INTBUS 7506 - International Business Strategy (M)
North Terrace Campus - Semester 1 - 2014
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General Course Information
Course Details
Course Code INTBUS 7506 Course International Business Strategy (M) Coordinating Unit Adelaide Business School Term Semester 1 Level Postgraduate Coursework Location/s North Terrace Campus Units 3 Contact Up to 3 hours per week Prerequisites INTBUS 7500 Assessment Exam/assignments/tests/tutorial work as prescribed at first lecture Course Staff
Course Coordinator: Dr Dirk Boehe
Dr. Dirk Boehe is senior lecturer at the 成人大片 Business School, in the International Business Discipline. His research interests focus on multinational corporations, export and interna¬tionalization strategies as well as CSR in international business. His scholarly articles have appeared in Business and Society, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of International Management, Journal of Small Business Management, Management International Review, Journal of World Business, World Development, among others. Before joining the 成人大片 in 2013, he held a full-time position at Insper Institute of Education and Research, a prestigious Financial Times ranked São Paulo based business school, and at the University of Fortaleza (Brazil), where he also held administrative positions as program director for undergraduate and master courses. Before joining academia, Dirk gained professional experience in related areas such as market research, foreign trade and international consulting projects in Colombia, England, Germany and Venezuela.
Staff profile:Course Timetable
The full timetable of all activities for this course can be accessed from .
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Learning Outcomes
Course Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this course, students will be able to …
(1) Apply their understanding of what determines the success of firms with regard to competitive, corporate and organizational strategies in the global business environment.
(2) Use their understanding of theories and conceptual frameworks that explain why and how firms internationalize.
(3) Develop well-reasoned arguments about current debates and dilemmas in international business, such as ethical dilemmas, CSR in international business, multinationals from and in emerging economies, among others.
(4) Critically evaluate and discuss academic research in international business.
(5) Apply the conceptual frameworks learned in this course in a real-life experiential learning project that comprises an analyses of international economic, institutional and market environments, an assessment of the internal resources and capabilities of the chosen firm, the formulation of a foreign market entry and an international marketing strategy, and an evaluation of staffing needs.
(6) Develop problem-solving skills by addressing relevant managerial problems in international business strategy.
(7) Apply intercultural communications skills.
(8) Collaborate in and lead international teams management and solve team-level dispute.University Graduate Attributes
This course will provide students with an opportunity to develop the Graduate Attribute(s) specified below:
University Graduate Attribute Course Learning Outcome(s) Knowledge and understanding of the content and techniques of a chosen discipline at advanced levels that are internationally recognised. 1, 2, 3 The ability to locate, analyse, evaluate and synthesise information from a wide variety of sources in a planned and timely manner. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 An ability to apply effective, creative and innovative solutions, both independently and cooperatively, to current and future problems. 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 Skills of a high order in interpersonal understanding, teamwork and communication. 6, 7, 8 A proficiency in the appropriate use of contemporary technologies. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 A commitment to continuous learning and the capacity to maintain intellectual curiosity throughout life. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 A commitment to the highest standards of professional endeavour and the ability to take a leadership role in the community. 7, 8 An awareness of ethical, social and cultural issues within a global context and their importance in the exercise of professional skills and responsibilities. 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 -
Learning Resources
Required Resources
Textbook with Case Studies
Peng, M. 2013. Global Strategy, South-Western/Cengage Learning: Mason, OH. (ISBN: 978-1-133-96461-2)
Several copies are available at the university library and at unibooks.com.au
If you do not want to buy the print edition ($134.95), you can buy the eBook for $85.95 and the price for each of the eChapters is $4.95. Please check out the website here: http://www.cengagebrain.com.au/shop/en/AU/storefront/australia?cmd=CLHeaderSearch&fieldValue=9781133964612Recommended Resources
Baker Ted, Gedajlovic Eric, Lubatkin Michael. A Framework for Comparing Entrepreneurship Processes across Nations. Journal of International Business Studies 2005; 36 (5): 492-504.
Contractor Farok J., Kumar Vikas, Kundu Sumit K. Nature of the relationship between international expansion and performance: The case of emerging market firms. Journal of World Business 2007; 42 (4): 401-417.
Duckworth Holly. How TRW Automotive helps global virtual teams perform at the top of their game. Global Business and Organizational Excellence 2008; 28 (1): 6-16.
Estrin Saul, Prevezer Martha. The role of informal institutions in corporate governance: Brazil, Russia, India, and China compared. Asia Pacific Journal of Management 2011; 28 (1): 41-67.
Ghemawat Pankaj. Distance still matters. The hard reality of global expansion. Harvard Business Review 2001; 79 (8): 137-147.
Gifford Blair, Kestler Andrew, Anand Sharmila. Building local legitimacy into corporate social responsibility: Gold mining firms in developing nations. Journal of World Business 2010; 45 (3): 304-311.
Husted Bryan W., Allen David B. Corporate Social Responsibility in the Multinational Enterprise: Strategic and Institutional Approaches. Journal of International Business Studies 2006; 37 (6): 838-849.
Li Ji, Lam Kevin, Qian Gongming. Does Culture Affect Behavior and Performance of Firms? The Case of Joint Ventures in China. Journal of International Business Studies 2001; 32 (1): 115-131.
Mathews John. Dragon multinationals: New players in 21st century globalization. Asia Pacific Journal of Management 2006; 23 (1): 5-27.
Peng Mike W., Jiang Yi. Institutions behind family ownership and control in large firms. Journal of Management Studies 2010; 47 (2): 253-273.
Porter Michael E. Towards a dynamic theory of strategy. Strategic Management Journal 1991; 12 (S2): 95-117.
Rugman AlanM. Internalization as a general theory of foreign direct investment: A re-appraisal of the literature. Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 1980; 116 (2): 365-379.
Wu Jie, Pangarkar Nitin. Rising to the Global Challenge: Strategies for Firms in Emerging Markets. Long Range Planning 2006; 39 (3): 295-313.
Xu Dean, Shenkar Oded. INSTITUTIONAL DISTANCE AND THE MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISE. Academy of Management Review 2002; 27 (4): 608-618.
Zakaria Norhayati, Amelinckx Andrea, Wilemon David. Working Together Apart? Building a Knowledge-Sharing Culture for Global Virtual Teams. Creativity and Innovation Management 2004; 13 (1): 15-29.
How can you obtain these articles? The easiest way is to copy and paste the reference into Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com.au/ If you access the article within the University network, you can easily download it by clicking on the respective links. Please note that these articles will not be made available through myuni because of potential copyright issues. -
Learning & Teaching Activities
Learning & Teaching Modes
This course is problem-based, i.e., each weekly session will be anchored in at least one international business strategy managerial problem. Therefore, each session often initiates with a case study that leads over to an interactive lecture during which we discuss key concepts and theories, often making reference to what happened in the case study. Based on this, we will deepen our understanding through the critical analysis of related research-based scholarly articles.
Preparation
To make this learning method work and to help you to get as much as possible out of this course, you are required to come prepared to the class, i.e. you are supposed to read the relevant text book chapter, case studies and scholarly articles as indicated in the column titled “Required Readings”. In addition, it is essential that you take note of all your doubts and questions you encounter during your preparation and ask these questions during the weekly session. In case you are unable to ask all of your questions, please ask them during the office hours.Workload
The information below is provided as a guide to assist students in engaging appropriately with the course requirements.
The University expects full-time students (i.e., those taking 12 units per semester) to devote a total of 48 hours per week to their studies. This means that you are expected to commit approximately 9 hours for a three-unit course of private study outside of your regular classes. Each student can expect to dedicate approximately 150 hours to undertaking this Course. Students in this course are expected to attend all weekly sessions throughout the semester.Learning Activities Summary
Available on MyUni. -
Assessment
The University's policy on Assessment for Coursework Programs is based on the following four principles:
- Assessment must encourage and reinforce learning.
- Assessment must enable robust and fair judgements about student performance.
- Assessment practices must be fair and equitable to students and give them the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned.
- Assessment must maintain academic standards.
Assessment Summary
ASSESSMENT
- Research Project - Please choose only one: 25 %
a)X-culture international student collaboration project
b) Applied research project
- Individual assignments: 10%
- Online tests: 15%
- Oral participation in class: 10%
- Final exam: 40%
Important: You can choose how much weight you want to put on each of the following items: 5.2 Individual assignments, 5.3 Online tests, as long as you attribute a minimum of 5% and a maximum of 15% to each item and as long as the two items together add up to 20%. For example, you may want to place a weight of 5% on item 5.2 and a weight of 15% on item 5.3 or vice-versa instead of the default options mentioned in the Assessment table. You will be asked by your instructor to submit your percentages.Assessment Detail
RESEACH PROJECT
a) International student collaboration project (x-culture)
X-Culture is an international student collaboration project with the goal to train inter-cultural management, communication and team collaboration capabilities. This is important because more and more work assignments in multinational corporations and business contacts of small firms involve employees and partners with different cultural backgrounds.
During the project, student in international teams task is to develop a “new product, market entry” business proposal either for a firm of their choice or for one of X-Culture’s partner firms. The business plan addresses a large part of the topics discussed during this International Business Strategy course. Thus, X-Culture provides a forum to apply and implement concepts covered by this course. In addition, X-Culture promotes experiential learning in international business, strategy and management through interacting with students from all over the world on real life business and managerial problems. On average, each class session reserves 10-30 minutes time to discuss progress, learning achievements and challenges, as well as student presentations of preliminary results. Additional coaching is provided during office hours (by appointment).
Please READ the documents available on the X-Culture website (http://www.x-culture.org/for_students.html ), in particular the Student Instructions and the Student Handbook. These handbooks include clear guidelines on the report outline, formatting and evaluation criteria. Any question that is not answered by these handbooks, must be sent directly to me: dirk.boehe@adelaide.edu.au
Be aware that the process of team collaboration is as important as the outcome. Before you start working, your team must agree on issues such as: How do you collaborate? Who is in charge of what activity (e.g., data collection, data analysis, writing, copy-editing, etc.)? How do you control quality? How do you avoid plagiarism by individual team members? How do you make sure that deadlines are met? How do you deal with free-riders?
ATTENTION: you need to conclude a pre-project training and the Pre-Project Readiness Test by 3 March, 2014 (late enrollers, please contact the instructor asap). For this purpose, you will receive an e-mail with instructions on how to access the training module. Without having passed the training module, you cannot participate in X-Culture. Students who fail the Pre-project Readiness Test must see the instructor to discuss an alternative piece of assessment. All deadlines are displayed below according to the Student Instructions.
INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENTS AND ORAL PARTICIPATION IN CLASS
Short individual tests
Over the duration of the course, there will be administered short individual tests. These tests, which cover the course content, are based on the required readings as indicated in the column “Required Readings” of the table in section 1.3. The aim of this assessment are to help you verify whether or not you have adequately prepared for your class, whether or not you are up-to-date with your readings and whether or not you have a correct understanding of the concepts covered by the course.
The date for this test is 22 March.
Exercises
A second form of assessment in this category encompasses individual exercises assigned for homework. These assignments are assessed on three levels: (i) assignment not submitted; (ii) unsatisfactory; (iii) satisfactory. A satisfactory solution of a problem-based exercise requires that the student links relevant concepts and theory to the managerial problem; develops an in-depth analysis and elaborates a valid line of arguments (see 6. Assessment Criteria for details). Feedback and related students’ questions are discussed in the following class after the deadline for the exercise.
The dates for these assessments are 10 May and 31 May.
Two of the three assessments will be taken into account for your final grade. Together, they will count 10% of your final grade.
Oral participation
Your participation in class is essential to the course as we will construct knowledge through student-centred in-class discussions. Basically, your participation will be assessed using three levels: (i) (almost) never participates; (ii) participates occasionally; (iii) makes significant contributions to the development of knowledge. Significant contributions are characterized by critical, analytical thinking and well-argued thoughts. Oral participation will count 10% of your final grade.
FINAL EXAM
The final examination consists of problem-based exercises. To get a ‘feel’ for it, several problem based exercises will be discussed in the classroom during the course .
Assessment marks prior to the final exam will be displayed on the course website. Students are encouraged to check their marks and notify the lecturer-in-charge of any discrepancies. Legible handwriting and the quality of English expression are considered to be integral parts of the assessment process. Marks may be deducted in the final examination because of poor hand-writing.Submission
No information currently available.
Course Grading
Grades for your performance in this course will be awarded in accordance with the following scheme:
M10 (Coursework Mark Scheme) Grade Mark Description FNS Fail No Submission F 1-49 Fail P 50-64 Pass C 65-74 Credit D 75-84 Distinction HD 85-100 High Distinction CN Continuing NFE No Formal Examination RP Result Pending Further details of the grades/results can be obtained from Examinations.
Grade Descriptors are available which provide a general guide to the standard of work that is expected at each grade level. More information at Assessment for Coursework Programs.
Final results for this course will be made available through .
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Student Feedback
The University places a high priority on approaches to learning and teaching that enhance the student experience. Feedback is sought from students in a variety of ways including on-going engagement with staff, the use of online discussion boards and the use of Student Experience of Learning and Teaching (SELT) surveys as well as GOS surveys and Program reviews.
SELTs are an important source of information to inform individual teaching practice, decisions about teaching duties, and course and program curriculum design. They enable the University to assess how effectively its learning environments and teaching practices facilitate student engagement and learning outcomes. Under the current SELT Policy (http://www.adelaide.edu.au/policies/101/) course SELTs are mandated and must be conducted at the conclusion of each term/semester/trimester for every course offering. Feedback on issues raised through course SELT surveys is made available to enrolled students through various resources (e.g. MyUni). In addition aggregated course SELT data is available.
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Student Support
- Academic Integrity for Students
- Academic Support with Maths
- Academic Support with writing and study skills
- Careers Services
- Library Services for Students
- LinkedIn Learning
- Student Life Counselling Support - Personal counselling for issues affecting study
- Students with a Disability - Alternative academic arrangements
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Policies & Guidelines
This section contains links to relevant assessment-related policies and guidelines - all university policies.
- Academic Credit Arrangements Policy
- Academic Integrity Policy
- Academic Progress by Coursework Students Policy
- Assessment for Coursework Programs Policy
- Copyright Compliance Policy
- Coursework Academic Programs Policy
- Intellectual Property Policy
- IT Acceptable Use and Security Policy
- Modified Arrangements for Coursework Assessment Policy
- Reasonable Adjustments to Learning, Teaching & Assessment for Students with a Disability Policy
- Student Experience of Learning and Teaching Policy
- Student Grievance Resolution Process
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Fraud Awareness
Students are reminded that in order to maintain the academic integrity of all programs and courses, the university has a zero-tolerance approach to students offering money or significant value goods or services to any staff member who is involved in their teaching or assessment. Students offering lecturers or tutors or professional staff anything more than a small token of appreciation is totally unacceptable, in any circumstances. Staff members are obliged to report all such incidents to their supervisor/manager, who will refer them for action under the university's student鈥檚 disciplinary procedures.
The 成人大片 is committed to regular reviews of the courses and programs it offers to students. The 成人大片 therefore reserves the right to discontinue or vary programs and courses without notice. Please read the important information contained in the disclaimer.