g. product/service market fit, business/economic model, financial planning, early stage financing, logistics, sales/distribution, and board/talent development. Each team will receive significant one-on-one coaching from the instructors, as well as opportunities to share their work with peers and learn from/present to guest speakers. Teams will emerge with a solid business and impact model, ready to raise their first round of seed funding. This course will prepare students for the Stanford Social Innovation Fellowship, Echoing Green, and other similar post-graduate funding opportunities. The course will assume a level of familiarity with key social impact frameworks, so students are encouraged to take another social innovation course or to have prior experience working with mission and theory of change.

This 3 unit course is a case study based course designed for those students interested in entrepreneurship and/or investing. The partnership (and interaction) between the entrepreneur and the investor is a very important dimension in the growth of many start-ups. This course examines the entrepreneur and investor relationship from both the entrepreneur's and the investor's perspectives.n nFrom the point of view of the entrepreneur -- we look at how an entrepreneur can select the most suitable investor and match the investor to the growth trajectory of their company. Students will learn how and when to approach investors as well as the positioning of their company to the investment firms' portfolio strategy. Each year we have a range in students' entrepreneurial experience and their enthusiasm. Many students begin the course with a business idea (an original idea for this course or a business idea used in another GSB course). Other students will use a "borrowed" business idea from a recent start up to test the waters of the entrepreneurial experience. The course gives all levels of entrepreneurs the opportunity to understand the current investing environment in class and in the field. Students have enjoyed connecting with members of the entrepreneur & VC community as they interact with the guest speakers and complete the course projects.n nFrom the point of view of the investor -- we look at the rapid evolution of the investor sector; in particular, why entrepreneurs have many more investor alternatives today compared to several years ago. It is important for entrepreneurs (and future investors) to understand investors' motivation and process. We will explain how investors are differentiating their firm in an "entrepreneur's market", look for their next opportunity, their investment selection process and how investors plan to work with the entrepreneur after the investment. nnThe course is geared for multiple audiences: the student who is considering an entrepreneurship or investment career path, the student who "experimenting" with entrepreneurship for the first time or the entrepreneur who is seriously exploring a start-up idea (and perhaps has already formed a team). Each student audience will benefit from the candid guest speakers discussion as to what happens behind the scenes (e.g. in the investors' partners meeting) and at the negotiating table between the entrepreneur and investor.nnThe course is case study based with engaging class discussions led by your two teachers who collectively have over 70 years of experience as venture capitalists. The course includes frequent guest speakers (both entrepreneurs and investors) who will give alternate and candid off the record details about their experiences. nnClass participation is integral to a successful exchange of ideas; therefore, we encourage class participation and it will count as 50% of your total grade. The other 50% of the grade is based on individual papers, a short presentation to the class, and your individual contribution to a presentation project to an investor panel. Notably, this year's course allows students to choose their role as the entrepreneur, investor or angel adviser for the final presentation to the VC panel (in contrast to previous years' requirement, this year students will be graded for their individual contribution rather than as a team for the final group project).

In this course, students will investigate opportunities and challenges of entrepreneurial ventures trying to make a positive impact in public education. The course requires a basic level of understanding of the U.S. K-12 public school system. The first session will analyze the structure of the public education as an industry, with a special emphasis on understanding the achievement gap. Subsequent sessions will explore challenges in increasing efficacy, ensuring financial sustainability, and scaling for entrepreneurs who have sought to change student outcomes, solve pain points, and innovate. The course will feature a variety of ventures (including schools, education technology, training, and supplemental services) and organizational models (for-profit, not-for-profit, and benefit corporation). This course is suitable for students aspiring to be entrepreneurs, leaders in entrepreneurial organizations, leaders in educational organizations, Board members, donors or investors. (Note: this is not a "how-to" course on starting an entrepreneurial venture.)

This seminar will showcase women entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. We will explore the challenges and opportunities they encountered in starting and growing their ventures, and the personal and professional choices they have made. The sessions will include cases, readings, videos, panel discussions, role plays and breakout groups with the entrepreneurs and vc¿s. The class will help you understand and build your entrepreneurial and growth mindset. You will leave the class with an individual roadmap and tools to help you be entrepreneurial throughout your career. Men are encouraged to enroll.

This course addresses how the increasingly large number of firms that use or provide outsourcing and "offshoring" can create a sustainable competitive advantage. Students who complete the course will have a framework and a set of concepts that can be used to position a firm for strategic advantage in these supply networks. Positioning in and strategic analysis of product markets is covered in a variety of courses and books. A distinguishing feature of this course is that it addresses positioning and strategic analysis for firms operating as part of a network of providers, sellers and buyers... the factor markets. The course takes a general management perspective and provides examples through cases and discussions with visitors. The major theme of the course is that these firms must carefully consider how they position themselves in both the product and factor markets.

The focus of this class is on the challenges and key issues associated with the creation and management of a professional sales organization. Our emphasis is developing and managing the selling effort of business-to-business and business-to-consumer capital goods and services. There will be relatively little emphasis on sales technique (i.e., students should not expect a course on "How to be a Better Salesperson"). The course is organized to follow the development of the sales function from strategic inception through to execution and implementation: choosing a go-to-market model (e.g., direct sales, no/low touch, VARs, OEMs, hybrid models); building and structuring the sales organization (e.g., sales learning curve, organizational structure, allocating territories and quotas); and managing the sales force (e.g., hiring/firing, compensation, forecasting, culture). We will address these topics in the context of both early stage ventures and later stage enterprises.

This course is offered for students who at some time may want to undertake an entrepreneurial career by pursuing opportunities leading to partial or full ownership and control of a business. The course deals with case situations from the point of view of the entrepreneur/manager rather than the passive investor. Many cases involve visitors, since the premise is that opportunity and action have large idiosyncratic components. Students must assess opportunity and action in light of the perceived capabilities of the individuals and the nature of the environments they face. The course is integrative and will allow students to apply many facets of their business school education. Each section will have a specific focus, please select the instructor(s) with your interests: Leslie, Bowman - High tech ventures; Ellis, Saloner - Diverse types of ventures; Foster, Brady - Diverse types of ventures; Reiss, Chess - Very early stage ventures.

Many of America's most successful entrepreneurial companies have been substantially influenced by professionally managed venture capital. This relationship is examined from both the entrepreneur's and the venture capitalist's perspective. From the point of view of the entrepreneur, the course considers how significant business opportunities are identified, planned, and built into real companies; how resources are matched with opportunity; and how, within this framework, entrepreneurs seek capital and other assistance from venture capitalists or other sources. From the point of view of the venture capitalist, the course considers how potential entrepreneurial investments are evaluated, valued, structured, and enhanced; how different venture capital strategies are deployed; and how venture capitalists raise and manage their own funds. The course includes a term-long project where students work in teams (4-5 students per team) to write a business plan (or a business model canvas) for a venture of the team's choosing.

This course is offered for students who, in the near term, aspire to the management and full or partial ownership of a new or newly-acquired business. The seminar, which is limited to 45 students, has a strong implementation focus, and deals in some depth with certain selected, generic entrepreneurial issues, viewed from the perspective of the owner/manager. Broad utilization is made of case materials, background readings, visiting experts, and role playing. Throughout the course, emphasis is placed on the application of analytical tools to administrative practice.

Startup Garage is an intensive hands-on, project-based course, in which students will apply the concepts of design thinking, engineering, finance, business and organizational skills to design and test new business concepts that address real world needs . Our aspiration is to help teams identify an unmet customer need, design new products or services that meet that need, and develop business models to support the creation and launch of startup products or services. Even those teams that do not successfully launch a venture, or individuals who decide not to move forward, will learn critical, cutting-edge techniques about starting and launching a venture. Collaborative, multi-disciplinary teams will identify and work with users, domain experts, and industry participants to identify and deeply understand customer needs, then proceed to design products or services and a business model to address those needs. Each team will conceive, design, build, and field-test critical aspects of both the product or service and the business model. This course is offered by the Graduate School of Business. It integrates methods from human-centered design, lean startup, and business model planning. The course focuses on developing entrepreneurial skills (using short lectures and in-class exercises) and then applying these skills to specific problems faced by those users identified by the teams. Teams will get out of the building and interact directly with users and advisers to develop a deep understanding of the challenges they face and to field test their proposed services, products, and business models.

Most everyone associated with technology start-ups would agree that the most important initial characteristic of a successful endeavor is a compelling vision. The journey from vision to escape velocity is highly dependent on management's ability to translate that vision into a product or service that closely and economically addresses a customer's significant point of pain. Without a tight product market fit, the start-up's offering will not be able to break through the market's gravitational forces which strongly favor existing solutions, resulting in likely failure. With tight product/market fit, it is far more likely the company will achieve repeatable and growing sales success. Conventional wisdom dictates that a start-up launching a new product should focus its energy understanding what the market wants (problem) and then translating that knowledge into an optimal set of product features (solution). This is the ideal strategy if one is attacking a market that already exists. However if the start-up pursues an entirely new market or re-segments an existing market, customers are unlikely to be able to articulate the benefits and features they will need. The approaches required to pursue new or re-segmented markets are radically different from those applied to existing markets. As a result it is not relentless execution and exploitation of a well understood market that will lead to success, but discovery of a new market or segment that is in need of the product as envisioned. If done well, this process of finding the optimal product/market fit has a disproportionate impact on success. Our course explores the many issues associated with optimizing product/market fit. A take-home midterm, a group paper, and an in-class exercise comprise 50% of a student's grade with class participation representing the remainder. STRAMGT 353 is recommended prior to taking this course.

This is a two-quarter clinical course offered in the Winter and Spring Quarters that brings together upper-level graduate students in business, law, and education from Stanford to collaborate with their peers at other universities (Columbia University, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan) and provide strategic research and consulting to public education organizations. Participants engage in a rigorous and rewarding learning experience, including:nn(i) An intensive seminar in the design, leadership and management, and transformation of public school systems, charter management organizations, start-ups, and other K-12 public- and social-sector institutions;nn(ii) Comprehensive skills training in team-based problem solving, strategic policy research, managing multidimensional (operational, policy, legal) projects to specified outcomes in complex environments, client counseling, and effective communication; andnn(iii) A high-priority consulting project for a public education sector client (e.g., school district, state education agency, charter management organization, non-profit) designing and implementing solutions to a complex problem at the core of the organization's mission to improve the educational outcomes and life chances of children. The participant's team work will allow public agencies throughout the nation to receive relevant, timely, and high-quality research and advice on institutional reforms that otherwise may not receive the attention they deserve.

This is a two-quarter clinical course offered in the Winter and Spring Quarters that brings together upper-level graduate students in business, law, and education from Stanford to collaborate with their peers at other universities (Columbia University, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan) and provide strategic research and consulting to public education organizations. Participants engage in a rigorous and rewarding learning experience, including:nn(i) An intensive seminar in the design, leadership and management, and transformation of public school systems, charter management organizations, start-ups, and other K-12 public- and social-sector institutions;nn(ii) Comprehensive skills training in team-based problem solving, strategic policy research, managing multidimensional (operational, policy, legal) projects to specified outcomes in complex environments, client counseling, and effective communication; andnn(iii) A high-priority consulting project for a public education sector client (e.g., school district, state education agency, charter management organization, non-profit) designing and implementing solutions to a complex problem at the core of the organization's mission to improve the educational outcomes and life chances of children. The participant's team work will allow public agencies throughout the nation to receive relevant, timely, and high-quality research and advice on institutional reforms that otherwise may not receive the attention they deserve.

Teams that concluded at the end of the fall quarter that their preliminary product or service and business model suggest a path to viability, continue with the winter quarter course. In this course, the teams develop more elaborate versions of their product/service and business model , perform a series of experiments to test the key hypotheses about their product and business model, and prepare and present an investor pitch for a seed round of financing to a panel of seasoned investors and entrepreneurs.n nThe key premise for the course is that a robust venture creation process involves development and validation of a series of hypotheses about a new product or service, its value proposition, and how the business will acquire customers, make money, scale up to achieve profitability, and raise funds to achieve the key milestones to profitability. In Startup Garage: Testing and Launch, teams will learn how to precisely formulate these hypotheses and early stage milestones, and how to test them using one or more of the following low-cost approaches: a) online experiments with minimally viable products; b) interviews with partners, advisors, investors, and business experts; c) analogies from existing businesses that were successful in proving hypotheses that are analogous to what the new startup wants to prove.n nThe course focuses on further developing entrepreneurial skills using the same pedagogical approach used in S356: short lectures, extensive in-class exercises focused on each team's specific projects, and 'get out of the building' assignments. Teams will have the opportunity to:nn- Get out of the building and interact with users, advisors, investors and partners to develop a deep understanding of the challenges they face, to field test their proposed services, products, and business models, and to gather data.nn- Interpret the data and make important startup decisions in the context of their own project: pivot, persevere, or perishnn- Develop creative go-to-market strategies and test their effectivenessnn- Develop and deliver in front of real investors an investor pitch, elevator pitch and executive summarynn- Negotiate term sheets with venture investorsnn- Develop a hiring plan for their first year of operation and consider equity and other compensation plan

This course seeks to provide a survey of the strategic, governance, and management issues facing a wide range of nonprofit organizations and their executive and board leaders, in the era of venture philanthropy and social entrepreneurship. The students will also be introduced to core managerial issues uniquely defined by this sector such as development/fundraising, investment management, performance management and nonprofit finance. The course also provides an overview of the sector, including its history and economics. Cases involve a range of nonprofits, from smaller, social entrepreneurial to larger, more traditional organizations, including education, social service, environment, health care, religion, NGO's and performing arts. In exploring these issues, this course reinforces the frameworks and concepts of strategic management introduced in the core first year courses. In addition to case discussions, the course employs role plays, study group exercises and many outsider speakers.

This course focuses on the strategic management of technology-based innovation in the firm. The purpose is to provide students with concepts, frameworks, and experiences that are useful for taking part in the management of innovation processes in both startups and large technology-focused organizations. The course examines how leaders can manage fast-changing technological innovations effectively. Specific topics include: assessing the innovative capabilities of the firm, managing the technical function in a company, navigating the interfaces between functional groups in the development function in the firm, understanding and managing technical entrepreneurs, building technology-based distinctive competencies and competitive advantages, technological leadership versus followership in competitive strategy, institutionalizing innovation, attracting and keeping entrepreneurs.

In this seminar we will study the structure and dynamics of the U.S. health care industry, especially in the face of ongoing regulatory change, and ways it intersects with the global health care industry.n nThe seminar's aim is to develop participants' ability to create strategically informed action plans that are imaginative, inspiring and workable in this highly dynamic environment. The seminar's pedagogy involves informed debate to evaluate and hone well-researched views by the participants and instructors, as well as the writing and presentation of position papers by small groups of seminar participants on the key dynamics of the industry.nnIn the course of the seminar discussions, we aim to deepen our understanding of strategic dynamics and transformational change at the societal, industry and organizational levels of analysis. After developing a complete picture of the structure of the health care industry and the strategic relationships among the key players ("the strategic landscape"), the seminar will focus on how health care reform and other external forces will affect the strategic opportunities and challenges of four types of players in the strategic landscape: (1) incumbents; (2) entrepreneurial startups; (3) cross-boundary disruptors; and (4) international health care providers. World-class leaders in health care will be brought in to supplement our understanding of each one of these players.n nStudent teams will be formed to focus on one of the four types of players. Each team will prepare a research paper focused on determining how their type of player can take advantage of the regulatory, technological, social, cultural and demographic changes, and who will be the likely winners and why.

This course explores the details of how leaders at the world's biggest companies are driving frame-breaking transformational change inside of organizations that have grown up with an industrial foundation, or who are moving into the industrial sector as a new entrant. The course will delve into the need for systems thinking at multiple levels - of products, organizations, cultures and individuals. We will draw upon both academic theories of transformational organizational change and also the real-world implementation challenges that confront leaders who are moving simultaneously with both unprecedented scale and speed. The sessions will examine a variety of firms and industries being affected by the blend of digital and physical in order to lay out the unique operational and organizational challenges in a global context. How specifically should operating rhythms be changed and adjusted during this radical transformation? How does management both train a workforce with new skill-sets and also hire new employees with different talents? What are the unique internal challenges for industrial firms as they add digital products and services? What are the likely forces of resistance to these changes, and how should leaders effectively move companies whose histories have spanned over 100+ years? How should management ensure that existing revenue streams do not atrophy prematurely and how should these challenges be communicated to public markets? In addition, from the perspective of new entrants, we will study how companies can quickly grow and scale when leadership has the benefit of being unencumbered by legacy systems, but also faces unexpected challenges when they do not have the deep industry and domain knowledge or institutional culture that can provide insights into the demands of customers, channels and governments. This class will be co-taught with Jeff Immelt, former Chairman and CEO of GE.

In this class, you will learn techniques for improving your spontaneity, creativity, presence, and collaboration skills, all of which contribute to your becoming a more effective and inspirational leader. This class is based on the techniques that improv actors use on stage when they make up scenes, songs, or even entire plays on the spot. Improv teaches you to do many things at once: be completely present, think on your feet, quickly get in sync with others, read the room, and be agile at using what the situation presents you. As a leader in business, you will benefit from this same skill set. Whether you are presenting to your board, brainstorming & designing with colleagues, or mentoring new talent - learning some building blocks of improv will give you valuable new tools for interacting effectively with others. The course will cover topics such as storytelling, effective brainstorming, understanding and using status, creative collaboration, and risk taking.

This course examines how companies innovate after the success of their first product, and why non-founder led companies are often less successful at this than founder led companies. We focus on how non-founder CEOs can drive more innovation while managing risk and potential failure. Our emphasis will be primarily on lessons that can be applied to technology companies, although many are relevant to other industries. Our goal is to help develop successful non-founder CEOs.n

This is a course about exploring the methods and processes for product management, largely in technology companies, and a look at what can lead to the most effective ways to coordinate customer needs, ensure accurate product development, and how to develop and use the appropriate tools needed to successfully sell products and services to customers from the perspective of the Product Manager. The course covers ways to think about product management depending on the type of product being delivered (new product introduction vs. reinvigorating an existing product) and also the skills and tools used by product managers for effective product management.

This case-based course is offered for students who want to refine their ability to manage challenging professional conversations. The class, which is limited to 32 students, will focus on the preparation for and execution of role-played dialogue as well as on postmortem analysis. Most of the respondent roles will be external to one's company, and some will be front line or mid-level people with limited educational credentials. Broad utilization will be made of background readings plus visiting case protagonists and experts. There will be nine class sessions, each of one hour and forty-five minutes.

At the beginning and usually at the heart of every new business is an idea. Around that core idea talent is assembled, technology and a brand are developed, investors are attracted, capital is deployed, business models are evolved, and products and services are created and sold. But good ideas are like designer purses once they become popular, knock-offs sprout like weeds. It is critical, therefore, to understand when and under what circumstances ideas and technology can be protected by intellectual property such as patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets, and what limits apply to that protection. It is equally critical, and of profound interest to the entrepreneur, to recognize what must be done to secure ownership and then to safeguard important ideas and technology. Finally, in an era in which patent litigation is ubiquitous and patent trolling has become a business model, the entrepreneur must understand what can be done to avoid or if avoidance isn't possible, to mitigate the potential impact of third-party IP. This course is designed to introduce business students to the subject of IP protection for ideas and technology. In the first few sessions, we will review the various types of IP patents, copyrights, trade secrets, trademarks, data and discuss the circumstances in which they are and are not well-adapted to protect core ideas, technology, information and brands. In the remaining sessions, we will consider the all-too-common mistakes, both of commission and omission, that can frustrate these objectives. In doing so, we will be joined by experienced business executives and investors in markets ranging from biosciences to software to sound engineering, and will discuss the legal and business shoals, and the practical contractual, cost and timing issues, that they have had to navigate. Finally, we will survey several recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court that have had a significant impact on intellectual property-dependent business models and competitive strategies, and discuss how both start-ups and established companies have begun to adapt. The format of this course will be lecture, first by the teaching faculty and then by the guest speakers, with engaged, real-time Q&A for both. Guest speakers will include executives, entrepreneurs and VC's, from large companies and small, who will share their experiences in the area of IP investment, management, deployment, strategy and risk. It is the objective of this course to help business students to think critically about when and how to invest in intellectual property protection, to recognize its limits, and to avoid the common mistakes that can frustrate such investments and undermine the value of the company.

This seminar provides students with practical solutions to some of the challenges faced in family business transitions. Family businesses are by far the dominant form of commerce world-wide, albeit the majority are small "mom and pop shops." Some research shows that large businesses, whatever the form of ownership, have an average lifespan of around forty years, while small businesses (at least in Japan and Europe) average around twelve years. So, if businesses in general do not survive, then it is a wonder that any family business can survive from one generation to another, let alone two, three, four or more. There are three essential requirements to succeed in a family business transition. First, it may seem obvious that the business must succeed, but it is less obvious what advantages a family business has over its non-family-owned counterparts. Second, the ownership structure must effectively maintain family cohesion and support the business. Finally, family members need to organize in thoughtful ways to work effectively with one another. The beauty of a family business is that it can be more profitable than companies with non-family ownership. Two fundamentals, at least, provide this advantage - a strong value system and a long-term economic perspective. The operative word above, however, is "can"; it is by no means a foregone conclusion that a family business will be more successful. Families must thoughtfully develop their advantages, while at the same time avoiding the pitfalls that are inherent in any family business. Accordingly, this course is offered for students whose families own a family business or who are interested in the special challenges faced by family businesses. International students are encouraged to register as different cultural perspectives to family business will enrich the experience for everyone. Particular focus will be given to the transitions from one generation to another and the lessons learned that can be applied during the entire life of the business.

This course looks at the entire selling process of prospecting, qualification, discovery, customization, objection handling, relationship building, and closing. Our primary objective is to offer a hands-on, skills-based class in which students work together in groups to practice the fundamentals of effective selling. Over the six sessions of this compressed course, we will focus on the following aspects of effective selling: creating a value-based prospecting script; meeting objections with curiosity (rather than argument); using advanced questioning to qualify prospects and understand the problems, impacts, ideals and benefits of potential customers; creating customized presentations that map your solution to your customer's needs; using interaction to promote customer engagement; accelerating the process of building trust and developing relationships; and overcoming the limiting beliefs associated with closing deals and obtaining commitments from customers. By the end of the course, you will not only have more confidence, but also a sales toolkit that you will be able to customize and deploy when you encounter selling situations in the future. The course is appropriate for anyone who wants to understand and become more proficient with the skills required in different selling situations. Our experience suggests that students who have a particular selling context in mind -n such as a new product to sell - will benefit from this course, but this is not required. If you want to feel more confident in both traditional and non-traditional selling situations - like pitching to an investor or selling yourself in a job interview - this course will be helpful.

Advances in advertising technology, such as online publishing, digital and mobile advertising platforms, as well as new ways of consuming video content are driving a rapid evolution of the advertising market. We analyze this evolution from the perspective of three main constituents: 1) Marketers who rely on advertising to launch and sustain product sales, 2) Publishers and media owners for whom advertising often represents the largest source of monetization, and 3) Advertising agencies who design, plan and buy media for advertising campaigns. We will review challenges and opportunities from each of the three perspectives, including challenges in measurement for advertisers as well as forces that make it hard for small and medium sized publishers to monetize solely through advertising. Guest speakers provide a perspective on current trends and technologies.

We will discuss effective strategies for building diverse and inclusive companies, and will address the barriers that can often exist. We'll study approaches to organizational design that limit unconscious bias and produce more objective decisions across the employee experience - from attracting and hiring candidates to developing and retaining employees. Finally, we'll look at how to create inclusive cultures, with a specific focus on feedback, belonging, and 'Radical Candor¿. The class will be taught by Fern Mandelbaum, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Vista Venture Partners and Joelle Emerson, Founder and CEO of Paradigm. We will also hear from executives at companies that have successfully incorporated diversity and inclusion programs.

This course explores how digital disruptions are having tectonic shifts on large, successful and established companies, whether they have a digital foundation or not. Both new and existing high technology firms such as Google, Amazon, Stripe, Airbnb and others are reshaping industries as disparate as life sciences and transportation. The management principles, competitive strategies, partnerships, and core competencies of the 20th century are being challenged in a world of bits and the global network in which all companies are forced to compete. In this course we will explore some of the fundamental technological changes impacting these industries, such as scaling assets without owning them, partnerships with digital leaders and new distribution strategies for goods and services. We will hear from executives of both leading Fortune 500 companies and new disruptors about what it takes to survive and thrive in this new digital economy.

In this class we will analyze the economics and strategy of marketplaces and platforms for goods and services. We will consider the forces that have led to the proliferation of these marketplaces, as well as the economics behind which ones are likely to succeed and become profitable. We will analyze the economic costs and benefits of these marketplaces for society, and consider the regulatory environment and challenges. We will also study the microeconomics of managing these marketplaces: how should matching work, how can marketplace design solve problems of congestion or market thinness, and how a platform should trade off the welfare of the different sides of the market as it enters and grows. Applications include ride-sharing and transportation; room-sharing and vacation rentals; on-demand labor and services such as babysitting, massage, manual labor, and dog-sitting; dating; and organized labor markets.

In today's competitive marketplace, companies -- from Fortune 500 firms to early stage start-ups -- rely on intellectual property (IP) to keep them one step ahead of the game. The role of IP assets as strategic business assets has been punctuated by the recent multi-billion dollar deals and acquisitions involving patent portfolios, as well as the fierce Mobile market patent wars raging in courts around the world. Yet, critical IP decisions are usually made by lawyers with very little input from management. The purpose of this class is to provide business leaders with the tools, models and institutional knowledge to actively participate in managing and growing their company's IP assets (with a focus on patents). This class will explore the value of corporate IP assets by thinking strategically on how to effectively leverage the knowledge, trade secrets, patents, technologies, trademarks, structures and processes that are critical across industries. We will focus on the elements of a successful IP strategy, and how that strategy is shaped by economic, technology, legal, regulatory, and market factors. nnThrough a combination of case studies (including a group strategy project), analysis of current events, class discussion and guest speakers, we will cover a variety of issues shaping a successful IP strategy in today's global business environment. Some of the topics covered include: nn* Building and managing an IP portfolio that is aligned with business objectives;n* Understanding the forces shaping the IP marketplace in the US and in foreign markets;n* The innovation cycle and technology transfer mechanisms;n* Using big data analytics in making IP decisions;n* IP portfolio monetization strategies (e.g., licensing, sale, enforcement);n* IP considerations in Mergers & Acquisitions;n* IP valuation and current trends in patent transactions;n* Managing corporate IP litigation risk (patent trolls, incumbent litigation);n* IP strategies for start-ups & entrepreneurs.nnMs. Efrat Kasznik is an IP valuation and strategy expert with more than twenty years of experience advising companies of all sizes, from startups to Fortune 100s, on extracting value from their IP. She is the founder and President of Foresight Valuation Group, an IP consulting and startup advisory firm providing valuation and strategy services for a range of purposes, including M&A, financial reporting, technology commercialization decisions, tax compliance, transfer pricing, and litigation damages. Ms. Kasznik has been a co-founder, CFO and advisor to several startups and incubators in the US and Europe, including the Stanford Venture Studio at the GSB. She is listed on the IAM 300 list of World Leading IP Strategists, and is a member of the leadership committee of the High Tech Sector, Licensing Executives Society.

Public education in America is at a crossroads. Does our education system have what it takes to produce graduates who are prepared for college, career, and citizenship in our increasingly digital and pluralistic world? Will income and ethnic achievement gaps continue to be pervasive and persistent in our nation’s largest urban cities? Will family zip code determine educational destiny for the next generation of students? How will technological advances that have disrupted so many other sectors affect American public education? Which strategies and reforms are truly demonstrating results and which are merely passing fads?nnnAs in all large-scale enterprises undergoing rapid, transformative change, leadership matters greatly. Fortunately, over the last decade, the reform of American public education has been led by a number of innovative and results-oriented leaders at the state, district and charter levels. These leaders are bringing additional urgency, strategies, and ideas designed to prepare America’s schools and her students for the century ahead. Some ideas are proving to be critical levers for change, others are facing significant political challenges, and others have not delivered on expected results. Many of them hold lessons for how future educational leaders can contribute to transforming public education for the next generation of K-12 students.nnnThis course will focus on school system leadership for education reform. The course will provide an overview of the critical issues facing K-12 public education in America today, and what is going on across the U.S. during this transformative period of change. Once this context is set, students will study education leaders and systems change strategies from the last 10-15 years at the state, district and charter levels. We will focus on leaders across five domains: Leadership in crisis situations, strategic leadership, “china-breaking” leadership, sustaining leadership, and next generation leadership. We will also look at leadership examples from outside K-12 education to broaden our thinking about what leadership styles and strategies could be effective here. Students will debate the strategies and efficacy of how different leaders approached systems-level change and will form their own working hypotheses of what is needed to help transform the American education system.nnnCase studies in school system leadership will form the primary basis for classroom assignments and discussion. We will examine what went right and what went wrong in each case, focusing particularly on the decisions that school system leaders faced and the implications of their decisions. Most cases will be supplemented with research publications, technical notes, news clips, and/or videos to deepen the students’ understanding of the context or issues discussed in the cases.nnnDan Katzir worked for Bain & Company, Teach for America and Sylvan Learning Systems before joining The Broad Foundation as its founding managing director. He is an experienced case study teacher and the editor of “The Redesign of Urban School Systems” (Harvard University Press, 2013).

This class will provide an overview of the rapidly evolving world of financial technologies. New market entrants are promising to change the way we borrow, save, invest, and transact. Incumbents enjoy substantial market power but are struggling to keep up technologically as they wrestle with antiquated core infrastructure. We will analyze the emerging competitive landscape and the strategic dynamics in play. The class will begin with a short review of digital platform economics in which we will cover basic concepts such as network effects and economies of scale. We will then dive into a series of case studies and industry analyses. Particular attention will be paid to the areas of payments, alternative credit, and virtual currencies.

Leaders of arts and creative organizations face unique challenges. Taking the perspective of the CEO, Chairman of the Board and Artistic/Creative Director, and drawing on various cases and in-class exercises, students will learn about advancing artistic excellence and creative innovation while expanding audiences and achieving financial goals. We will survey a variety of settings from non-profit museums and performing arts organizations to start-ups and large players in the music, theater and film industries. Among the topics explored will be governance and management; reaching multiple audiences; managing fiscal and creative tradeoffs; maintaining relevance in the age of online consumption; standing out in real and virtual spaces; and achieving growth amidst rising costs and diminishing revenues.

For aspiring entrepreneurs who don't have a burning idea or desire to start a company from scratch, acquiring a small business can provide a direct route to running and growing a business. This class will explore entrepreneurial acquisition (EA). As the course covers topics such as what makes a good industry, raising capital, how to source deals, dealing with investors, due diligence, and negotiation, the course is also applicable to those interested in private equity, venture capital, start-ups, and general management. The class relies heavily on the case method, and each class includes guests (often the case protagonists) who bring practical and current experience to the classroom. The two group projects are intended to be highly practical, simulating real-world situations.

The premise of the course is that managers are concerned with how to scale excellence in organizations and that scaling skills are essential for any leadership role. It will be taught with Shantanu Narayen, the CEO of Adobe. The course is designed to appeal to a wide range of audiences: students seeking to build new organizations, or turn around poorly performing organizations, or grow existing organizations to greater heights. We will focus on how to transform the footprint of a firm, and yet, not lose the mindset. Executives also need to think about to spread 'good behaviors' and make them widespread very quickly, and conversely, on how to shrink bad behaviors and make them small very quickly. This course aims to train students into becoming effective leaders of organizational change. We will use a mix of cases written specially for the course, and 'live cases' with guest speakers from the C-Suite.

How do you get the best new social innovations to reach the hundreds of millions of people who need it the most? And how do ensure that they are developed, deployed and scaled in a way that is relevant, appropriate and sustainable?n nInnovators tackling the world¿s most difficult problems often ignore, misunderstand, and under-invest in the critical business challenges involved in crossing ¿the middle of the value chain.¿ This is innovation¿s valley of death: product and system adaption and evaluation; evidence generation and design validation; business and partnership planning; formal or informal regulatory approval and registration. How do you design, introduce, and optimize the intervention¿s uptake before it can be taken to scale by markets, governments or other systems? n nThe class is taught by Steve Davis, President & CEO of PATH (www.path.org), a leader in global health innovation, and former Global Director of Social Innovation at McKinsey & Company.n nWe take an interdisciplinary approach to look at the factors that pull innovation forward, push it from behind, and (often to the world¿s detriment) block its successful implementation and scaling. First grounding the discussion in research on innovation and social change, we then apply business principles, real-world experiences and several important case studies in global health to examine the way good ideas get stuck, and how good ideas can turn into innovation that matters. We focus on root causes for failure, success factors, and business practices and tools to enable millions of lives to be impacted by social innovation. The seminar combines lectures, case studies, visiting practitioners and team projects focused on the business case for scaling specific social innovations. The goal is to help the next generation of social innovation leaders think more about some of the mistakes of the past, lessons for the future, and new ways of approaching old problems, all from a practitioner¿s point of view.

This course will develop Business Strategy frameworks, some of which will be familiar from the core Strategy class and others of which will be new, and apply them to growing businesses. We will look at companies attempting to grow, as well as family businesses and some enterprises that will always be small. Each session, we will spend some time developing frameworks based on required reading. Then we will analyze individual companies using a combination of written case studies, video and audio excerpts of interviews with business owners, and guest speakers (or, if feasible, company visits). Issues we will consider include:nn- What makes a business scalable?nn- When are barriers to entry feasible and sustainable?nn- How can a firm differentiate itself? How might that limit growth?nn- What can small firms do effectively that large organizations cannot?nn- How do organizational issues such as incentives, hiring, and delegation limit growth and/or create advantages for small and growing enterprises?nnnGrades will be based on class participation, a group written assignment applying concepts from the class, and a take-home exam.

Today, technology-driven ventures continue to disrupt industries around the world and entrepreneurial ecosystems in developing economies are evolving, creating a better backdrop for entrepreneurs and investors who wish to explore high potential opportunities. Despite following the lead of Silicon Valley, the most advanced ecosystem in the world, these newly formed networks that include universities, incubators, accelerator programs, angel investor organizations and venture capital firms are still lacking. Consequently, investors and founders face distinct challenges that they would not encounter in Silicon Valley including access to local markets, lack of funding, inadequate talent pools and complex legal and political context. As developing economies grow and become more connected, new and exciting entrepreneurial opportunities arise across markets and industries. Smartphones, the best sensors on earth have already been deployed and new technologies, such as Machine Learning and Blockchain, will allow problems to be solved at a scale like never seen before. nnnThe cases and guests will reveal entrepreneurial challenges through the eyes of founders and investors that have seized these opportunities at different stages of the venture: ideation, launch and escalation. This course is designed to showcase innovative companies in high growth industries such as consumer Internet, financial services, health care and education. It will feature the latest trends and opportunities in Asia, Middle East, Africa and Latin America. By taking this course, you will be better equipped to observe and explain developing economy ecosystems and the opportunities and challenges they present.

This course addresses how firms should structure and exploit their value chains as a competitive strategy. Structuring the value chain could involve decisions such as vertical integration which requires the firm to acquire key supply or customer operations, spinning off an internal operation or outsourcing a key operation, or merging with another firm that has similar products, services or markets. Exploiting the value chain could involve leveraging the value chain to enable faster product innovation, product development and launch, creation of new channels, or expanding to new markets. The course takes the perspective of senior management, possibly C-level executives, on how to develop strategies around such value chain issues.

This seminar is offered for students who, in the near term, aspire to the management and full or partial ownership of a new or newly acquired business. The seminar will deal in some depth with certain selected, generic entrepreneurial issues, viewed from the perspective of the owner/manager. Broad utilization will be made of case materials, background readings, visiting experts, and role playing. Throughout the course, emphasis will be placed on the application of analytical tools to administrative practice. This course is a condensed version of the four unit sections (S355) of the same course title. The course prioritizes the material from S355, covering much of the same material, but not to the depth covered in the four unit sections.

Venture Studio for Credit is a self-guided project-based course in which students apply the concepts of design thinking, engineering, finance, business and organizational skills to design and test new business concepts. Students will work one-on-one with instructors and coaches to move through a workbook(s) and attend Thursday afternoon workshops where they will have team-to-team interaction. nnThis course integrates methods from human-centered design, lean startup, and business model planning. Outside of meetings and workshops, teams will get out of the building and interact directly with users to develop a deep understanding of the challenges they face and to field test their proposed services, products, and business models.nnPrequalifications: 1. Projects must be exploring the commercialization of a technology innovation pioneered at a Stanford lab. 2. Teams must be a minimum of three people with at least one student enrolled for credit and representing a minimum of two schools. 3. All team members must be available to attend mandatory workshops on Thursdays from 3-4:20pm. Failure to meet all three prequalifications will result in an automatic drop.

This course examines individuals and organizations that use entrepreneurial skills and approaches to develop innovative responses to social problems. Entrepreneurship has traditionally been seen as a way of creating wealth for the entrepreneur and for those who back her/his work. Social entrepreneurs employ "entrepreneurial skills," such as finding opportunities, inventing new approaches, securing and focusing resources and managing risk, in the service of creating a social value. As the intensity and complexity of social and environmental problems has grown in recent years social entrepreneurship, defined as innovative, social value creating activity that can occur within or across the nonprofit, government or business sectors, has become increasingly prominent. While virtually all enterprises, commercial and social, generate social value, fundamental to this definition is that the primary focus of social entrepreneurship is to achieve social impact above all else. We will study some of the most promising and the best-proven innovations for improving people's lives. We will also examine mature projects that are now tackling the issue of "scale", moving from local innovations to solutions that create deep systemic changes for larger numbers of economically disadvantaged individuals and communities throughout the world. This year we will focus on what are the constraints and opportunities for creating a social enterprise at scale. The process of "scale" poses tremendous challenges. Even when organizations manage to overcome the many obstacles to growth, and achieve appreciable scale, this approach is seldom sufficient to achieve significant social impact on its own. This year our course will pay particular attention to network approaches which require the mobilization of a vast array of actors and resources, but have the potential to generate rapid and sustained social impact.

This six-session (2-unit) Bass seminar focuses on strategic leadership and builds on core strategic leadership coursework in the MBA and MSx programs. The course uses the seminar format with expectations of extensive contributions from all students to the discussion in each session. Through seminar discussions, we aim to deepen our understanding of strategic dynamics and transformational change at the industry and organizational levels of analysis in dynamic environments. The seminar's aim is to improve participants' ability to develop strategically informed action plans that are imaginative, inspiring and workable. The seminar's conceptual frameworks include traditional tools of strategic and competitive analysis from the core course on strategic leadership, conceptual frameworks developed by the instructors that help understand the role of strategy-making in the evolution and transformation of organizations and industries, and theoretical frameworks that help understand the interplays between technology strategy and corporate strategy. Three of the six session will feature discussions with senior executives from key industry players. The seminar's pedagogy involves informed debate including with the guest executives to evaluate and hone well-researched views by the participants as well as the writing and presentation of position papers by small groups of seminar participants concerning the seminar's analytical topics. In this fall's seminar we will examine the evolution of the global semiconductor industry in light of the ongoing impact of Moore's Law and the convergence of computing and wireless communications industries, and how it has been and will be affected by strategic actions of entrepreneurial startups, incumbent corporations, and governments in multiple geographies. Several interrelated topics will be discussed as they impact three key industry segments of the global semiconductor industry that are the focus of the seminar.

This six-session 2-point Bass seminar will involve students (maximum 24) in analyzing the emerging global electric automotive industry by focusing on: (1) The electric automotive industry in the U.S. and Europe, (2) the electric automotive industry in Japan and Korea, and (3) the electric automotive industry in China. We will each time examine the strategies of the key automotive companies as well as that of the government and other key players such as infrastructure providers. The purpose of the seminar is to help students sharpen their skills in identifying facilitating and impeding forces of strategic change, and in assessing and estimating the direction and rate of strategic change. While the instructors will provide relevant pre- readings related to these topics, students will be expected to complement these materials with their own research of theoretical and empirical sources. They will also be expected to help structure the discussion and move it forward toward conclusions. Students will organize into three teams each focused on one of the regions and prepare a five-to-ten page group report of their most important findings and conclusions that extend current knowledge.

The evolving organization of the Chinese economy, with special emphasis on the following topics: the integration of the Communist Party organization with government entities and enterprises; the successive phases of market reform; the evolution of ownership and the nature of property rights; corporate restructuring and corporate governance; corruption and anti-corruption campaigns; strengths and weaknesses of the national development model.

The general objective of the course is to develop a better understanding of the changing socio-economic and political situation in China (with its challenges both for China and for the rest of the world). It should make then less difficult to define sustainable strategies for managing effectively in China and for handling the growing interdependence between China and the US; between China and the rest of the world. From assessing critically the performance of China today, students will get an insight in the current complex dynamics of China renaissance/transformation and we will discuss alternative scenarios, with their business and socio-political consequences on the medium term. From this analysis and with a prospective perspective in mind, we will explore alternative strategic business approaches and propose responsible management practices required to build, overtime, a mutually rewarding growing inter-dependence.nMore specifically, the course will initially identify the multi-causality behind China's achievements and discuss some of the dysfunctions associated, today, with such performance. The conditions of management effectiveness required to enter and succeed overtime in the Chinese market will be identified while the challenges faced by the global expansion of Chinese firms overseas will be illustrated.nThe course will rely upon different pedagogical methods; it will create conditions to share and leverage participants' experience and it will make use of a number of recent cases and research results. nAuditors will be admitted, but they will have to be present (and prepared) in all the sessions.

In recent years, we've seen an explosion of innovative business models blazing new trails in emerging markets. Many of these models are achieving commercial success while transforming the lives of low-income populations. Using nine cases of both early-stage, entrepreneur-led ventures and later-stage, public or large-cap firms, this course will examine best practices for scaling new enterprises in emerging markets. It will do so primarily through the lens of a potential investor. It will also explore what is required to spark, nurture and scale entire sectors that serve rapidly growing, often low-income markets. What does it mean to work in markets with limited infrastructure? What common mistakes are made - whether in business model design, in supply chains, or in dealing with government - and how can we avoid them? Which are the best business models to serve markets that corporations have traditionally ignored, and in which government has failed to deliver? Who might be threatened by the success of these new businesses? The seminar is a good match for Stanford students interested in working or investing in emerging markets. It will be taught by Matt Bannick, who leads Omidyar Network (a $1 billion impact investing fund) and is the former President of eBay International and of PayPal.

This course is offered for students requiring specialized training in an area not covered by existing courses. To register, a student must obtain permission from the faculty member who is willing to supervise the reading.

This course is elected as soon as a student is ready to begin research for the dissertation, usually shortly after admission to candidacy. To register, a student must obtain permission from the faculty member who is willing to supervise the research.