International Management

COURSE OVERVIEW

The International Management course focuses on the opportunities and challenges created by globalisation. It examines a series of cross-cultural and management issues related to management in an international marketplace. The aim of this course is to enable students to analyse and understand the opportunities and challenges that companies face when expanding their activities internationally and when dealing with international competitors in their home markets. Special attention is placed upon the different tools and analytic competences available to the different specialised managerial roles when competing internationally.

The course comprises three segments. The first builds a better understanding of the challenges in the international environment. It focuses on the analysis of country differences in political economy and political risks as well as cultural and social heterogeneities. In this segment, the course covers the major facets of the international management environment (legal, political, economic and cultural). The central debates surrounding the cultural construct, formal and informal institutions, economic development and regional integrations are presented in class, along with the major frameworks that have been used to describe these phenomena.

Students are exposed to a range of ideas about cultural values in different nations, and learn how those values influence management and organisational practices.

The readings build upon students’ existing knowledge of the functioning of American, Western European and Asian business organisations, and help them develop an understanding of how organisations function in a wide variety of cultures.

The second segment of the course builds on the first section and analyses global organisational forms and international strategies. It focuses on the strategic challenge confronting firms that compete in the global economy. It aims to develop understanding of how to gain a competitive advantage and compete successfully in the international marketplace. In other words, it explores the most fundamental question in international mstrategic management: What determines whether companies succeed or fail internationally?

Finally, the third segment deals with international management operations and covers an array of organisational issues such as human resource staffing and motivating a multicultural workforce, global marketing, design of global products and services, global R&D and financing and accountability.

This is a core course in the ESCI-UPF International Business Programme, which is designed primarily for applicants who have a major or a minor in business. Generally, students pursuing any degree in Business Administration or Economics should not need any prerequisite. Applicants pursuing degrees in other areas should make sure they have taken Business Organisation or an equivalent course.