34539 - International Management

Learning outcomes

The course provides concepts and tools for the strategic analysis of business decisions in service organizations. In particular the course focuses on corporate strategy in general and international strategies of services firms - globalisation of markets and the attractiveness of foreign markets, and different entry modes in international markets. It also examines the geographical distribution of activities in multinational service firms.

Course contents

Module 1 –International management

 

Module 1 will cover the following topics:

Globalization, export, FDIs in service and manufacturing activities

Country differences, selection and born global firms

Ethics in international business

International trade theory

Strategy of international business

Organization of international business

International market entry and expansion

Export management

Global production, outsourcing and backshoring

Global marketing and R&D

Global HRM

Readings/Bibliography

Hill C.W.L. (2009). International business, McGraw Hill. Chapters 1-3, 5, 13-15, 17-19.

 

Readings

Cuervo-Cazurra A. (2011). Selecting the country in which to start internationalization: the non-sequential internationalization model, Journal of World Business. 46, 426-437. (Section 3-5 are optional*)

Guillén, M. F., & García-Canal, E. 2009. The American Model of the Multinational Firm and the “New” Multinationals From Emerging Economies. Academy of Management Perspectives, 23(2): 23-35.*

Khanna, T., & Palepu, K. 1997. Why Focused Strategies May Be Wrong for Emerging Markets. Harvard Business Review, 75(4): 41-51.*

Szulanski, Gabriel and Sidney Winter, “Getting it right for the Second Time”. Harvard Business Review, January 2002. *

Fratocchi L. et al. (2014), When manufacturing moves back: concepts and questions. Journal of Purchasing and Supply management, 20, 54-59.*

A syllabus with case studies, additional readings and assignment questions will be available at the beginning of the course.

Teaching methods

• Lectures, assignment questions to readings and cases, polls.
• Guest lectures (organized as seminars) on behalf of practitioners.
• Case studies developed with the active participation of the students and presentation and discussion of case studies by the students.
• Participation in teams to project works in collaboration with business companies.

Assessment methods

Assessment is by class participation, case submission and a final written exam:

Class participation: 20% of final grade. It is assessed the pro-active attendance to lectures and the participation to the discussion of assigned questions to cases and readings.

Case study presentation: 30% of final grade. A case study will be assigned to teams of 3-4 students. It will require the preparation of a short report (3-5 page maximum), the use of data supporting the case discussion and answers to assigned questions.

Final written Exam: 50% of final grade. The exam will include structured open questions on critical discussion of theories, concept, tools and applications to real or hypothetical international business questions and decisions.

The preparation to the exam requires deep knowledge of the theories, analytical concepts and applications included in the teaching materials and slides.

There are no differences for Erasmus students.

For the exam in presence: written exam with multiple choices.

For online exams (if indicated by the University regulations): oral exam on MS Teams.

It is possible to refuse the grade of the exam more than once.

Te grade will be assigned according to the following scale:

• <18 insufficient
• 18-23 sufficient
• 24-27 good
• 28-30 very good
• 30 with laude excellent

Teaching tools

We will use the following tools:

• Case studies
  
• Lecture slides
• Video
• Mentimeter
• electronic spreadsheets (xls)
• Openboard
• Materials on Virtuale platform
  

In case of online lectures:

• Microsoft Teams

Office hours

See the website of Paola Giuri