300 IBUS Spring 2009 (TENTATIVE)
THE INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENT OF BUSINESS Instructor: Alan Muller Class days: MW, 12:302:20 (Section A) and 2:304:20 (Section B) Location: EXEC 110 Contact: 2:30 section: HsiaoChing Chou at [e-mail] 4:30 section: ChunWei Chang at [e-mail] Office: 268 Mackenzie (or contact your TA) Office hours: TBD
COURSE OBJECTIVES o To develop students' understanding of the strategic issues and dilemmas that managers and organizations face when conducting business in an international setting o To give students exposure to realworld examples of situations in which these issues manifest themselves, and how organizations (can/should) deal with them when they do o To provide students with conceptual frameworks and practical tools to help them structure these issues and problems in their own professional lives o To give students experience with working in teams, while doing 'realworld' case research
TOPICS COVERED o National business systems: How countries and regions differ in the organization of their economic systems, politically, culturally and socioeconomically, and what this means for business o International trade and investment: The logic of "free" trade and investment, and the reality of "strategic" trade and investment policy o Regional and multilateral integration: how institutions like the WTO, IMF, NAFTA and the European Union affect and reflect issues in international business o The global financial system: How exchange rates affect business and strategies for dealing with exchangerate uncertainty o Operating internationally: modes of servicing foreign markets, modes of entering foreign markets, and the challenge of organizing and coordinating "farflung" operations
o International social, environmental and governance issues: ethics and stakeholder management in the multicountry setting
READING o Textbook: Mike Peng, Global Business, 1st Edition, Cengage Publishing ISBN: 978324 360738 (available new or used at the UW bookstore, via Amazon.com or electronically via www.iChapters.com) o Documents, assignments, slides o Online resources, supplemental readings
GRADING Your performance will be measured on the basis of 5 outputs: two quizzes, a midterm exam, a final exam, and a case project. The two quizzes are multiple choice. The midterm is short answer essay, and the final exam is a combination of the short answer essay and multiple choice. The midterm and final are noncumulative. The case analysis is a group output. Please note that class grades must maintain a range in accordance with the Business School's grading policies, such that the mean/median will hover around a 3.2 with a standard deviation of around 0.5. Element Quiz #1 Quiz #2 Case project synopsis Midterm Case Project Final TOTAL Week 2 4 5 6 10 11 Points 20 20 10 40 40 40 170 points % of Grade 10% 10% 5% 25% 25% 25% 100%
Exams: The midterm will cover the topics addressed in sessions 1 through 8 and the final will cover topics addressed in sessions 9 through 17. There is a logic to this: the first half of the book, and the class, deals primarily with the global business environment, while the second half deals primarily with firm strategies. Exams will consist of a small number of essayanswer questions and answers should be about one to two pages each. No previous exams are currently available
but I can give you plenty of examples. The questions will be designed to test your ability to utilize the concepts etc. from class analytically and will draw on the book as well as the additional topics discussed in class. Group Case Project: Students will work in selfselected groups of four students on a group case project. This project requires identification and investigation of a realworld company facing realworld international business challenges. For instance, your uncle may work for a company here in Seattle engaged in import or export. Or, through your internship at a local company you may have access to executives that can share with you insights from their own experience you which can relate to the topics discussed in class. The group case analysis challenges to you to inspire us with insights and lessons from realworld business problems. Group projects are always a challenge. We will have deadlines along the way to help you manage that process. Since you all have busy schedules, we will use class time on a number of set occasions to allow for meetings with your group members. This allows you to manage your time and allows me to offer advice and participate in your group discussions. Additionally, group, members are asked to review (anonymously) all group members' performance (including their own) to either reward exceptional contributions by individual members or sanction group members for underperformance. These peer review moments will occur on a number of occasions and will be required.
OPERATIONAL MATTERS Attendance: Our class location (EXEC 110) is designed to accommodate 120 students, so there is plenty of room for all. While we cannot grade on attendance, know that students who come to class perform better, period. Hopefully you will also see along the way that International Business is rife with exciting reallife examples of the kinds of strategic issues and dilemmas that any one of you might face in a future managerial capacity. Lectures and slides: Slides will be available prior to lecture on the Catalyst course page. You are not required to download them, but they are intended to help you when you study for the exams. You are STRONGLY encouraged to take notes during lecture. First, because slides are not intended to be a comprehensive digest of the material. We can only deal with a portion of the text in class, and sometimes I will bring in other things that are relevant but not covered in the text including, but not limited to, issues raised during discussions of group case assignment presentations. Second, experience shows that even though slides (can) make lots of sense during class, students often have much more difficulty recalling what they heard oh so many sessions ago when it comes time to study. Notetaking is vital to active information retention. Discussion boards: One of the features of the course website is a discussion board for each section. The discussion board is intended as a place where you can post questions to the rest of the class, or respond to posts of others, on matters of content. The discussion board has multiple functions: it serv...