"Corporate strategy is a 'what' question: what businesses do I want to be in overall? Business strategy is a 'how' question: how do I create competitive advantage within a particular industry?" — Brian McCann, MGT 6526

"At the core of corporate strategy is the better-off test — whether businesses together are more valuable than apart. This logic underpins product diversification, vertical integration, and globalization."

What this masterclass is

A working playbook synthesized from Vanderbilt Owen's MGT 6526 Corporate Strategy (Mod 1, 2025): 12 lecture sessions, 7 cases (Hurtigruten, Arauco, Grolsch, eBay, Disney–Pixar, PepsiCo–Frito-Lay, Kent Chemical), 9 academic readings (Collis & Montgomery, Porter 1987, Stuckey & White, Ghemawat ×2, Dyer-Kale-Singh, Reuer, Kale & Singh, Dranikoff-Koller-Schneider), the MGT 6526 Frameworks cheat sheet, and full lecture transcripts.

The goal is not to summarize the course — it's to give you a ready-to-use operating system for the scope decisions corporate executives actually face: which businesses to be in, how vertically integrated to be, where to play geographically, when to ally vs. acquire vs. divest, and how to organize for the strategy you've chosen.

If you read it cover-to-cover, expect ~5–7 hours. Treat it as reference, return to it for years.

How to use it

First pass (60 minutes): Read this page, then skim each module's opening section and cheat sheet. You'll come away with a mental map of the territory and know which modules to deep-read first.

Deep-read pass (per module): When you face a real corporate decision — a strategic acquisition, a market-entry call, a divestiture proposal, an alliance design — pull the relevant module. Each module ends with a cheat sheet you can keep open during the actual decision.

Cross-reference: The Master Playbook (Module 9) gives you a situations → frameworks lookup and a 20-prompt index of the corporate-strategy decisions executives most often face.

The 8 modules + Master Playbook

1. Foundations of Corporate Strategy — The Corporate Strategy Triangle, the Strategy Diamond, V-P-C, and the better-off test as the unifying logic
2. Diversification & Corporate Advantage — Porter's A-B-C test, the EMIR sources of better-off, agency problems, and the Hurtigruten case
3. Vertical Integration — Markets vs. hierarchies, transaction costs, the AS→OB→TC→VI chain, the 3-question decision tree, and the Arauco case
4. Globalization & the AAA Framework — Ghemawat's Adaptation/Aggregation/Arbitrage, CAGE distance, entry modes, and the Grolsch case
5. International Organization — Strategy–structure fit, asymmetric design, the U/M/Matrix typology, and the Kent Chemical case
6. Alliances vs. Acquisitions — The CURE framework (Control, Uncertainty, Resources, External), the eBay case, and the partnering approach to acquisitions
7. Alliance Management — Three Cs, three trust dimensions, formal vs. relational governance, and Eli Lilly's playbook
8. Divestitures — Why managers under-divest, dis-synergies, the "best parent" question, the Disney–Pixar acquisition, and the PepsiCo–Frito-Lay debate