Hello I have some questions in regards to the case study (attached in pictures). Subject is strategic management:

Examining strategy in action involves thinking about strategy process and strategy practice.

1. Strategy development processes can be based on deliberate strategy or emergent strategy. Identify and discuss one type of deliberate strategy and one type of emergent strategy that can be noted in this case.

2. High-level strategising skills (practice) are integral to successful strategic management. Briefly apply the main strategising skills to explain the situation that Kotick is facing in Activision Blizzard.

3. Strategy practice is concerned with action and implementation. Identify and briefly discuss one strategizing activity (other than strategic analysis) that would enable Phil Spencer (CEO Microsoft Gaming) to gain support for Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

4. Various strategists can be involved in shaping an organization's strategy. Use the participation framework to briefly discuss who you would include in strategy-making during Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard and why?

Even for Microsoft, which boasts a market value of $2.3trn, $69bn is a lot of money. On January 18th the firm said it would pay that sum - in cash - for Activision Blizzard, a video-game developer. It is by far the biggest acquisition in the videogame industry's history, and the largest ever by Microsoft, more than twice the size of its purchase in 2016 of Linkedin, a social network. The move, which caught industry-watchers by surprise and propelled Activision Blizzard's share price up by 25%, represents a huge bet on the future of fun. But not, perhaps, a crazy one. Gaming was a big, fast-growing business even before the pandemic. Lockdowns bolstered its appeal- to hardened gamers with more time on their hands and bored neophytes alike. NewZoo, an analysis firm, reckons revenues grew by 23%% in 2020, to nearly $180bn. That growth has attracted the attention of other tech titans, including Apple, Netflix and Amazon, all of whom have dipped their toes into the market in recent years. Microsoft has been in the business for two decades. It earns $15bn a year from games, mostly thanks to its Xbox console. It has made a string of gaming acquisitions since 2014, when Satya Nadella, its chief executive, took the reins. Assuming it is not blocked by regulators, who are watching big tech with a beady eye, this deal would cement its position. Once completed in 2023, it will make Microsoft the third largest video-gaming firm by revenue, behind only Tencent, a Chinese giant, and Sony, Microsoft's perennial rival in consoles. Big acquisitions are always risky. Like most companies, Microsoft has a spotty record. Activision Blizzard's share price slid by around 40% between a peak last February and the deal's announcement, as it was embroiled in a sexual-harassment scandal. Player numbers have slipped from 530m a month in 2015 to 390m, and some recent games have had mixed reviews. Pessimists could argue that the company is overvalued. Optimists, who see annual revenues of $8bn and net profit margins of around 30%%, might counter that it is cheap. Most important, Activision Blizzard has lots of content - and in video games, as in all of media, content is king, says Piers Harding - Rolls of Ampere Analysis, another research firm. Like the movie business, where "Star Wars" films, even bad ones, are reliable money-spinners, video games rely increasingly on "franchises" - popular settings or brands that can be squeezed for regular instalments. Activision Blizzard offers, among others, "Call of Duty", a bestselling series of military- themed shoot'em-ups and "Warcraft", a light-hearted fantasy setting.The deal may help Microsoft broaden its reach beyond consoles, says Julianne Harty of NewZoo. King, a mobile-focused unit of Activision Blizzard, boasts around 245m monthly players of its games. It is also a strike against Sony, whose share price fell by 10% on news of the deal. If Microsoft controls the rights to "Call of Duty", it can decide whether or not to allow the games to appear on Sony's rival PlayStation machine. When Microsoft bought ZeniMax Media, another gaming firm, for $7.Sbn in 2020, it said it would honour the terms of ZeniMax's existing publishing agreements with Sony, but that Sony's access to ZeniMax's new games would be considered "on a case-by-case basis". It also fits Microsoft's long-term ambition to become the dominant player in a gaming market that it hopes still has plenty of room to grow. (Mr Nadella gushed about the virtual reality "metaverse".) The firm is bundling content and pushing the "Game Pass" subscription service, which offers console and pc gamers access to a rotating library of titles - which usually cost $40-60 each - for $10 a 1month. Adding Activision Blizzard's catalogue to the service could boost its appeal. In the longer term, Microsoft hopes to use its Azure cloud-computing arm to do for video games what Netflix did for films and tv. In 2020 it launched a game-streaming add-on to Game Pass that beams high-end games across the internet to a phone, tv or desktop. Running a game's code in the cloud removes the need to own a powerful, pricey console or pc. The technology is tricky. Still, Microsoft hopes that as it matures, it will draw in more players, especially in middle-income countries where smartphones are common but consoles rare. Although other firms, including Sony, Amazon and Nvidia, offer similar services, none looks as well-placed as Microsoft. The software giant combines a strong content library and decades of experience in gaming with the world's second largest cloud operation behind Amazon. Microsoft's big bet may persuade rivals they, too, need to snap up content while they can. The gaming industry was already seeing plenty of merger activity. Last year five deals worth $1bn or more were inked. On January 10th Take-Two Interactive, a game developer and publisher, spent $13bn on Zynga, a maker of mobile games. Sony will be feeling vulnerable after Microsoft's deal. Amazon, Apple or Netflix may decide that now is the time to show that they are serious about the gamin business. Activision Blizzard has been a giant in gaming for decades, and each of its studios is dominant in its specific genre of gaming. It is the fourth largest video game franchise of all time with upwards of 400 million dollars in lifetime sales. Blizzard has also developed a range of cult classics - namely World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Hearthstone, and Starcraft - each of which is the most popular game in their respective genres. Finally, King, a mobile game studio best known for Candy Crush Saga, was acquired by Activision Blizzard in 2016. Because of its immense presence in gaming, Activision Blizzard's steadily declining financial performance has been heart-breaking for fans across the globe. Punctuated by a 14% drop in stock price upon breaking news of a sexual assault lawsuit against Activision Blizzard filed by the state of California, Activision Blizzard has fallen on hard times. This drop, however, spelled an opportunity for another company looking to expand further into gaming.In 2017, Microsoft introduced the Xbox Game Pass to the PC gaming market - a monthly subscription service that provides access to an ever-growing catalog of games. Since its inception, the plan was clear: use Microsoft's bankroll to aggressively acquire established game studios. Microsoft owns 23 previously independent studios most notably: the masters of single-player open storytelling - Bethesda, and Mojang, the studio behind Minecraft, the most popular game ever created by units sold. Through Activision, Microsoft would gain millions of loyal consumers from market segments they haven't been able to tap. In addition to the spectrum of benefits to their PC platform, the acquisition gave Microsoft a huge leg up in the battle with Sony for gaming console supremacy: colloquially dubbed "The Console Wars". While head of Microsoft gaming Phil Spencer has pledged not to pull existing "Call of Duty" from Sony-owned Playstation consoles, future titles will likely be Xbox and PC exclusive. While this may not seem like a catastrophe at a glance, the most recent Call of Duty release alone was the second most played game on the Playstation 5 throughout 2021. Consideringthe sheer size and loyalty of the player base, if they are only able to play their favorite game on the Xbox, many will elect to buy the coming generations of Xbox over Playstation. In January 2022, Phil Spencer was named CEO of Microsoft Gaming. Microsoft's gaming leadership is now completely unified. Once the Activision Blizzard deal is completed, the company's leadership will also report directly to Spencer. In his email, Spencer stated, "Microsoft is committed to our journey for inclusion in every aspect of gaming, among both employees and players. We deeply value individual studio cultures. We also believe that creative success and autonomy go hand-in-hand with treating every person with dignity and respect. We hold all teams, and all leaders, to this commitment. We're looking forward to extending our culture of proactive inclusion to the great teams across Activision Blizzard." Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is reportedly expected to leave the company once Microsoft's acquisition of the publisher is complete. Almost 20%% of Activision Blizzard's approximately 10,000 employees have signed a petition calling for Kotick to resign - something he reportedly told senior managers he would be willing to do if he couldn't "quickly fix" the culture problems at the company. In a securities filing, Activision said Kotick, 59, would receive $14.4 million in severance if he is terminated or leaves under various circumstances within a year of a change of control at the company. Kotick owns 4.3 million shares and has the right to acquire another 2.2 million through the exercise of options, which could potentially be worth $520 million in total at the $95 per-share price that Microsoft is offering. The payout is striking for a leader whose recent tenure has been marked by employee complaints over sexism, a hostile work culture and mismanagement of assault claims. Kotick was the target of employee walkouts in November and petitions demanding his removal over reports he failed to make the company's board aware of allegations of rape and other serious misconduct. California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued the video-game publisher, detailing a retaliatory "frat boy" culture.Activision said Kotick's pay has been tied to the company's performance. He has been CEO for nearly 30 years. The company said in a statement. "Mr. Kotick has transformed the company, reshaped the video game industry, and delivered tens of billions of dollars of value to shareholders." Kotick will stay on as CEO only until the deal closes, a person familiar with the transaction said at the time it was announced in January. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of Microsoft's fiscal year in June 2023, pending regulatory approval, the company has said. Microsoft president Brad Smith told CNBC that the company wants to improve the culture at Activision Blizzard and ensure the right people are in place to accomplish this. "I think if there's one thing that we've learned about addressing issues like sexual harassment or almost any issue of culture for people, it really requires a combination of commitment and humility," Smith said. "You've got to be committed to making things better."You know, we're looking to the leadership team at Activision Blizzard today to make culture and workplace safety a top priority every single day, until the day when this deal hopefully closes. And then we'll take over and we need to make that same commitment. CNBC then asked Smith whether by saying "when we take over Activision" this meant he was envisioning an entirely new leadership team. "Well, what we've said is that there will be some aspects that will change, but it will all be one new team that will work together," he replied. "Most importantly, we want to see the culture evolve, and we will see how people perform between now and the day this closes, assuming it's approved, and then we'll have the opportunity to make sure that we have the right people in the right position." "I mean the world is changing, I think mostly in a positive way. It's just one more example of where we're going to serve our employees the best if we embrace the opportunity to change." The above is a compilation of the sources below. In full: The Economist (2022). High Score. 22 January: p 65. Excerpts from: Bonebright, J. (2022) Acquisition of Activision Blizzard: What you need to know. Michigan Journal of Economics, 11 March. Boddy, Z. (2022) Phil Spencer named Microsoft Gaming CEO following Activision Blizzard deal. Windows Central, 18 January. Carpenter, S. (2022) Activision boss Bobby Kotick could see $500 million windfall. Fortune, 4 May. Scullion, C. (2022) Microsoft is watching Activision's execs. Video Games Chronicle. 10 February