Home / Courses
Strategic Business Relationships
UoS Code ECON6026
Credit points 6
Offered Semester 1 and Semester 2
Prerequisites
Corequisites
Prohibitions ECOF5802, ECOF6050
Assumed Knowledge
Additional Information
Lectures 3 hrs per week
Assessment Assignment; Presentation; In-class Test; Final Exam
Description This unit studies how strategic business relationships create sustainable competitive advantages for firms and nations. Business relationships are dynamic learning networks that result from strategic decision-making. They include internal relationships within the firm as well as external relationships. With internal business relationships, the focus is on organisational design issues, including employee-manager interaction, and manager-shareholder relations. External relationships include formal contracts and informal agreements with suppliers, buyers, distributors, lenders, competitors and partners. Resource and capability-based views of the firm provide the conceptual framework for analysing the foundations of sustainable competitive advantage and the role of effective relationships in building this advantage. Agency and transaction cost approaches help explain the operation of these relationships. Throughout the unit, we distinguish between the knowledge-based sectors of the economy and the more traditional sectors, and we consider how the form of business relationships varies between countries.