This course is specifically focused on multi-business organizations — that is, companies dealing with the issue of creating value across multiple production stages within an industry, multiple industries or multiple geographies. The decisions faced by these firms may include choices of diversification across businesses, but also the management of businesses in different geographies, or different stages of the value chain (e.g. the degree of vertical integration). Corporate strategy is the way a company creates and sustains value through the configuration and coordination of its multimarket activities. Defined this way, corporate strategy issues arise, and the frameworks introduced in this course to resolve them apply to every organization at every stage in its life.