Teaching Methods and Syllabus Design in Business Strategy Courses

The chapter focuses on a problem that business schools all over the world face and which is connected with the necessity to include concepts and instruments of strategic management valuable for the managers into the syllabi of the courses. It is necessary to define the requirements and expectations of the managers for the syllabus development and methods of studying. The purpose of the study is to determine the existing conformity of strategic management course syllabus and the Russian managers' perceptions of sources of competitive advantage. During the empirical study, a survey of the students of the EMBA program has been conducted. The results of the analysis indicate that managers link the sources of competitive advantage with better position of the company in the external environment that leads to greater interest in learning strategic tools which are appropriate for its detecting. The findings raise serious challenges for strategic management teaching and put into question the usefulness of proactive development of competences in strategic management education.