BMGT20050

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this module, students should be able to:

1. Understand and assess the drivers and consequences of globalisation; compare and contrast different political, legal, and economic systems and technological forces; understand and appreciate the need for ethics, culture and social responsibility in international business.

2. Describe and apply the concept of foreign direct investment and global and regional integration in the context of global business.

3. Integrate and apply the basic elements of international strategic management and the specialised strategies required for emerging economies and for international new ventures, including the modes of entry and methods used to analyse and assess economic and political risk in developed and developing countries.

Indicative Module Content:

1. Understand and assess the drivers and consequences of globalisation, its impact on specific regions, and the emerging concerns about its influence on countries around the world.

2. Address how industrial growth directly and indirectly drives vital societal targets—such as job creation, poverty reduction, gender equity, fair labour standards, and expanded access to health care and education.

3. Compare and contrast different political, legal, and economic systems and technological forces and their impact on international business.

4. Understand and appreciate the need for ethics and social responsibility in international business, and the growing pressures on firms to act in an ethically and socially responsible manner in their global business operations.

5. Explain and understand the challenges of trading internationally, investing abroad directly, and dealing with foreign exchange rates.

6. Describe the challenges and apply the most important elements of entering foreign markets.

7. Compare and contrast the modes of entry and the basic choices for organising firms involved in international business and describe the conditions under which specific entry modes and organisational structure are most effective.

8. Integrate and apply the basic elements of international strategic management, including the pressures and cost/benefits of strategies that emphasise global integration versus local adaptation; describe the specialised strategies required for emerging economies and for international new ventures.

9. Describe methods used to analyse and assess political risk and how MNCs apply those methods as they attempt to manage the level of political risk in developed and developing countries, appreciate the broader efforts firms make to manage their relations with host governments, and discuss the various options for managing alliances and joint ventures, especially those in which host governments are involved.

10. Understand the importance of marketing and supply chain management in global business.

11. Understand the tools and techniques used to provide motivation and incentives for employees across cultures, including compensation, benefits, work teams, and other approaches.

12. Understand and describe the practices for recruiting, selecting, training, and deploying employees internationally, including the challenges of expatriate placement and repatriation.

UNESCO highlights a set of key competencies that support individuals in their development and support society in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UCD has adapted these competencies and is combining them with others to form a general framework of learning competencies. This module will help you develop the competencies below to the levels specified. 

The United Nations identified seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as core to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and UCD contributes in general to SDG 4 Quality Education. Further SDGs explored within this module if relevant are listed below. A scale of 1 - 5 indicates the extent to which the SDG is covered.


 

Student Effort Hours:

Approaches to Teaching and Learning:

Teaching and learning strategies for this module include a range of activities to accommodate and support different abilities, skills, and learning styles that allow every student from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to participate and to achieve success.

In this module, cultural diversity is the norm rather than the exception. Culture is characterised by shared patterns of behaviours and interactions, cognitive constructs and affective understandings, which are learned through a process of socialisation. Hence, my teaching and learning strategies are designed through students’ interaction and communication within and across cultural groups in the class.

Group work and collaborative learning in this module are to facilitate a deeper understanding of the issues discussed during the lecture and to develop intercultural attitudes and competence, through sharing of experiences and integration among students.
This module is structured around a series of lectures across 12 weeks, class debate and, where relevant, case studies and video materials. Class participation is an essential component of the design of this course. All students will be expected to engage in class discussion and debate in order to facilitate the formation of their critical judgements. Students are actively encouraged to engage critically with AI tools as part of their learning in this module. Appropriate uses may include brainstorming, summarising material and testing ideas. Any use of AI must be cited appropriately.


Class participation

Class participation is an essential component of the design of this course. All students will be expected to engage in in-class discussion and debate to facilitate the formation of their critical judgments. All students will be expected to read recommended case studies and chapters from the textbook before the commencement of class. All students will be expected to work in groups on different group assignments during the semester. All students will be expected to complete and submit their individual essays.

Major Group Project Specification

Your group will prepare a report, including recommendations, for an actual company’s overall entry strategy into a foreign market. Your strategy should include attention to the social, political, and economic factors of the country you propose entering, the entry and organisational strategies the company should advance, including potential alliances with local firms. This analysis should integrate the readings and cases for the module in the context of the actions of a specifically chosen firm. This analysis will be summarised in an approximately 25-30-page report, and you will present the findings in a short 25-30-minute presentation during the final weeks of class.

Individual Final Exam-Essay

Purpose: The evaluation will assess your knowledge of the course content. The questions will focus on the concepts and tools discussed in the class and covered in the associated texts. You will be expected to support all your answers with examples.
Process: An Individual written Two-Hour Exam will be completed in the exam hall at the end of the semester (date to be confirmed).

Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.

Module Requisites and Incompatibles

Not applicable to this module.
 

Assessment Strategy

 

Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 

Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Group/class feedback, post-assessment
• Peer review activities

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Group/class feedback will be provided by the end of the semester.

The essential textbooks for this module:

M. Peng, and K. Meyer. International Business, 4th Ed., Cengage, 2023. Print copies are available in the UCD library. Available as an e-book, and available in the campus bookshop.

Supplementary textbook:

1. F. Luthans, and J.P. Doh. International Business: Culture, Strategy, and Behavior, 10th Ed., McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2018. Print copies are available in the UCD library. Available as a 3-user e-book: http://librarym.ucd.ie/record=b2549235~S1, and it is available in the campus bookshop.
2. Charles Hill. International Business: Competing in the Global Marketplace, 13th Ed., McGraw Hill, 2021. Print copies are available in the UCD library.