BMGT20050

Learning Outcomes:

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

1. Understand and assess the drivers and consequences of globalization; 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 specialized strategies required for emerging economies and for international new ventures, including the modes of entry and methods used to analyze and assess economic and political risk in developed and developing countries.

Indicative Module Content:

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

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

3. 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.

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

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

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

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

8. Describe methods used to analyze 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.

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

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

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

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, 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 socialization . Hence my teaching and learning strategies are designed through student’s 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.
All collaborative work in this module is done through group assignments of international groups of three to five students. To maximise students’ opportunities to get to know more students from the same class, two/three different sets of international groups are created. International research confirms that intercultural learning has often happened as a result of mixed cohorts of students studying together.
When students had to work in mixed groups, it encouraged them to think comprehensively – appreciating the perspectives and input of students from other cultures, with different language and cultural backgrounds. It encourages them to learn how to communicate and collaborate with people from different cultures particularly when they are challenged with complex tasks or questions.
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 expected to have their name cards in the class during the sessions.


Class participation

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 judgments. All students will be expected to read recommended case studies and chapters from the textbook prior to the commencement of class. All students will be expected to work in groups on different group assignments during the semester.

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 organizational 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 pages report, and you will present the findings in a short 25-30-minute presentation during the final weeks of class.

Group Presentations

Groups will make presentations in class on assigned Case Studies from the textbook. These presentations will be made by groups on a weekly basis and analyzed by groups in the class.

Individual Final Exam-Essay

The evaluation will assess your knowledge of the course content. The questions will focus on the concept and tools discussed in the class and covered in the associated texts. You will be expected to support your answers with examples. This is a 2500-word essay.

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.

Timetabling information is displayed only for guidance purposes, relates to the current Academic Year only and is subject to change.