Learning Strategic Representations: Exploring the Effects of Taking a Strategy Course

Abstract

Despite the popularity of strategy courses and the fact that managers make consequential decisions using ideas they learn in such courses, few studies have examined the learning outcomes of taking a strategy course — a research gap most likely due to the methodological challenges of measuring these outcomes in realistic ways. This paper provides a large-sample study of what individuals learn from taking a strategy course and how those learning outcomes depend on individual characteristics. We examine how 2,269 MBA students evaluate real-world video cases before and after taking the MBA core strategy course at a large US business school. We document several changes in their performance, mental representations, and self-perceptions. Among other findings, we show that taking a strategy course improves strategic decision-making, increases the depth of mental representations and the attention paid to broader industry and competitive concerns, and boosts students’ confidence while making them more aware of the uncertainty pervading strategic decisions. We also find that the magnitude and significance of these changes are associated with individual characteristics such as cognitive ability, prior knowledge, and gender.

Keywords: learning strategy, expertise development, mental representations, strategy course, managerial cognition

JEL Classification: A23, I23, I26, M10, M53