Business & ICT

2012 curricula of the Degree Programme in International Business Management, Master of Business Administration

Advanced specialist studies

Theme 1: Business in Context

AY07112 Research School 1: Going Abroad. What about the Firm?, 3 credits

Objectives: To enable growth through internationalization, a firm starts with a thorough analysis of the current enterprise situation; the analysis includes personal, firm and network level. Therefore, RS1 will provide the knowledge and skills for informed management decision-making. In addition, Students will learn how to analyse the implications of international environments and firms resources and capabilities on the decision to internationalise and strategies for international business involvements

Contents:

• The International Business Environment
• Company’s internationalization readiness analysis
• Country analysis: The implications of the STEEPLE-FACTORS
• Internationalization decision making process

Learning strategy: Case analysis, case writing, case presentation, peer-reviews, discussions and reflective sessions.

Readings: As recommended by the lecturer.

AY07100 Internationalisation of Companies, 5 credits

Objectives: The students will come to understand the challenges of implementing growth strategies through internationalization. How to analyze and evaluate the impact of internal and external factors on decisions to and during a firm’s internationalization stage. To be able to design and defend motivated strategic choices for successful foreign market entries (i.e., export, collaborative strategies or foreign direct investments) and competitiveness.

Contents:

Processes and stages:

1. The internationalization process of small firms
2. Stages in the internationalization process

Strategy:

1. Determining international strategy
2. Market entry strategies

Managerial implications:

1. Internationalization and its managerial challenges
2. Strategic marketing implications of internationalization.

Learning and teaching methods: competence-based learning, lectures, exercises and active participation

Literature and other material: Reader of articles based on the objectives and content description. Uploaded in the course description

Suggested readings:

• Paliwoda, S. and Thomas M. 1998. International Marketing. Butterworth-Heinemann 3 rev. edition.
• Kotabe, M. and Helsen, Chr. 2001. Global Marketing Management. Wiley and Sons 2nd edition.
• Peng, M. 2006. Global Strategy. Thomson Learning.
• Backhaus, K. et al. 2005. International Marketing. Palgrave (Chapters 1-2-4-5-6).
• Ibeh, K. 2000. Internationalization and the Small Firm in: Carter, S. and Jones-Evans, D. (eds.):   Enterprise and Small Business. FT/Prentice- Hall 2000.
• Hisrich, R. et al. 2005. Entrepreneurship. McGraw-Hill 6th ed.                                          
• Buckley, P. & Ghaury, P. 1998. The Internationalization of the Firm. A Reader. Thomson Learning.

AY07101 Economics for Foreign Trade, 5 credits

Objective: To deepen the student’s knowledge and understanding of Economics for Foreign Trade. The course provides a deeper understanding of the subject and aims to develop the ability to recognize the global economic events that affect foreign trade. Global issues play a vital role in the firms’ interest concerning business, employment, international working conditions, and the movement of capital and other factors movements.

Content:

• Basics of Global Economics
• Trade Policy
• International Factor Movements
• Money, Banking and International Finance
• Environmental Economics

Learning and teaching methods:

• Preparing for the lectures (assignments + presentations + discussions)
• Active participation
• Peer Assessments

Literature: Information about reading materials will be given in the beginning of the course.

Assessment: The subject of the final assignment will be given during the first lecture for each student. This assignment will include the written and oral parts and a peer assessment. Written assignment 60 %, presentation 40 %.

AY07102 Change Management, 5 credits

Objective: This course aims at the provision of a deeper understanding of the drivers of change in the business environment. To develop competencies to anticipate change and build appropriate strategies accordingly require a company specific mindset and attitudes to create mental flexibility. These aspects encompass the first objective of this course. Secondly, enabling students to encompass individual, team-oriented and organizational necessity to change requires a thorough vision and attitude creation about the why, what and how of change orientation.

The third objective of this course is to understand learning organization. Why it is important in creation the better enterprise and especially more innovative and skilled staff. The mental growth to the intrapreneurship is the key part of this change in a person, team and staff as a whole. The process in the growth to the intrapreneurship starts from the individual level and goes trough teams to the organizational level.

Contents:

Processes and impacts:

• Drivers of environmental change.
• Impacts on entrepreneurial organizations
• The mental growth to the intrapreneurship
• The development of the learning organization

Mindsets:

• Understanding individual, team and organizational mindsets towards change

Learning and teaching methods: Competence-based learning, lectures, exercises and active participation.

Assignment: The starting point is the company or organization the student currently works for. Differences in organizational experiences  allow for learning from each other and challenge the students to share knowledge for an assigned task.

Literature and other material: Reader of articles based on the course objectives and content description. 

Suggested reading:

• Kirby, David A. 2003. Entrepreneurship McGraw-Hill Companies, Education, Maidenhead, UK.
• Clutterbuck, David 2004. Everyone Needs a Mentor, Fostering talent in your organization. 4th ed. Charted Institute of Personnel and Development. London.
• Cameron, E. & Green, M. 2006. Making Sense of Change Management: A Complete Guide to the Models, Tools & Techniques of Organizational Change, Kogan Page.
• Cummings, Thomas G. 2005. Organization Development and Change. Christopher G. Worley  South Western,  8th  edition.
• Daft, R. 2006. The New Era of Management. Thomson/South Western. Chap. 21
• Haddad, C. J. 2002 Managing Technological Change. Sage Publications.
• Hughes, M. 2006. Change Management, A critical Perspective, Chartered Institute of Personal Development.
• Katz, R. 2004. The Human Side of Managing Technological Innovation. A Collection of Readings. Oxford University Press. 2nd edition.
• King, N. & Anderson, N. 2002. Managing Innovation and Change. A critical guide for Organizations. Thomson.
• Mabey, Chr. 1993. Managing Change. Open University and Sage Publications. 2nd edition.
• Mayle, D. 2006. Managing Innovation and Change. Open University and Sage Publications. 3rd edition.
• Gomez-Meija, L. & Balkin, D. 2002. Management. McGraw-Hill.
• Tushman, M. 2004. Managing Strategic Innovation and Change. A collection of Readings. Oxford University Press. 2nd ed.

 

Theme 2: Management of Resources

AY07113 Research School 2: Focusing the Resources of the Firm, 3 credits

Objective: Research School II provides theoretical and practical insights into the strategic management of firm’s resources. Also it familiarizes students with research methods in business management and in the context of resource management in international business context. In addition, RSII will strengthen student’s understandings of key concepts and their implications.

Content:

• accounting and financial management in international business
• knowledge management and innovation
• value chain management

Learning strategy:  Case analysis, case writing, case presentation, peer-reviews, discussions and reflective sessions.

Readings:  As recommended by the lecturers

AY07103 Accounting and Financial Resource Management, 5 credits

Objective: Accounting provides capabilities to produce, analyze, interpret and communicate financial information to different stakeholders, especially to management and investors in an international context. The studies will also provide capabilities in developing performance measurement systems. The role of financial management is the securing of the necessary finance (i.e. both long term capital and short-term ’working´ capital), and ensuring that capital is available when needed, and balancing the desire to minimize the ´cost of capital´ while at the same time minimizing the risk of insolvency or loss of credit status. The aim is to study some of the most common techniques that are used in managing domestic and global cash flows. 

Contents:

1. Accounting

• The national and international financial accounting regulations and standards
• Analysis and interpretation of financial reports
• New tendencies in business taxation and corporate legislation
• Implications of internationalization on management control. 

2. Financial Management

Sources of finance, financial planning, determinants of valuation, capital structure, working capital management, international financial management.

Assignments: 2 + 2 assignments.

Literature:

• Alexander, D. & Nobes, C. 2007. Financial Accounting. An International Introduction. Prentice Hall, 3rd edition.
• Nobes, C. & Parker, R. 2006. Comparative International Accounting. Prentice Hall, 9th edition.
• Pellinen, J & Järvenpää, M. & Virtanen, A. 2007. Kansainvälisen yrityksen talous. Ekonomia, WSOY Pro.
• Atrill, P. & McLaney 2006. Accounting and Finance for non-specialists. Prentice Hall. 5th edition.
• Rugman, A. & Collinson 2006. International Business. Prentice Hall. 4th edition (Chapter 14).
• Lasher 2008. Financial Management: a Practical Approach. 5th edition.

AY07104 Knowledge and Innovation Management, 5 credits

 

AY07105 Value Network Management, 5 credits

Objective: This course will enable you to:

• understand the position of companies as centers of value creation systems
• identify different approaches to the value creation systems
• analyze the behaviors of stakeholders in these systems
• evaluate to relationships of internal and external environments on value creation
• building necessary competencies to manage value creation in different systems and different environments.

Contents:

1. Value Creation

• Defining and outlining Value Creation
• Processes and stage of Value Creation

2. Strategy

• Relationship between Value Creation and Strategy
• Roles of Stakeholders

3. Managerial Implications

• Challenges for Managers in Changing Environments 
• Competencies for Managers in Turbulent Environments

Learning and teaching methods: Competence-based learning, lectures, exercises and active participation

Assessment:

• Active participation in the development of the critical perspective is mandatory for a good assessment. Constructive participation is highly appreciated.
• A critical (peer) evaluation of an assigned team’s work belongs to the grading of the course (See assignments). The assessment has to be completed after specific date

Finally, the written reports will be appraised and assessed by the course lecturer.

Literature: Students are requested to take notice of, familiarize themselves with and study the recommended literature for this topic. All titles are available in our Library except for Michael Porter’s book.

• Allee, Verna. The Future of Knowledge: Increasing Prosperity through Value Networks. Butterworth-Heinemann 2001
• Barnes, Stuart and Hunt, Brian. E-commerce and V-business. Business Models for Global Success. Butterworth-Heinemann 2nd edition 2003
• Doz, Yves, Santos, Jose and Williamson, Peter .From Global to Metanational. Harvard. Business School Press 2001
• Dubois, Pierre et all. Marketing Management, A Value Creation Approach, Palgrave 2006
• Evans, Philip and Wurster, Thomas. S. : Blown to Bits. Press 1999
• Normann , Richard and Rafael Ramirez: Designing Interactive Strategy: From Chain to Value Constellation, Wiley and Sons, 1999
• Parolini, Cinzia The Value Net; A Tool for CompetitiveStrategy. Wiley 1999
• Porter, Michael: Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance.Free Press, 1998

Articles: Articles are downloadable from our digital library databases (Sc.D = Elseviers Science Direct; PQ = Proquest)

• Understanding knowledge management (SC.D)
  Long Range Planning, Volume 30, Issue 3, June 1997, Pages 374-384
  Marc Demarest
• Supply Management: Value Creation, Coordination and Positioning in Supply Relationships (Sc.D)
  Long Range Planning , Volume 39, Issue 2, April 2006, Pages 133-153
  Lars Huemer
• From Value Chain to Value Network:: Insights for Mobile Operators (Sc.D)
  European Management Journal, Volume 24, Issues 2-3, April-June 2006, Pages 128-141
  Joe Peppard and Anna Rylander
• The Future of Competition: Value-Creating Networks (Sc.D)
  Industrial Marketing Management, Volume 30, Issue 4, May 2001, Pages 379-389
  Prabakar Kothandaraman and David T. Wilson
• Configuring value for competitive advantage: On chains, shops, and networks (PQ)
  Strategic Management Journal 19 (1998) (5), pp. 413-437
  Stabell & Fjeldstad (1998) C.B. Stabell and O.D. Fjeldstad
• Value creation and new intermediaries on Internet. An exploratory analysis of the online news industry and the web content aggregators (Sc.D)
  International Journal of Information Management , Volume 27, Issue 3, June 2007, Pages 187-199
  Ana Rosa del Águila-Obra, Antonio Padilla-Meléndez and Christian Serarols-Tarrés
• Organization theory and supply chain management: An evolving research perspective (Sc.D)
  Journal of Operations Management, Volume 25, Issue 2, March 2007, Pages 459-463
  Raymond E. Miles and Charles C. Snow
• Building competences for new customer value creation: An exploratory study (Sc.D)
  Industrial Marketing Management, Volume 35, Issue 8, November 2006, Pages 961-973
  Liselore Berghman, Paul Matthyssens and Koen Vandenbempt
• Role of competences in creating customer value: A value-creation logic approach (Sc.D)
  Industrial Marketing Management, Volume 35, Issue 8, November 2006, Pages 913-924
  Kristian Möller.

Theme 3: International Business Environment

AY07114 Research School 3: What about Foreign Markets? 3 credits

Objectives:

The aim of RSIII is to develop student’s knowledge on how to analyze and assess new foreign markets and the implications of the aspects of the international environments on company’s internationalization efforts. They will also learn why foreign market scanning and analysis is the starting point for every International business operation. In addition, the course will cover the identification of market opportunities but also, key issues that defines not only a firm’s readiness but also, its choice of strategy and competitiveness in the target market.

Content:

• Scanning foreign markets
• Industry and market analysis
• Identification and analysis of market opportunity
• Market intelligence system (MIS)
• The application of various assessment tools

Learning strategy: Case analysis, case writing, case presentation, peer-reviews, discussions and reflective sessions.

Readings:  As recommended by the lecturers

AY07106 International Marketing Management, 5 credits

Objective: To enable the students to identify customer markets in foreign countries and to appreciate the consequences of different strategies to meet and exceed the customer needs, wants and wishes. Students will learn to research the challenge of aligning the requirements arising from being in domestic and foreign markets, how to estimate and evaluate the impact the outcomes of the research will have on the operations of the firm, to be able to identify the challenges of coordination deriving from supplying different markets. Students will learn to evaluate coordination challenges related to the way (-s) the firm pursue (-s) to be in international markets, to be able to draft and execute a holistic approach coordinating different foreign market entry choices.

Contents:

• Strategic Market Segmentation Approaches 
• Positioning Strategies for foreign Markets
• The "Glocalization Debate": Standardization versus Adaptation
• Coordination of domestic and foreign requirements
• Marketing Mix Decisions as Strategic Portfolio Management
• Coordination strategies in international operations
• Holistic international marketing plan

Learning and teaching methods:  Competence-based learning, lectures and exercises

Literature and other material:

• Backhaus, K. et all. 2005. International Marketing, Palgrave. Chapters 8-9-10
• Albaum, G. et all. 2002. International Marketing and Export Management. FT/Prentice Hall 4th edition. Chapters 9-10-12
• Mühlbacher, H. et all. 2006. International Marketing, a global perspective. Thomson 3rd edition. Chapters 11-12-15-16-17
• de Burca, S. et all. 2004. International Marketing, an SME perspective. FT/Prentice Hall. Chapters 8-10-11-12
• Usunier, J-C. 1996. Marketing Across Cultures. Prentice Hall. Chapters 4-6-8-12-13-14

AY07107 Intercultural Interaction, 5 credits

Objective: The objective of the course is to improve the talents’ skills in communicating in English verbally and in print, in order for the professionals to accomplish tasks in hand within the competitive global economy.

Contents: The course focuses on involving the talents in exploring and tackling situations resulting from inter- and intra-organizational interactions in intercultural working environments. Efficient and effective communication strategies and techniques are pursued for messaging, reporting, concluding negotiations and meetings, and delivering dynamic presentations.  

Literature: Study materials are provided on Moodle; additional material will be found on the Internet and in other electronic databases as well as printed sources

Assessment:

• mandatory and active LearnLinc participation (40% of the final grade)
• satisfactory completion of Moodle assignments by the due dates (30% of the final grade)
• final portfolio, students prepare and conduct a discussion using the LL tools including documentation and self assessment (30% of the final grade)

Other: This course is indispensable for international business professionals who need to communicate in a persuasive and compelling way.

AY07108 International Legal Business Environments, 5 credits

Objective:

Theme 4:  Strategy: Building the Master Mind

AY07115 Research School 4: Navigating for Success, 3 credits

Objective: The aim of the RSIV is to develop student’s understandings on the strategic management process of international business operations. This includes how to undertake strategic planning and foresighting, scenario development, design, implementation and performance evaluation of the international business process. In addition, students will be exposed to firm’s competitiveness and forms of business co-operations across national boundaries.

Content:

• strategic management
• scenario planning and design
• strategies of international business operations
• performance evaluation
• competitiveness
• cross-border alliances.

Learning strategy: Case analysis, case writing, case presentation, peer-reviews, discussions and reflective sessions.

Readings: as recommended by the lecturers

AY07109 Strategic Network Management, 5 credits

Objective and contents: The students learn the main processes of strategic management:

• Strategic thinking
• Strategy formulation: Performing a situation analysis, self-evaluation and competitor analysis, both internal and external. The objective setting involves crafting vision statements, mission statements, overall corporate objectives (both financial and strategic), strategic business unit objectives and tactical objectives. The strategic plan provides the details of how to achieve these objectives.
• Strategy implementation: Involves acquiring the requisite resources, developing the process, training, process testing, documentation, and integration with legacy processes.
• Strategy evaluation: measuring the effectiveness of the organizational strategy: a SWOT analysis to figure out the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (both internal and external).

Learning methods: Studying the stages of strategic management using the literature and research articles, and applying the knowledge in teams with a real-life case study.

Literature:

• Kaplan & Norton 2006. Alignment Using the Balance Scorecard to Create Corporate Synergies
• Kenny G. 2005. Strategic Planning and Performance Management.
• Mintzberg H. 1996. Strategy Process concepts, contexts and cases.
• Mintzberg H. 2005.  Strategy Safari a Guided Tour through the Wilderness of Strategic Management.
• Petticrew A. & Thomas H. & Whittington R. 2002. Handbook of Strategy and Management
• de Wit B. & Meyer R. 2004. Strategy. Process, Content, Context. An International Perspective, 3rd ed.
• Articles in scientific journals.

Assessment: A strategic plan team-work. active participation and presentation.

AY07110 Business Intelligence, 5 credits

Description: Business Intelligence (BI) is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, providing access to, and analyzing data for the purpose of helping enterprise users make better business decisions. A specialized field of BI known as Competitive Intelligence (CI) focuses solely on the external competitive environment. BI enables organizations to make well informed business decisions and thus can be the source of competitive advantages. BI provides many benefits to companies utilizing it. It can eliminate a lot of the guesswork within an organization, enhance communication among departments while coordinating activities, and enable companies to respond quickly to changes in financial conditions, customer preferences, and supply chain operations. BI improves the overall performance of the company using it. Information is often regarded as the second most important resource a company has (a company’s most valuable assets are its people). So when a company can make decisions based on timely and accurate information, the company can improve its performance.

Objective: The main objectives of the course are:

1. to provide students theoretical and practical knowledge and skills in the field of BI
2. to enhance students’ awareness of the business opportunities emerging in the field of their study interests
3. to provide students practical experience looking for the specific business information on the Internet, analyzing and classifying it, and making intelligent forecasting of business and technological trends.

Learning outcomes:

1. To contribute to students’ personal knowledge about recent trends in the area of their business interests.
2. To train students to think and act more proactively in creating perspectives and visions for the future technologies and new business opportunities.
3. The students will learn to produce analyses and forecasts for period 3-5 years.

Contents: The course includes a number of lectures covering the following topics:

• BI and strategic management of an enterprise;
• Analysing information needs of an enterprise and planning BI activities;
• Online BI: strategies for searching and analysing information on the Internet;
• Classifying and analysing intelligence gathered;
• Forecasting business/technological trends based on gathered intelligence;
• Writing and presenting a BI report;
• Incorporating BI activities in everyday life of an enterprise.

The course project includes collecting the information of interest (from the Internet), classifying and analyzing it, and making forecasting of business and technological trends in this area.

Learning methods: Instruction methods include several lectures and the course project, where the students select the subject area they would like to do BI research in. The project is carried out as a supervised work by students supported by a series of seminars, where students have a possibility to present preliminary results and to get peer feedback.

Assessment: Assessment is based on active participation in lessons (30%) and project work (70%).

Literature: A lot of information about Business and Competitive Intelligence could be found on the Internet. E.g., Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals. Some relevant books are:

• Vibert, C. (Ed.) 2004. Introduction to Online Competitive Intelligence Research, Thomson Texere.
• Vibert, C. 2004. Competitive Intelligence: A Framework for Web-Based Analysis and Decision Making, Thomson South-Western.
• Burwell, H. 2004. Online Competitive Intelligence, 2nd Edition, Facts on Demand Press.

 

AY07111 Management Control Systems, 5 credits

Objective: The objective of this course is to offer students hands-on experience in formulating business goals and designing control mechanisms that ensure their effective implementation. This course will give talents the tools to design control mechanisms, such as incentive and information systems, and will illustrate the use of these systems to enhance operational efficiency and monitor strategy implementation. 

The aim is to deepen and widen the planning and control competences to enable the application of the knowledge in the individual development works; to discuss major problems managers face when using performance measurements and indicators and some of the major approaches they use in solving these problems; to understand the importance of contextual and ethical factors in the design of management information systems.

Learning outcomes: The course tools are applicable to managers and entrepreneurs who plan to run or manage organizations and will be in a position to motivate and monitor the performance of partners both within and external to the organization.

The viewpoints are:

• A value chain perspective (Activity-based management)
• A strategic perspective (Strategic management accounting)
• An organizational structure perspective
• An operations management perspective
• A human resource management perspective.

Contents: The course begins with a series of cases which give the student hands-on experience with cost driver analysis, activity based costing, and activity based management. This part of the course will focus on how to use cost data to improve processes and measure and manage the profitability of products, services, and customers.

The second part of the course will cover broader performance management systems which combine traditional financial accounting information with non-financial measures related to the firms’ customers and internal operations. This part of the course will focus on the design of balanced scorecards and strategy maps as well as on developing techniques to leverage financial and non-financial performance data from these systems for strategic feedback and learning.

The final part of this course will explore the organizational challenges to using formal performance management systems to drive strategy implementation at an operational level. We will explore and develop prescriptions for challenges related to: (1) linking measures from these systems to formal incentive compensation plans; (2) selecting performance measures aligned with strategic objectives; and (3) using appropriate techniques to communicate performance data from these systems throughout the organization.

Literature:

• Merchant, K.A & Van der Stede 2003. Management Control Systems. Performance Measurement, Evaluation and Incentives. Prentice Hall.
• Kaplan R. & Norton C. 2003. Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes.